Geneva Bible 1589

The client of this Geneva Bible asked me to take series of pictures of the restoration process, which included the brief steps of Cambridge on the front and back covers. Just for the sake of it, I thought I should put them on my blog in case someone wants to know how it's done. As you see, it's a no brainer; it's basically the same concept as stencil, and hand-tooling the framing with or without gold at the end.

By the way, this common design is called Cambridge because it became popular among binders in Cambridge in the 18th century.

Well, if you are interested in acquiring this particular Geneva Bible that I restored, contact Arundel Books.

 

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

Miniature Holy Bible w/ brass edging & a clasp, 1860

I love brass clasps and edging, especially when they are on miniature books. I posted some pictures of one of those books about a year ago, and I could see that others love them as much as I do. (based on the large number of visitors to the particular post.) So, I'm posting another one here. This is a miniature Holy Bible, published by Thomas Nelson & Sons in 1860. This humble black leather Bible turned into an eye candy of a treasure with a brass uni-clasp and ornate edging, - the design of which feels as though it were influenced a bit by William Morris or a precursor to Art Nouveau of England. It's very pretty.

As for the restoration, client asked for a simple re-backing with false-raised cords on the spine without any gold lettering. A trouble we normally encounter when dealing with a book with metal edging is the lifting or removing of the edging pieces in order to re-back or re-hinge the spine. For this Bible, because it wasn't wise (or possible) to remove the whole metal pieces, I lifted small sections up enough so that I could do my job, and they were gently hammered back to the original state. I'm so glad it's done in time.. I personally have only a couple of more Christmas orders to go, Yay! ;-)

The Holy Bible by A. J. Holman, 1877

It's been almost two years since I started this blog, and I thank all of you for your continuous support and having given me such generous comments and encouragement about my work. I would have never imagined that my blog would attract so many visitors, let alone would gain 79 followers!?

Out of nostalgia, I was checking the works I've posted on my blog over the couple of years, and noticed there were posts that were incomparably more popular than others. Naturally, posts that contain my videos have attracted many visitors, but amongst the very popular ones, Holy Bible by A. J. Holman & Co. has proven to be a great interest to many. A. J. Holman & Co. is an American Bible publishing house from Philadelphia that was established in the 1870's, and had produced many of the large Family Bibles in this country. So, there are lots of folks whose families own a Bible by them. (I'd say, about the third of large Family Bibles we handle here, rather than portable personal ones, are by this company.) So, I decided to post another A. J. Holman with a different design, here on my blog.

This one was published in 1877, and has the owner's name custom-embossed on the front cover. The restoration on this Bible was a straightforward re-hinge, replacement of the internal cloth hinges, repairs on the edges and corners, some paper mending and the reproduction of family record pages.

Holy Bible by M. Carey, 1815

This is an 1815 edition of Mathew Carey's King James Bible. (Not the so-called The Carey Bible with the Douay-Rheims translation.) The original cover was in a horrible shape, so the client wanted a new facsimile full leather binding for it. It's just a simple new binding work, but I decided to post this here because of the custom leather dyeing work I've done on this Bible.

Like many others since I started this blog, one of my dearest regular visitors of this blog, Huhu, inquired of me about my leather dyeing technique earlier this month. I haven't gotten a chance to respond to her via e-mail yet, but as I've always told everyone, what I can say is basically the same; I can't really explain my exact leather dyeing technique over the internet first of all. Every dyeing work I do is unique to the particular job I'm working on and every leather reacts differently to a different dye or chemical. So there isn't really a fixed text-book instruction I can give to anyone. All I can advise is to experiment with the medium that's available to you, and I just hope that people would see my works as a reference, in order to innovate their own unique techniques. :-)

The Holy Bible by Montgomety Ward & Co., 1903

You might've wondered how the distinguishably deep, beveled covers of large antique Family Bibles were made. They aren't curved or chiseled, nor sculpted, but are actually molded. Typically, the boards are constructed in two laminated parts; the flat base board and the molded top layer board. So, if someone asks me to make a cover like one of those antique Family Bibles, it's a bit of a trouble because I don't have a mold or an appropriate machine. As you can imagine, it's a time consuming work to create such deep ornate bevels, manually.

I was digging through the backlog shelves last week, and found this Bible, which came in at the end of last November. Horrifying! How in the world was this Bible left untouched for this long!? It appeared to be a straightforward restoration work, but as I examined the order form, I found out why no one wanted to touch it. The client asked for a brand new full leather binding with a similar design on the cover. He wanted ornate bevels... The original binding was bound in bookcloth, so the degree of the beveled lines weren't as deep as that of typical leather bound Bible's. But, the new binding was to be in leather, so the bevel would have to be deep or it wouldn't look good. Sigh.. I had to cut out 4 sheets of rather thick davy boards precisely in shape and sculpt the bevels and define the lines with finishing tools. My hand still aches from this work... Ah, a future of arthritis awaits..

I created a crisscross texture on the surface and antiqued the leather in order to make the bevels and blind tooling to look more defined. I hope the client forgives us for taking so long to complete his Bible.. Pray for me..

Oh, by the way, I'm planning to go to Vancouver Island (Canada) next week. Probably, I will be leaving on Friday, the 21st. We'll be in Victoria for a couple of days, then leave for Port Hardy. Our current intern, Mr. B, is going to visit his family there, and he generously allowed my master (One of those Bigfoot enthusiasts... sigh..) and I to go along with him. It'll be beautiful there at this time of the year in the NW, and will be a nice break from work for me.

The Holy Bible by Collins' Clear-type Press, 1950

There's a time when something clicks in my head, out of blue, like lightening and triggers a strong urge to restore only the same category of books. It could be cookbook or dictionaries or, of course, Bibles. The strange "impulse" happened little over a week ago when I had a sip of my master's cabernet sauvignon that I secretly poured for myself without telling him. - The Wine Thief!!. Might have been the idea of the sin, but I put the glass down, approached gingerly to the "backlog shelves", and started digging out only the humble and ordinary, black yapp personal Bibles to work on. (Like the one on the right and left.) Ah, the wine thief! Repent Thyself! <---- must have been a message from above! These personal Bibles can be tedious to restore because they tend to be so worn out due to the heavy use, yet the restoration task is always very mundane - nothing fancy or challenging, to say the least. Maybe that's why I found a good number of them. Not intentional, but I guess we've unconsciously avoided mundane works.. (Human, all too human...) So, for the last week or so, with a feeling of guilt, I've been working on those poor (neglected!?!) Bibles. After hours and hours of ironing the crumbled pages and repairing torn paper, I've completed a hand full of those Bibles. (At one point, I got confused as to which Bible was whose, because they all look similar.... ) No sooner did I feel that I was basically done with the "humble, ordinary, black yapp personal Bibles" than I found a tiny shiny Bible on my work bench, marked "Urgent". That's this pretty Bible here. At last, something with a *Bling* to work on! This is The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments by Collins' Clear-Type Press. (1950) Miniture, vigesimo-quarto Holy Bible by Collins' Clear-Type Press normally have wood boards as a cover, but this one has seashell-like material in mosaic. I've worked on this particular version of Collins' Clear-Type Press vigesimo-quarto a decade ago, and I remember it was missing a couple of mosaic pieces. This one, however is complete. Very beautiful. The restoration for this Bible was to do a facsimile leather spine, replacement of endsheets, and restoration on the original ribbon. Very simple job on an eye-candy binding. - Exactly what I needed after a week of repentance!

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!