Binding Books Tips

Binding Books Tips - Investing in Books

In 2006 the UK government are changing the pension rules to allow us to put our personal possessions (chattels) into our pensions! (6 April 2006)

You’ll be able to hold personal chattels such as cars, antiques, a property and rare books in a self-invested pension (SIPP) You’ll have an annual allowance of £215,000 to rise to £255,000 by 2010/11 and a lifetime allowance of £1.5mn to rise to £1.8m by 010/11.

Books have always been a great investment - Ex Wall Street Financier - Thomas J Healey analysed how literary classics would perform against other types of investment such as stocks and bonds.

Healey took the increase in value of 244 titles in two timespans over an eleven year and a nine year period in the last twenty years. Over the eleven year period from 1991 - 2002 there was an average compound growth rate for the value of the books on the lists was 12%. The annualised return for the earlier list - 1982 - 1991 was 12.8% and 12.3% for the entire 20 year period!

Comparatively speaking - US ten year Treasury notes yield 7.8% suggesting that rare books are better shielded from business cycles than other forms of investment and therefore, may offer more attractive returns with lower risk.

There seems to be a fluid marketplace for rare books - a marketplace in which hidden value and underachievement can suddenly take off. Moreover, books are solid, dependable, attractive and heavily traded assets that can only increase in rarity and value.

Past performance is not necessarily a predictor of future results - so get the advice of an expert before making any rare book investment.

'Money Matters' by Thomas J Healey, Rare Book Review, June 2005 pp 46/47

Binding Books Tips - Angling Books

This limited edition of 25 copies of the Regional Angling Literature was first published 25 years ago, and has doubled in value since they were bound at Period Fine Bindings last year.
For the full story click here

Binding Books Tips - Investing in Books

Recent findings have shown that dilapidated items within the book trade increase in value with the correct form of restoration that can only be executed by a Master Craftsman.

Restoring a book that has been eaten by worms, chewed by dogs, run over by a carriage, stained by Georgian ink, repaired by a carpet tape fanatic, found in Medieval ruins, exposed to the elements in a 400 year old roof space, burnt to a cinder and drownded in a flooded crypt is not an easy task or a cheap one, but careful restoration will certainly increase the value of your books and repay your investment many times over.

Binding Books Tips - World's Largest Book Goes On Display

The National Library of Scotland will be the setting for the new display of the world's largest book, which measures 1.5 metres by 2.1 metres when open. The book, Bhutan: A Visual Odyssey Across the Last Himalayan Kingdom was published in 2003 by a team of photographers.

Given its huge size, a special stand will have to be designed and built to display the 114-page tome, which weighs 60kg. Its arrival in the Capital will see it join another previously record-breaking book in the NLS collection. Measuring just 1mm by 1mm, the Renfrewshire-published copy of the nursery rhyme Old King Cole was until very recently the tiniest book in the world. But its place in the record books has been snatched by an even smaller book, which measures only 0.1mm less in size.

The Bhutan book, published by Friendly Planet, is made up of breathtaking photographs taken during trips through the Himalayan country. In a series of four expeditions, the group took more than 40,000 photographs, with stunning images and life-size portraits depicting life in the remote Eastern paradise of mountainous panoramas and ancient architecture.

It was created by the American academic and concert pianist, Michael Hawley, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), along with photographers Carolyn Bess, Sandy Choi, Dorji Drukpa, Becky Hurwitz, Choki Lhamo Kaka, Gyelsey Loday, Christopher Newell, David Salesin, and Ming Zhang. Library chiefs have paid around £8500 for one of only a handful of copies of the book with much of the money going to charitable projects in Bhutan.

The book will go on permanent display at the library and will be free for visitors to view. Cate Newton, NLS director of collection development, said it would be a memorable experience for visitors. She said: "We are very excited about the arrival of this extraordinary book, which will join the NLS collections that represent the history of publishing. The book is not only big but beautiful, with stunning photographs of the kingdom of Bhutan.

It's perhaps appropriate that one of the subjects of the world's biggest book should be mountains. *****The sheer size of the new acquisition will be brought into sharp relief by comparing it with the smallest book in the library's collection, she added. "The National Library of Scotland also collects miniature books and owns one of the world's tiniest books, a copy of Old King Cole, which measures just 1mm by 1mm and was published right here in Scotland, in Paisley, in 1985."

Binding Books Tips - Latest Technology

It's a revolutionary breakthrough in technology: no wires, no electric circuits, no batteries, nothing to be connected or switched on. It's so easy to use even a child can operate it. Just like it's cover. Compact and portable, it can be used anywhere -even sitting in an armchair by the fire--yet it is powerful enough to hold as much information as a CD-ROM.

Here's how it works: each BOOK is constructed of sequentially numbered sheets of paper (recyclable), each capable of holding thousands of bits of information. These pages are locked together with a custom-fit device called a binder which keeps the sheets in their correct sequence. By using both sides of each sheet, manufacturers are able to cut costs in half.

Each sheet is scanned optically, registering information directly into your brain. A flick of the finger takes you to the next sheet. The book may be taken up at any time and used by merely opening it. The "browse" feature allows you to move instantly to any sheet, and move forward and backward as you wish. Most come with an "index" feature,which pinpoints the exact location of any selected information for instant retrieval.

An optional "BOOKmark" accessory allows you to open the BOOK to the exact place you left it in a previous session--even if the BOOK has been closed. BOOKmarks fit universal design standards; thus a single BOOKmark can be used in BOOKs by various manufacturers.

Portable, durable and affordable, the BOOK is the entertainment wave of the future, and many new titles are expected soon, due to the surge in popularity of its programming tool, the Portable Erasable-Nib Cryptic Intercommunication Language Stylus...

Binding Books Tips - Best Pastes

One of the best pastes used in bookbinding is rice flour paste, not only is it the strongest of all the pastes but it also dries transparent.

The only problem with all hand-made pastes, be it wheat flour, starch or rice flour, is that it sours and moulds very quickly. A good way of preserving the life of the paste for upto 2-4 weeks is to drop a few whole cloves in the mixture before boiling, anything with a strong odour (turpentine for example) is not only a good preservant but also keeps the bugs at bay. I also find that salycilic acid (crushed asprin) is also an excellent preservant and is a formulae I use often.

If the paste needs to be a little more tenacious then mix with the flour a sixth or eighth part of its weight of powdered alum, adding gum arabic or any kind of size.

The best way of preventing bookworm can only be controlled by the binder by adding the correct formulae to the paste used for covering the books.

There is a small insect, Aglossa pinguinalis that deposits it's larvae in books in the autumn, especially in the leaves nearest the cover. These gradually produce a kind of mites that do the binding great damage.

But the most destuctive are the little wood-boring beetles, anobium pertinax and striatum. There is an instance recorded in the 19th century where, in a public library but little frequented, twenty seven folio volumes were perforated in a straight line by the same insect, in such a manner that, on passing a cord through the perfectly round hole made by it, these twenty seven volumes could be raised at once.

As already mentioned the seat of the mischief appears to lie in the binding, and the best preventative against their attacks is mineral salts, to which all insects have an aversion.

Alum and vitriol are proper for this purpose and is advisable to mix a portion with the paste used for covering the books i.e. preventative medicine is the best cure.

Binding Books Tips

Welcome to Paul Tronson, Master Bookbinder's site at Period Fine Bindings - it is devoted to Books, Fine Bindings, Great Binders and the Art of Bookbinding. You can use the top ten links on the right hand side of this page to access the completed links on this site. This is a very good place to start:

http://periodfinebindings.typepad.com/

If you'd like to contact Paul, to make an appointment to discuss a valuation, commission or just for a chat about rare books then call +44 (0) 1564 793800 or email: periodfinebindings@googlemail.com at Period Fine Bindings, Yew Tree Farm, Wootton Wawen, Nr Stratford Upon Avon, Warwickshire UK B95 6BY You can read about Paul's experiences in restoring the rarest of books and some unusual restoration projects he has undertaken here.