This very unusual book is a listing of beetles, butterflies and moths for sale from the collection of Georg Dahl in Vienna. He writes of a 30-year career in collecting and distributing entomological specimens, describing repeated requests by other collectors that his collection be put into systematic order for easier viewing and selecting; yet a lack of time and the fact that so many specimens remained uncatalogued had until recently made that task impossible.

The resulting work lists 5,492 available Coleoptera, with their prices to the right given in florins and kroners, as well as their country of origin. Only the available specimens were given a handwritten number. The Lepidoptera section is much smaller, with no numbers or prices.