Birds Shown to the Chil­dren by M. K. C. Scott
Cir­ca 1920
Assessed 30 Sep­tem­ber 2015
Brown cloth case over mill­board, stamped in gold with full-col­or cen­ter­piece, spine lined with paper and mull. 18 gath­er­ings of two medi­um weight cream wove paper with sin­gle folio end­pa­pers of thick­er paper tipped to textblock. Let­ter­press with 48 full-col­or plates.
Condition
Cloth split along hinge at head of spine, with loss­es along hinges and at tail and cor­ners. Textblock split through­out. Six leaves and many plates are detached, and some have been taped back in. Paper pos­si­bly light­ly stained by mold.
Treatment
Removed from case and spine poul­ticed with methyl cel­lu­lose. Tape removed with air pen­cil, hep­tane in Pemulen gel, and microspat­u­la. Sec­tions guard­ed as nec­es­sary with Japan­ese tis­sue and wheat starch paste. Resewn with linen thread and lined with Japan­ese tis­sue and aero­cot­ton. Case repaired with toned Japan­ese tis­sue and board cor­ners con­sol­i­dat­ed with paste. Extend­ed cloth hinge insert­ed under paste­down, and inner joints cov­ered with toned tissue.

 

 

 

The Holy War by John Bunyan
Assessed 23 Octo­ber 2015
Half green sheep leather with mar­bled sides. Strip of arti­fi­cial­ly grained brown leather as replace­ment spine. 26 three-folio sec­tions of medi­um-weight wove paper sewn two-on over sawn-in cords, with the out­er two laced into boards. Let­ter­press with engraved illustrations.
Condition
Orig­i­nal spine miss­ing, new brown leather spine strip adhered with tape. Replace­ment spine split lon­gi­tu­di­nal­ly. Sides lost along all edges, all cor­ners exposed and delam­i­nat­ing. Tape down gut­ter of both joints and first two spreads, caus­ing severe dis­col­oration. Textblock split in sev­er­al places and eight sec­tions detached com­plete­ly. Some sec­tions over­sewn with thick black thread.
Treatment
Tape removed with hep­tane and white spir­it. Loose pages guard­ed and textblock resewn with linen thread. Spine lined with Japan­ese tis­sue, aero­cot­ton, and paper. Boards slit and extend­ed cloth hinge insert­ed. Rebacked with toned cloth.

 

Mod­el Air­craft for Boys by W. Rigby
Pub­lished 1935
Assessed 23 Octo­ber 2015
Case bind­ing in white coat­ed paper sewn all along over two tapes. Six four-folio sec­tionns of coat­ed cream-col­ored wove paper let­ter­press print­ed with line draw­ing illus­tra­tions. Case off­set print­ed in red, yel­low, and blue. Ink inscrip­tion on left flyleaf.
Condition
Spine detached but retained. One leaf detached. Mild sur­face dirt on cov­er and throughout.
Treatment
Rebacked with paper, orig­i­nal spine lined with tis­sue and reat­tached. Loose page hinged with tis­sue sutures.

 

Naval & Mil­i­tary Gazette 1865
Assessed 9 Novem­ber 2015
Vel­lum half bind­ing with green vel­lum sides. Sewn two-on over five cords. Spine titled in brown ink. New spine lin­ings of kozo, cloth, and white paper, with new stuck-on linen end­bands sewn over rec­tan­gu­lar core cov­ered in cloth. Thin cream-col­ored wove paper of newsprint qual­i­ty, pre­sum­ably print­ed week­ly then bound as sin­gle vol­ume. Mar­bled made end­pa­pers sewn through fold.
Condition
Boards reat­tached with extend­ed cloth lin­ing by board slot­ting method. Right hinge split, left hinge fail­ing. Spine split with loss­es along head and tail. Text paper extreme­ly brit­tle and tear­ing at foredge through­out. Right fly­leaf and last page detached but retained in sep­a­rate fold­er. New end­bands do not fit under head­caps. Evi­dence of tape removed from end­pa­pers and pre­vi­ous repairs to fly­leaves and textblock through first two sections.
Treatment
Repaired tears to spine with kozo and EVA lam­i­nate and wheat starch paste. Paper spine lin­ing poul­ticed with methyl cel­lu­lose and end­bands replaced with aero­cot­ton over cord core. Spine relined with paper. Hinges sup­port­ed with kozo-EVA lam­i­nate. Joints cov­ered with toned tissue.