Photo by Bradford Morrow
Hand Bookbinding
Sometimes a book has deteriorated to such a degree that its original binding is unsalvageable, or it has been previously bound or repaired in such a way that its content is not safely accessible, or the cost of conserving the original material exceeds the book’s sentimental or monetary value.
In these cases, we will work with you to craft a new binding for your book that is sympathetic to its original form, structure, materials, and purpose while ensuring its continued use and longevity.
An original Princeton class album from 1860 had lost its original boards. All that remained of the cover was the damaged spine and a large fragment of leather with gold tooling and lettering from the front board. We rebuilt the case with the original spine placed over new leather, and inset the fragment on the front board with simple gold borders to evoke the original design. While cleaning the old material from the text block, we discovered a tiny bit of the original marbled endpapers and located a similar pattern to use in the new binding.
Leather Photo Album
A three-volume set from 1821, bound in publisher’s cloth, and lost two of its spine strips, and all of the boards were detached.
Cloth publisher’s binding
Quarter leather scrapbook
with marbled paper
The binding of this well-used leather scrapbook had deteriorated beyond the point where our client felt it worth saving. We removed the boards from the scrapbook but saved the gold-lettered panel, which we inset into a new binding. The client had also placed numerous photographs into sleeves, for which we made a matching screwpost album.
Notes from the Bench
Stories, updates, and notable projects
