Family Bible Restoration

It's been over a year since my last post, but I haven't forgotten about my blog; I've just been too busy to pay attention to anything other than what's on my work bench. (I'm horrible at multi-tasking ..)

The reason I decided to write this time is to remind folks, who are planing to get their Family Bible restored, of the importance of choosing the competent/experienced real restorer. There seem to be too many people who call themselves "bookbinders", with only a brief knowledge of binding books that they obtained from watching Youtube videos, attempting to "restore" books for profit, or binders whose binderies have been in business for decades, actually don't know what they are doing. Quite a few of such previously "restored" (or should I say professionally damaged..) books have come to us for re-restoration. 

Every book comes to us is priceless and irreplaceable, but when it comes to restoring Family Bibles, I always find myself feeling especially honored to be a part of their families' history of the past and future; I know Family Bibles are one thing that will be actually loved and cherished by many, for years to come. That is why restoration of  Family Bibles has to be done right, the first time.

A few months ago, this Bible came to me. According to the client, it was restored not too long ago, but as it was exposed to humidity, it became a bit moldy. She wanted us to do something about it.

Well, as you see on the before pictures, the problem is NOT really the mold. It certainly needs more than replacing the moldy endpapers and gluing back the spine. EVERYTHING the previous "binder" did was wrong, or should I say criminal. I was absolutely horrified when I saw the Bible. As an unspoken rule of being in a field of age-old craft like bookbinding, we don't really want to criticize fellow craftsmans' jobs; we just look away, keep our mouths shut, and  mind our own business. Though I have warned people of incompetent binders' existence before, I normally don't actually show an example of bad restoration and say "This is bad". But I couldn't help it this time.

I don't think I need to point out what's wrong with the Bible because pictures show it. Again, all I can say is EVERYTHING this "binder" did was outrageously wrong. There's no indication of his/her having any knowledge what so ever of how to bind a book, let alone restore one. One thing you might not be able to see on the pictures is that the leather this binder used is not pared. Leather paring is the most basic skill any binders must have, by the way.

Anyway, when you are thinking of restoring your Family Bible (or whatever books), do check the binder's works on the website first. And if you like what you see,  preferably visit him/her to actually see/touch the works in person, because digital pictures can be deceiving nowadays.

This is Holy Bible, Dr. William Smith's Standard Bible Dictionary, published by Henry L. Warren & Co., 1881-1884

A few bad apples ...

A regular client of ours, Easton Books from Mount Vernon, WA, dropped off a 9 volume set of The Writings of Thomas Jefferson awhile back, asking us to repair rat damage on the spines of two volumes, and a brand new facsimile binding for one volume. If you are a book restorer, you know inquiries like that, wherein every volume except for one or two is in perfect condition, so as to restore only the few damaged ones without making them look out of place amongst the set. Yeah, you know, The Bad Apple restoration. It's actulally a very tricky thing to do, to say the least. Especially, these particular bad apples were difficult, mainly because of the kind of leather I'd have to imitate and seriously heavy molding on one volume, which has infected all the way through to the middle of the book. Naughty, absolutely naughty. So, I had been putting this work aside, and letting myself wait till I felt "right" and mentally ready to tackle it. But, about a week ago, the client called and asked us to finish it up because they wanted to take the set to the annual Antiquarian Book Fair.

So, here they are. I finished them last night, at last. I did all my best to make them look as invisible as possible and naturally blended in among the other volumes. I hope the client approves my work.. and hopefully it'd find a new home during the book fair. **

This is  The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Henry A. Washington, published by J. C. Ricker, Taylor & Maury in 1856.

Sophocles : Oedipus Coloneus, 1885

We've had an unusually dry, spectacular summer this year, but it looks like the rain is catching up with our luck. An introvert like me wouldn't mind a gloomy rain, in fact, I'd rather prefer it to a persistent glare of sunshine. But, it appears that all the debt of rain have concentrated in the last few days and it's been pouring like a crazy river with a strong gust that resulted in flood and fallen trees in some parts of our state. I heard there was a tornado here today as well... Tornado!? It normally doesn't happen here. I hope no one got hurt... What an insane weather it's been, though... So, I've been leaving all the craziness outside and cocooning myself with a calmness of dusty old books in this century old basement.

This book I chose to work on came in several months ago and has been on top of our backlog list for quite sometime. So I have been fully aware of this book, - not that I had forgotten about it or anything. What the client asked us to do is to create a brand new leather spine with facsimile gold tooling, as the condition of the original spine leather was deteriorating to the point when it was touched, it fell apart. The reason why I have been putting this book aside until now was because I wasn't one hundred percent sure how to deal with the former restoration. As you see, it had been rebacked and hinged previously with the original spine leather glued back on. For some reason, I just couldn't decide whether to leave parts of the visually obvious previous restoration as is and restore the book accordingly, or rid all of it in order to set the base to a default so that I could make my restoration work seamless and wouldn't look obvious. Anyway, I chose the latter because it's the right thing to do despite of the difficulty of matching the leather perfectly to the pasta española. I had series of tools that were pretty similar to the original, so everything went smoothly after having made up my mind about the direction. (The removing and cleaning of the previous restoration of superficial internal cloth hinges was nasty though..)

This is Sophocles, the plays and fragments, Part II. Oedipus Coloneus, by Richard C. Jebb, published by Cambridge University Press. (London, 1885) The restoration involved a rehinge with custom-dyed leather, facsimile gold tooling, internal cloth hinges and restoration on the edges and corners.

Smollett's Don Quixote, 1755

There's a strange yet rather frequent phenomenon in the bindery that we jokingly call "psychic clients", wherein the client of the book that we are JUST about to work on would call to check the status of his/her book. It's actually scary! It's as if I'm sending some sort of a "telepathic signal" to them unconsciously, or they are sending me one so that I would pick their books to work on. ahhh..

The book featured in this post is one of them. I was digging out orders (books) which were 6, 7 months old, and I picked a couple of them and placed them on my workbench. As I was wondering which one to work on first, the phone rang, and somehow I knew who it was.... AHHHH!!

Anyway, this is a two-volume set of Smollett's Don Quixote. (1755, First Ed. London) It required re-hinging and reconstruction of the top and bottom of the spine, as well as facsimile sewn headbands and repairs of the corners. Also, a part of a skiver label was missing, so I created a patch, on which I re-tooled so that it appears as if there was never a missing piece. It's always difficult (often impossible) to lift the original spine leather without cracking for re-hinging when it's glued to the spine of the book, (called tight-back.) and this wasn't an exception. It was, as always, a nerve racking task. There's a young, preteen boy (I think he's 12.) who visits the bindery at night occasionally when his parents are working in the building. He showed up when I was at a critical point of lifting the spine leather, and just couldn't possibly be interrupted. But, he started running around the room and talking and laughing loud and all.. Ah,, you know what I did? I yelled at him.. I feel horrible.. I have to apologize to him next time I see him... :-(  But for now, just for the sake of it, I'm sending him my apology, telepathically. hummmm f.o.r.g.i.v.e. meeee ~

Report on The Art of War in Europe

I don't seem to post my works on cloth binding restorations here as much as leather bindings, so I decided to put this up. It's Report on The Art of War in Europe in 1854, 1855, and 1856 by Colonel Richard Delafield, under the order of Jefferson Davis, printed by George W. Bowman. (1861, Washington D.C) The client asked to preserve everything, including the written names of Jefferson Davis and George B McClellan, along with a bookplate depicting firearms on the front endpaper. (The picture on the right. I wonder if it was one of those official Army's book plates in the Civil War era.. I have to ask Mr. Jaffe about it.) Restoring cloth bindings is way trickier than that of leather bindings' because aged cloth is extremely fragile to work with and matching the color and texture of new material to the original cloth perfectly is time-consuming and difficult. Well, troublesome jobs always end up being on my table, so no surprise there. - (Master would say things like "Oh, your tiny fingers are perfect for an intricate job like this. *grin*"...) Anyway, as I examined the original case, the entire edges were worn out horribly in a way that convinced me that the book needed a brand new case. (Pictures on the left.) I could patch them up and rehinge it, but for this book, I knew that the extremely fragile cloth material wouldn't react well with rather intense restoration process, resulting the end product to look terrible, let alone the fact it wouldn't have enough integrity to last long. By creating a new case, I needed to peel off the entire front endpaper with the written names and a bookplate, so that I could put it back onto the new endpaper. I antiqued the new endpapers as well, so that they match the original endpaper and don't shout out "NEW!". (The picture in the middle.) The original spine, the front and back covers were inlaid back onto the new case. Well, everything turned out as I expected it to be, and I thought I was done there... then, I remembered there were dozens of folded maps in the book....You see, normally, folded maps and graphics are crumbled and torn and need repairing. In this case, there were DOZENS! Well, I just finished mending them at last, and the book will be on the way to the East Coast soon.
--------About the Bookplate---------
Mr. Jaffe said: "The item in question is a universal bookplate. They are made so the owner can write his or her name in the blank space.Unfortunately it has very little value."

Lemprière's Classical Dictionary, 1804

I haven't posted any of my works over a month on my blog, so maybe, you thought that the winter finally got me and I suddenly took off to the Caribbean, and was chillaxing on the white sand in a bikini, sipping a coconut shell filled with mojito on hand. Noooo. I'm still stuck here! I just always forgot to take pictures of my works, "before" or "after", so I couldn't post anything on my blog. Well anyway, here's the update:: Probably because I didn't put out annual Christmas flyers extensively this year, (I got lazy..) things have turned out to be much calmer than I thought it would be, thus Christmas orders are basically all finished. So I've started digging out the oldest orders from the shelves and started working on them. My task now is to finish everything that's came in before September by the end of this year. The oldest one I saw was from April. (!!?!WTF!!) This one, shown on this post, came in in July.... (Ouch!) It's A Classical Dictionary : containing a copious account of all the proper names mentioned in ancient authors : with the value of coins, weights, and measures used among the Greeks and Romans, by John Lemprière, D.D, printed for  T. Cadell & W. Davies. (1804 Edition) I find Greek / Roman mythology fascinating, so this seems to be a great dictionary to read or flip through in my spare time and is something I'd like to add to my library. No, I won't run away with my client's property, so don't call the police! haha. Anyway, the client asked for a new leather spine re-hinged with a facsimile gold tooling, and edges and corners touched-up. The leather's dyed to match the original. The bottom headband was missing, so I've sewn it with a thread that I dyed to be close to the remaining top headband's.

On the side note, I see this publisher's name T. Cadell every so often, so I googled him out. It turned out that his shop was located right next to John Chapman's, who was a physician and a renown publisher who had relationships with George Elliot and other avant-garde writers on the Strand, London. Also, sounds like Chapman was the "homeopathic doctor" of Charles Darwin? hummm Homeopathy.... I remember a good documentary on Homeopathy by BBC Horizon.. (My favorite TV program!) Before you spend $ on this so called "pseudoscience", you might want to check this out.   

Skin Graft of a Burnt Book

I have been working on simple, mindless, straightforward jobs since last week to recover from the trauma caused by La Merope ordeal. I just needed some time to heal my mind a bit. One of the jobs that gives me calmness and sereneness is what I call a "skin graft operation". It's basically a cosmetic repair on books that have gotten severe disfigurement issues caused by relatively common occurrences such as "Sh*t, my dog just ate my book!" or "They burnt my Harry Potter, god dammit!" or "Stop throwing books at me! I didn't sleep with your BFF!". Well, whatever injured those unfortunate books, I like doing this procedure because all I have to do is to just sit there and focus on the part I'm "operating" on! No need to move around, look around, carry heavy things around and it's very meditating to me. But most importantly, I like getting a "Wow!" from clients who didn't think the complete transformation was possible. Anyway, this is a 1862 Bible in German. There's a large hole on the back cover that appears to be caused by fire. I can see that the edges of the hole were shrunken and melt, and there are some surface damages on the surrounding area as well. Maybe someone knocked over a candle or left a cigar on it? Anyway, I transplanted a new skin from a new hinde which was cut exactly the shape to fit into the damaged hole, and colored and put the exact texture to match the surrounding. The seam is still visible if you look close, so I was disappointed a bit. But considering how bad the original condition was, I think this is the best any book doctors can do!

Lutheran Family Bible by E. Gately & Co.

I think many of you have seen Christian Bibles with masonic symbols used in the designs, but in case you haven't, I'm posting one here. Curious, isn't it? Well, this is a Lutheran Bible in German, which should give you some explanations as to why, if you know a bit about Freemasonry, and remember the history of Protestant Reformation and Martin Luther, for that matter. Masons can be Christians, but just not Catholics, I guess. Anyway, this is Heilige Schrift (Holy Scripture, Illusterated Family Bible in German), published by E. Gately & Co. in 1882. The restoration of this Bible involved external & internal re-hinging, repairs on the edges & corners. Very straight forward tasks.

The cover is filled with masonic symbols: TOP - Hourglass (mortality, human life) Arc of the Covenant (relation to the Knights Templar) The Sun & the Moon, (Gods in pagan belief & relations to astrology) Solomon's Temple with the letter G (G signifies God, the Great Architect of the Universe, Geometry, the Universe's fundamental law). RIGHT: Three Pillars (Wisdom, Strength, Beauty) Anchor (hope). The dove with an olive branch (The emblem of the deacon that signifies the messenger & innocence) Ark (faith) Gavel (authority). LEFT: Pot of incense (pure mind), Jacob's Ladder with seven rounds (Progress towards perfection, and seven steps derived from Mithraism). CENTER: The Masonic blazing star (God). The square & the compass with the level ( The square: virtue & morality. The compass: wisdom of boundaries, The level: equality) BOTTOM: Beehive (industry) Eye of Providence (Eye of God) over the Masonic alter. Whew, ... did I miss anything? I've scanned the cover so that you can check them out yourself!

De L'esprit des Loix, (The Spirit of the Laws), 1758

When I was a teenager, I came to the United States as a part of a school trip, and paid a visit to The National Archives Building while in DC. Although I had only about 15 seconds to get a glance at each founding document of The United States, it was one of the most moving experiences I had had in my youth. All those documents and manuscripts looked so fragile with almost invisible, faded texts in dimly lit displays, and their humble statues contrasted to the idea of the most powerful country in the world. I remember I was thinking of Montesquieu at the display of The Constitution. Well, little I knew that I'd come to handle his master work, The Spirit of the Laws, some twenty years later. This is a three volume set of De L'esprit des Loix (Esprit des Loix) by Charles Louis de Montesquieu, published in Amsterdam in 1758. (Nouvelle Edition.) As all the original cords were still attached to the covers intact, and the original endsheets had to be fully preserved as they were, the conventional re-hinge method couldn't be performed. The alternative re-hinge method used here is normally conducted on medieval bindings wherein the spines are glued to the book, yet they must be preserved. It's partly superficial, so it had to be done with the most care in order to get the maximum integrity and to make the repairs as invisible as possible. The top and bottom of the spine were worn out, so I had to recreate them as well. Original ribbons are ironed and reattached, the hinges of the endsheets were mended and the corners are repaired.