John Skinner, bookseller.

John Skinner was an Albany bookseller active around the turn of those other centuries (this is from the 1894 guide to Albany’s public schools). Beyond that, all we know is the fact that he wrote up a catalogue of the library of Mr. and Mrs. John V.L Pruyn, that he dealt in books published by Joel Munsell, and that he was, according to Whish’s “Albany Tourist’s Handy Guide,” a fairly serious stamp collector. And that he bought used school-books. He was still selling books in 1927, from 15 Steuben St., and at that time he lived at 453 Western Ave., a house that likely still exists right near the College of St. Rose.

Another interestingly sparse and stylized advertisement for its time.