In the fall of 1785, Count Zambeccari, an Italian nobleman living in London, advertised in the Morning Post the imminent launch of his balloon, currently exhibited at the Lyceum, by noting the availability of ‘tickets to partake of the peculiar pleasure inseparable from aeriel [sic] evolutions.’ In addition, Zambeccari pointed out that the best accommodations would be ‘undercover, provided with fires, and perfectly comfortable’. Ticket prices ranged from five shillings to half a guinea. This advertisement was one of many that appeared in England and across Europe after the discovery of aeronautics during the summer of 1783. As the historian L. T. C. Rolt has suggested, ‘it soon became evident that there was money in ballooning. Not only would people pay to witness an ascent from close quarters, but also there were wealthy enthusiasts prepared to finance a flight and reward the pilot handsomely in return for a place in the car. So there came into being a class of professional aeronauts’. Significantly, the invention of ballooning also coincided with a period of rapid increase in consumerism. Studies of the idea of a rise of consumption have increased dramatically in recent years focusing mostly on the eighteenth century (on the development of consumption or a consumer revolution) and the nineteenth century (regarding mass consumption).