Featured Interesting If You Don't Know

I sure didn't.
I picked up this old 1890 book at a flea market today.

At some point it was part of Wm H Wanamaker Clothing, Philadelphia PA. This stamp is quite a few pages.

Josephine Husted beautifully inscribed it to her husband June 10, 1892

That was all cool. But, there is a problem with the book. Everything is in fine condition, except the spine on one side has come loose. As you can see in this photo.

What's absolutely fascinating for me, because I did not know is, this is what the inside of this spine looks like -

I guess even in the 1800s they recycled.

 

Recycling is from all times. This is called maculature. Fragment of a 15th century manuscript (probably a Book of Hours) on a 17th century book.

 

Wanamaker's sold books. Here's their 1891 catalog to give you an idea of their offering.

Debora

 

It is not unusual to find various kinds of "scrap" paper used as reinforcement in the spine of books.

 

That's bizarre. But, that looks like it was pasted onto the outside. I never knew printing houses used old paper to use with the spine. I guess if you took the front apart, it'd be under the cover also. What's cool about the one I picked up is it's PT Barnum's book.

I thought they only sold clothing. That's pretty neat. I gotta say, it'd be annoying to buy a book from a store and have their name stamped all over the book. It's on quite a few pages.

Until I got that book home and looked, I had no idea. But, I do only read books. I'm good in thrift stores to only look for signatures from certain authors. I've seen people going through each book, some looking for stored money. Imagine how much time you'd have to waste going through hundreds of books.

There's also the people using their phone to look up every book. I truly want to smack the phone out of their hand.

 

In early modern times often the printing houses did not bind the book. A buyer ordered a book at the printer shop and then let it bind at the book binder. Parchment was more common to reuse in book bindings because it is much more durable.

15th century paper in a 16th century book



16th century music (Orlando di Lasso) in a 17th century book.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_waste

 

Beat me to it. Binders/binding waste. This guy does very digestible videos about being a book dealer. This one I saw a few weeks ago covered “binders waste” amongst other interesting topics.

 

If you need (or want) to stablize the cover/binding, search for archival book binding supplies and you should find archival, removable tapes and such. Lots of videos to help you too I'm sure. Normally art stores carry those supplies as well.

 

https://www.thebookflipper.com/post/intro-to-sourcing-used-books-to-sell-on-amazon

Considering how many used books I've purchased off of Amazon, I've probably bought ones sourced by a bookflipper and I, for one, appreciate their effort.

 

Okay, I'll smack you.

I'm kidding...kidding.

I swear this happened. It was one of the most pathetic displays I'd ever been a part of. I signed a ten month contract to be Morgan Stanley's blackberry manager. They said it was going to be an extremely tough position, and I'd be there late every night. Not only did I never work a second of overtime, I spend the majority of my day (I swear HOURS) walking up the stairs to a department you could get free coffee from.

If a person wanted anything they had to have their manager sign off on it. When I started, a person asked for a pair of scissors. I accidentally bought it without the manager sign off (my only mistake the entire time). A few months into my contract the seller of the scissors wanted to get paid. It was like $30. That's expensive. But, they had a special place they bought supplies from. I passed the note onto accounting, which was not in the building. It was in a different borough.

I was six months into my contract, and they still didn't pay the invoice. Finally they told me the reason was there was no manager approval. Within five minutes I got the manager's approval, and sending that in an email to the accounting department, I put a Homer Simpson type "quote" Pay this or else... I was almost immediately called into my Manager's office and chewed out for threatening accounting.

That's pathetic. But, not the worst. This is the mindset of this company.

This happened before I started. When a broker was hired, they were on probation. But, were given a phone. Someone failed a drug test, and whoever had my job before me, didn't get it back. 4 months or so in, and a phone bill for close to $40,000 came in. Everyone freaked. They had no idea whose phone this was. I got the phone company to shut off the phone. But, first to find out who'd been using it. They gave us all the info. MS did not have the person arrested or contact him for the $40,000. They just paid the bill. $32? No way. $40,000? Mistakes happen.

So, I was KIDDING. I'm not actually going to smack you. I don't even know you.