The following is a list of these booklets so far as we have been able to discover actual copies:—
| Date. | Place. | Publisher. | Title (Short). | Author. |
| Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Probierbüchlein | Anon. |
| (Undated; but catalogue of British Museum suggests Augsburg, 1510.) | ||||
| 1524 | Magdeburg | Probirbüchleyn tzu Gotteslob | Anon. | |
| 1531 | Augsburg | Unknown | Probierbuch aller Sachsischer Ertze | Anon. |
| 1533 | Frankfurt a. Meyn | Bergwerck und Probierbüchlein | Anon. | |
| 1534 | Augsburg | Heinrich Steyner, 8vo. | Probirbüchlein | Anon. |
| 1546 | Augsburg | Ditto, ditto | Probirbüchlein | Anon. |
| 1549 | Augsburg | Ditto, ditto | Probirbüchlein | Anon. |
| 1564 | Augsburg | Math. Francke, 4to | Probirbüchlein | Zach. Lochner |
| 1573 | Augsburg | 8vo. | Probirbuch | Sam. Zimmermann |
| 1574 | Franckfurt a. Meyn | Probierbüchlein | Anon. | |
| 1578 | Ditto | Probierbüchlein Fremde und subtile Kunst | Cyriacus Schreittmann | |
| 1580 | Ditto | Probierbüchlein | Anon. | |
| 1595 | Ditto | Probierbüchlein darinn gründlicher Bericht | Modestin Fachs | |
| 1607 | Dresden | 4to | Metallische Probier Kunst Bericht vom Ursprung und Erkenntniss der Metallischen erze | C. C. Schindler |
| 1669 | Amsterdam | Probierbüchlein darinn gründlicher Bericht | Modestin Fachs | |
| 1678 | Leipzig | Probierbüchlein darinn gründlicher Bericht | Modestin Fachs | |
| 1689 | Leipzig | Probierbüchlein darinn gründlicher Bericht | Modestin Fachs | |
| 1695 | Nürnberg | 12mo. | Deutliche Vorstellung der Probier Kunst | Anon. |
| 1744 | Lübeck | 8vo. | Neu-eröffnete Probier Buch | Anon. |
| 1755 | Frankfurt and Leipzig | 8vo. | Scheid-Künstler ... alle Ertz und Metalle ... probiren | Anon. |
| 1782 | Rotenburg an der Fulde | 8vo. | Probierbuch aus Erfahrung aufgesetzt | K. A. Scheidt |
As mentioned under the Nützlich Bergbüchlein, our copy of that work, printed in 1533, contains only a portion of the Probierbüchlein. Ferguson[13] mentions an edition of 1608, and the Freiberg School of Mines Catalogue gives also Frankfort, 1608, and Nürnberg, 1706. The British Museum copy of earliest date, like the title page reproduced, contains no date. The title page woodcut, however, in the Museum copy is referred from that above, possibly indicating an earlier date of the Museum copy.
The booklets enumerated above vary a great deal in contents, the successive prints representing a sort of growth by accretion. The first portion of our earliest edition is devoted to weights, in which the system of "lesser weights" (the principle of the "assay ton") is explained. Following this are exhaustive lists of touch-needles of various composition. Directions are given with regard to assay furnaces, cupels, muffles, scorifiers, and crucibles, granulated and leaf metals, for washing, roasting, and the preparation of assay charges. Various reagents, including glass-gall, litharge, salt, iron filings, lead, "alkali", talc, argol, saltpetre, sal-ammoniac, alum, vitriol, lime, sulphur, antimony, aqua fortis, or scheidwasser, etc., are made use of. Various assays are described and directions given for crucible, scorification, and cupellation tests. The latter part of the book is devoted to the refining and parting of precious metals. Instructions are given for the separation of silver from iron, from lead, and from antimony; of gold from silver with antimony (sulphide) and sulphur, or with sulphur alone, with "scheidwasser," and by cementation with salt; of gold from copper with sulphur and with lead. The amalgamation of gold and silver is mentioned.
The book is diffuse and confused, and without arrangement or system, yet a little consideration enables one of experience to understand most statements. There are over 120 recipes, with, as said before, much repetition; for instance, the parting of gold and silver by use of sulphur is given eight times in different places. The final line of the book is: "Take this in good part, dear reader, after it, please God, there will be a better." In truth, however, there are books on assaying four centuries younger that are worse. This is, without doubt, the first written word on assaying, and it displays that art already full grown, so far as concerns gold and silver, and to some extent copper and lead; for if we eliminate the words dependent on the atomic theory from modern works on dry assaying, there has been but very minor progress. The art could not, however, have reached this advanced stage but by slow accretion, and no doubt this collection of recipes had been handed from father to son long before the 16th century. It is of wider interest that these booklets represent the first milestone on the road to quantitative analysis, and in this light they have been largely ignored by the historians of chemistry. Internal evidence in [Book VII.] of De Re Metallica, together with the reference in the [Preface], leave little doubt that Agricola was familiar with these booklets. His work, however, is arranged more systematically, each operation stated more clearly, with more detail and fresh items; and further, he gives methods of determining copper and lead which are but minutely touched upon in the Probierbüchlein, while the directions as to tin, bismuth, quicksilver, and iron are entirely new.
Biringuccio (Vanuccio). We practically know nothing about this author. From the preface to the first edition of his work it appears he was styled a mathematician, but in the text[14] he certainly states that he was most of his time engaged in metallurgical operations, and that in pursuit of such knowledge he had visited Germany. The work was in Italian, published at Venice in 1540, the title page of the first edition as below:—
