from the bindery: odds and ends (emphasis on the odds)

For six months i've been photographing some of the odd things i come across at work. for six months i've been meaning to post these photos. now that it's nearly march, how about i just get it over with.

here goes.

EXHIBIT A

this german beauty surfaced back in the early fall (biblio info soon to come)

noteworthy for it's interesting ribbon-thru-metal-loops style of binding

here's a closer look

and along the top, where the linen tie is broken.

 

EXHIBIT B

 

what i like to call the Green Cow book: a Danish-Norwegian dictionary (i think)

another view without the contrast of the flash. moo.

EXHIBIT C

a sneak peek at some binders' tricks. notice where the leather is torn, you can see the actual laced in thong, as opposed to the sorry-excuses-for-false-raised bands lining the spine

EXHIBIT D

after 15 years, this book has earned its way back to book repair. 

 

amazingly, this is an adhesive binding repaired in 1995. even more amazing is that the actually adhesive binding is still totally in tact. it's just the case that's seen better days. here you can see the interior joint is still holding together.

 

and see how the pages are still holding strong? even without any sort of spine lining beside crash? somebody did their double-fan adhesive binding right. 

EXHIBIT E

solomon's temple? an "exact replication"? love it.

 

this little beauty of an engraving comes from this book. i've enlarged it so you can get a nice look at this spectacularly victorian title page. this is a fantastic example of a printer's use of multiple type faces on a title page. this became less common as the 19th century went on because it wasn't conducive to production printing.

stay tuned...more to come