The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

This is a two-volume set of The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, translated from the Greek by William Smith, printed by William Nicholson. (1805) The original case was a half binding with both the spine and the boards covered with paper, and they were in horrible conditions as you see from the pictures below. The client wanted brand new leather spines with false raised cords and title embossed, keeping the original boards. It seemed to be a straightforward job. HOWEVER, the original boards were constructed with series of laminated paper and boards, each layer had bubbles and somehow, there were "cuts" and "incisions" underneath those layers in different places. ( I mean, REAL cuts that were put together like a jigsaw puzzle.) I've seen quite a few peculiarly bound books over the years, but this one made one of my eyebrows raise... Anyway, I could restore these original boards, but it turned out to be more costly. My master contacted the client about this "price change" along with the alternative solution: create a brand new case. He chose the latter. He wanted a half binding with leather spine and blue cloth boards, false raised cords and a dark blue skiver on the spine. I dyed the leather to make it look aged. (the close-up picture is the one on the top right.) Well, I finished these volumes last week, and they have been picked up by the client already, but since I took some pictures of before and after for these books, I thought I should post them on my blog. I won't be able to post anything for a while as I'll be working on a job that occupies me full time for a few weeks. I'll write about it when I get to a point when I can take a breath. Till then ~~