Featured A fun look into the book making process

One of the Myth Busters guys visits the American Bookbinders Museum in San Francisco. Great look at different processes and machines used in early book making.



I’ve been watching some of his videos recently. He does a great job looking into different aread involving antiques. I’m sure other interesting subjects as well.

I actually emailed this museum this year when I found an interesting book press I couldn’t find any information on. They didn’t get back to me. I tried another book binding museum and neither did they. Oh well!

 

Thank you for sharing! It reminds me of a book in my collection where the leather cover is missing, but further is completely intact. I use to call it my ‘naked book’. It is mind blowing to imagine how much labor such a book costs in earlier times!

 

If you like documentaries about old books, I can advice this one as well. It is about Stephen Fry trying to recreate the Gutenberg printing press.

 

It really is mind blowing the skill, knowledge, and labor that went into this and many other trades. Hard to imagine the time and toil. Particularly considering the cushy lives many of us live in the first world these days. Life wasn’t easy but I imagine it was satisfying at times at least.

I’ll give a watch to your Gutenberg video. I like watching videos on almost any topic I can learn a few things from. Specifically antiques though. Last night I watched one about the farming and marketing of Kiwi fruits. Never know when that may come up in conversation. I dread not being able to talk a bit about any topic for a at least a few minutes. After that I’m pretty useless on most. Jack of many….

 

The subject came up in a Bible study I was in. The author of a book said that the treasures in a story were the gold and silver and that clothing was tossed in as an afterthought. He forgot how much WORK went into making a single article of clothing when even the threads had to be made by hand. The "ten changes of clothes" were listed first because they were crazy money. Textiles and later books were mentioned in wills because they were often the most valuable things in a household, especially when all books were written out longhand. That was true right into the 19th century. Now we have fast fashion and print on demand.

 

You don’t even need a demand for what you’ve written now. You can not only print on demand, you can vanity publish on demand, and call yourself a published author. That’s giving me an idea…

 

Nowadays you don't even have to use paper and ink; you can "publish" a digital download e-book. In the first century, handwritten scrolls might be the most valuable things in a household. Most people couldn't afford them. Now, anyone can be an author.

 

This is a fascinating video showing the restoration of an old cast iron book press and my mechanics really takes it to the next level, not your typical DIY-er!