At the moment I am working on an 18thC 2 volume set of Flavius Josephus from a client in Nashville Tennessee.
Apparently these have spent sometime “sunning” themselves in Hawaii
and have been viciously attacked by insects and damp, but…………they have
an incredible provenance having been bought in 1930 from the library of
“Colonel Lawrence”….Col. who?............ Colonel (T)homas (E)dward Lawrence or “Lawrence of Arabia”.
Click on images to enlarge
The two titles have various staining, a piece of old newsprint glued to one, and “tidemarks”
(water damage), but because they have carbon and ink writing I have
decided just to remove the newsprint and the tidemarks and re-size, I
can “fix” the carbon and ink to the paper and remove all the stains but it doesn’t come within the budget.The last page is badly foxed and stained so I have
removed the foxing and stains and resized the paper, this will be
re-mounted on 18thC matching paper and the colour toned down to blend
in.
Interestingly
the plates facing the title page on both books had been very crudely
pasted down to the boards but not as an endpaper. My experience tells
me this usually means concealment, something hidden. Many years ago I restored a rare James I "SHE"
Bible which was an armorial binding on wooden boards, when I carefully
lifted the endpapers I found a vellum parchment hand written in Greek, in black and red ink under each one, I then removed the original leather from the boards and found two more!!
These turned out to be the works of Pliny the Elder
and were bound into the Bible during the years of the witch hunts of
Europe; they now reside as an important artefact in a museum as does
the Bible, which I rebound in its original leather onto its original
boards.
I have only lifted the one plate which is mounted on to 4 other layers, these need to be lifted individually as I will use them in the restoration so........watch this space.... I will let you know my findings in the next issue.
I just can't think of another job that generates this much excitement...........yes I can.....Archaeology
Ibrahim & me My much better half Occasional Tourist
Next month I'll show you how I parked the QEII in a Norwegian car park
Off to Canada in August for 5 weeks if anyone wants to meet up for a beer we'll be in Ontario!
The next exciting issue is now... HERE
To return to Issue 1 click here
Return to Royal Bindings page here
Email Paul Tronson here
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