Anthony’s Bible

For this book story, I have changed the names of the family involved, at their request, to protect their privacy.  That was the only thing they asked me to do when I asked if I could add this to the blog.

When I was learning the bookbinding trade, I asked my teacher, "Is there any damage that can't be repaired on a book?"  The answer was quick and crisp.  "Yes, fire damage. Just tell the customer there is nothing you can do for a burnt book."   If you ask 1000 book restorers to look at a heavily burnt book, 999 will decline.  It's the smart move.  But as Forrest Gump said, "I am not a smart man."  

When Michael Bradley called me right after Christmas and told me he had a book that had been in a fire and he needed it restored,  I did have that one moment of lucidity and I explained why book restorers did not accept burn books.  Then he told me the story behind his request, and I found myself saying,   "Dave, this is something you have to try to do, and you have to make it work, somehow, some way. " 

Michael and his wife, Debbie had lost their son Anthony in a fiery car crash.  Anthony had been driving home late one night when his car ran off the road, was demolished, and caught on fire.   I've learned from my own life that sudden deaths are possibly the hardest to come to terms with.  In just a few seconds, your whole life changes, and things that meant a lot to you suddenly don't seem so important. You find yourself reaching out for anything that will anchor to the person you lost.   I imagined that's what his mother was doing when she insisted that she go to the burnt mess of a car, and look for anything of Anthony’s.  The police had told her there was nothing left to salvage but she went anyway.  Michael told me she wasn't at the car for more than 30 seconds when she reached into the center console area of the car and pulled out the remnants of Anthony's bible.   

So, when Michael told me this, I had that moment when my inner self sighed, and before I knew what I was saying, I said ship the bible to me and I'll see what I can do.  

When the bible arrived, I unpacked it, and I just stood there and stared at it for a good 3 or 4 minutes.  It was a large lumpy mess of black, smelly charred paper, but it still had the basic shape of a text block.   I put on vinyl gloves and a respirator mask and went over to the far corner of the shop where my exhaust and vacuum system are set up and went quietly to work.  I removed the tiny piece of cover that was left and set it aside.  There was a barely visible name tag on the front.  I tried to go through the pages that were still somewhat intact to remove slips of paper I had seen, but I gave that up almost immediately as the burnt sections of the pages disintegrated at the touch, but I saw that for many, in fact most of the pages, the burnt areas were more or less limited to the bottom and  fore edge area.  I went back to my work bench, picked up my leather paring knife, a razor sharp blade that looks like a fancy large wood chisel,  and I began to slice and carve away the charred paper sections.  They crumbled off like black snow flakes.

One of the idosyncrosies we do here in the shop is to call the jobs, not by the customers name, but often by a description of the book.  "Have you started Ulysses?  Did you cut the leather for Polar Explorer?  Did you finish Alice in Wonderland?"  

From that first day onward, in the shop we just called this job, The Fire Bible job. 

Now a big problem with anything that has been in a fire is the charred smell.  The high heat, combined with the crazy chemistry of burning stuff, embeds the smell so deep that normal cleaning never removes it.  Factor in the porous surface of paper and basically you have a first class odor trap.   The only way you can eliminate this charred smell is with ozone treatments.  Fortunately, we have an ozone box where we treat smelly books and for the next few weeks, Aaron's bible made trips in and out of the ozone chamber. Between treatments, I kept shaving off small edges of burnt paper that I thought was still  contributing to the lingering smell. I could have just chopped large sections off, but the idea was to save the bible, not chop it into a salad.   There were also attempts to clean the pages of soot and debris,with a Hepa vacuum.  It was during one of these  attempts that I found a perfectly preserved photo and some hand written notes of Aaron's.  Still, despite numerous ozone treatments, there was still a mild lingering smell.  One afternoon, I was alone in the shop and I picked up what I was pretty sure was the title page of the book.   I thought if i could get the publisher's name or the bible edition I could do a google search and see what kind of binding was originally on the bible ands try to match that.

As I wiped and cleaned the page, a few words of the title started to appear, then a few more, and then I stopped.   Right there in front of me was the edition name of the bible.  It was called "The Fire Bible, Student Edition."   I guess I stood there for a few moments with my mouth gaping open, just astounded at the improbability. The improbability that was the name we were calling  this job

That was the moment too when I knew this was going to turn out all right.  I don't why I suddenly felt that, the book was still a smelly mess, I hadn't even started the work to rebind it, but I just knew then that it was going to turn out alright.  But then I thought of another problem, one a little more perplexing.  How do I tell Micahel and Debbie their sons bible was  called the Fire Bible?  Do I just send it back and let them discover it on their own?  Should I send an email, because that is the way we usually communicate with customers.  Should I call them?  I pondered this for the next few weeks, during the time the bible was being finished. When Michael emailed me for  for an update I suggested we do a conference call.  We went over the few remaining questions about the restoration and then I felt myself talking quickly, which is what I do when I get nervous,  I told them there was something I needed to tell them about the bible andI wasn't sure how to say it, and then I blurted it out, "Anthony’s bible edition is called "The Fire Bible." The next moments were as emotional as you can guess, and so private I choose not to write about it here. 

So here we are.  The story comes to a close.  I put a new leather binding on the balance of the text block and from the outside now,  it looks just like any other bible.  Most of the pages are still readable, in fact, some portion of nearly every page is readable.  We made a special clamshell box to hold the bible, this is the way all rare or irreplaceable books are kept and stored and  certainly, Anthony’s Bible falls into that class.  I added a small built-in tray area under the bible itself so the papers and photos I found could be stored with the bible. We sealed them in an archival pouch.  Looking back at the photos of how the bible looked when it came into the shop, I'm pretty happy with the final result.   I better understand now all the problems you encounter with a fire-damaged book. I understand why book restorers cringe and then decline these types of jobs.  I understand a lot more than I did just a few months ago, but I also understand that sometimes I am glad I am not a smart man.

Note: In the photos, I’ve shared here, I have blacked out Anthony’s real name.

Billy Staples and The Baseball Encyclopedia (and Johnny Callison)

In the summer of 1964, and at least until early fall, to be a Phillies baseball fan was to be in heaven.  From the beginning of the season, the Phillies had been in first place only to stumbled and lose ten games in a row in one of the most drastic collapses in the history of sports.  But for a young boy who was baseball-obsessed, that year there were many magic moments. There was the exciting play by newcomer Ritchie (Dick) Allen, a future all-star at third base, and on Father's day, Jim Bunning pitched the first perfect game in Phillies history.  For a 12-year-old boy, it didn't get much better than that.  Unless, of course, you were a natural right-hand batter and your favorite Phillie was the left-handed slugger Johnny Callison.  

In the public housing project that summer, where I grew up, we played baseball every day at the end of Bamberry Terrace, against the brick wall that opened up to a wide field across Ritner Street.   We played fast ball, a game that required a broom handle and a white pimple ball, though, in a pinch, even the hated small pink rubber ball would do.  I wanted to be Johnny Callison so badly, I taught myself to bat left-handed.   Through May and June, and part of July, I struck out most of the time,  but somehow during the heat of August, it suddenly came together and I became a power-hitting left-hander. 

Bill Staples writes about baseball, and anytime he interviewed a famous player he would have them sign his 1993 Baseball Encyclopedia, which he was still hauling around with him in 2015, when he bought the book into my shop for some much-needed triage.  It's true that most of Billy's signatures have come some years past the playing years of each player, but still, it's an amazing book. He would get players to sign the individual stat page, and if the team played in the postseason, he got them to sign there also. Stan Musial, Derek Jeter, Nolan Ryan, Wille Mays, and Richie Allen, were all there. 

The repair work was going to be straightforward, make a new binding, and make a clamshell case to haul the book in so it didn't get damaged again.  There was only one problem, Billy needed it in three weeks to take with him to spring training, and our backlog was running 12-14 weeks.  I hemmed and hauled because I don't like to jump jobs in our work queue. There has to be a really good reason and if I  agree to jump a job, I do so with the plan that the work will be done on weekends so as to not delay the other customer's orders.

Billy understood the problem when I explained it to him.  After a pause, he said,  "Who is your favorite Phillies baseball player?”   I opened the book, searched, and pointed down, Johnny Callison.

Billy said, “If you can get this back to me in three weeks, I'll bring you something I got from Johnny Callison's wife, something right from Johnny Callison's home."  That day I found out the price of my integrity.  I worked the next two weekends. 

Billy Staples kept his word, in fact, he went way beyond what was needed.   When he picked his Encylopedia, with the signatures of all the great players now restored and protected, he gave me five things.  A photograph of Billy and Johnny Callison taken in Johnny's home.  A Topps Baseball card page insert of Johnny Callison, in his rookie year in his Phillies uniform and signed.  A signed copy of the August 10, 1964 Sports Illustrated cover of Johnny at the end of the full power swing that won the All-Star game for the National League that year, and two baseball cards, both signed, one from the end of his career when he played one year with the Chicago Cubs, and a card from 1961 his second year with the Phillies.

The Civil War Bible

On Dec. 12th, 1862,   nearly 500 men of The 145th regiment, Company E of the Pennsylvania Volunteers marched into battle.  When the battle was over two days later,   226 were killed or wounded.  

From the Regiments website: 

"On December 11th, the entire army was placed at the Rappahannock awaiting the battle of Fredericksburg.  The 145th Pennsylvania crossed on the upper pontoon bridge, where on the afternoon of December 12th, formed in line upon a street that ran parallel with the river.

David Dexter King was a private in Company E.   During the shelling near the courthouse,  an artillery shell exploded near him and a piece struck him in the chest, right above the heart.   Somehow, in the chaos and turmoil before  the exploding shrapnel, he got spun around, and the small bible he carried in his pocket flipped over, and there, inches above his heart the shell fragment struck the rear cover of the bible.  Struck in the leg, by the same shell, while waiting for medical aid, he must have told everyone about the bible that saved his life.  Unfortunately, the leg wound proved became septic and fatal, and David Dexter King died several days later on Dec. 17th. 

We know his story because the bible was sent home, and his company Capt. wrote his story on the front fly page of the book.  Here are his words:

"This book was struck by a piece of a shell, while heroically fighting in defence of his country's union.  David Dexter King, private, Co. E, 145 Regt, Pa Vols, carried it in his shirt pocket over his heart and turned around by the force of the blow, was again hit in the leg, on the battlefield near Fredericksburg, Va. Sat. about noon. Dec. 13, 1862, from which he died, Dec. 17th, 1867."

My customer asked me if I could repair the book and put on a new binding. 

“I won’t do it” I said.  Then I realized he misunderstood my meaning. “I mean, I’ll fix the book somehow, but I’m not going to get rid of the shrapnel damage.  That’s the greatest part about this book.  It’s a wound of honor.”   So we agreeded. 

The balance I had to strike with this bible was to stabilize the binding so no further damaged occurred, yet retain the impact of the shell fragment and the impact of the story. I decided to do just the most basic, conservative amount of work and  re-attach the broken pieces of the rear cover, and to protect the section of exposed spine.  Irecommended the bible be stored in a specially made clam shell box.   This is one those books when you are working on it, that you know is not esepcailly valuable in dollars terms, but which you hold with a certain reverence, for what it meant to David Dexter King,  since the Company captain felt compelled to write the story, for his family who received it after his death.  It was for his family that the preservation was performed.  

History, History and Pizza

We have a rule in the shop, no food or beverages at the work benches.  We’re pretty good with it, but like a lot of rules, it gets bent a little here and there, mostly because we forget how damaging a spill can be until one almost happens.

I was away on vacation when a job came into the shop, and was checked in by Madeline and Ruth.  The customer was an elderly gentleman who collected books about American History.  He left three books to be repaired.  The first was a set of two tight back leather bound volumes on the Revolutionary War.  One was was completely missing a spine and he preferred if we could duplicate the first spine onto the second volume, and if that couldn’t be done,  could we make two new matching spines in the period style.

The other book was an autograhph book with a simple worn black leather binding that had come loose from the text block.  Both  Madeline and Ruth were excited because the autograph book had Abraham Lincoln’s signature on the front page. They had reverently place the book in one of our job boxes and waited for me to come in to do the estimate.  As amazing as it was to hold a book that Lincoln had obviously held, it was the pages beyond the Lincoln signature that blew me  away.  On Page 2 was the signature of Hannibal Hamlin, on Page 3 William Seward and then every member of Lincoln’s cabinet in 1862, at the start of the Civil War

Beyond the cabinet page signatures came the pages with three or four per page of every member of Congress. Beyond those, there were pages with the signed calling cards of Gen. George Custer, (from right after the Civil War), Ulysses S. Grant and George Tecumseh Sherman.

I called up the owner and he approved the repair estimates. I mentioned the Autograph book must be pretty valuable due to the signatures and the historical importance. He said, “Oh, I guess so, but it’s not worth anything near those other two books I left. I’ve been looking for Volume II of that set most of my life, and now I have it.” I looked at the books, sitting on the work bench a few inches away from the pizza we just had delivered for lunch. Madeline was just getting out the paper plates and napkins.

“What makes those two books so special?” I asked. He said those two volumes were written by an English General after the war at the request of the King and Parliament, and they were one of the few critiques of the War written strictly from the British point of view. He said there were only three known sets of these books, one in Buckingham Palace, one set at the British Museum, and one set in the Library of Congress. Now, he had the fourth. He was rightfully proud. I was having a stroke. Madeline had just picked up a cheese slice and pizza and was having trouble managing onto the thin paper plate and for a moment it looked like some of the rarest books in the world were going to get a mozzarella topping. After that the no food near work benches was strictly enforced.

The Time Capsule Dictionary

Page 539 Preominate - Present

"Mildred took me on a DC-4 American Airlines plane and Virgie lent me $30.00 for the trip.  I went to NY City on Feb 2nd, '47. Left Tulsa Okla at 5:10 p.m. and onto NYC at 12:05 a.m.  Left by car on Sat. 8th at 10:30 and arrived at Wash. DC at about 8 p.m., stayed until Tuesday, Feb 11th at 4:30 p.m., got to Okla City at 10:30 p.m."

From the dictionary-turned-journal of Ester LaRue Crabtree.

The handwritten words are a story picture frame around the dry definitions of a standard dictionary.   Every page has a snippet of the life around Ester Crabtree in the 1940's. 

"Daddy working on Bordeson's well. Sept 11th, children at school. A.M Majorie and Betty out afternoons ( heat).

Occasionally the entries pinpoint her exact location. "Ester La Rue Crabtreet, 908 S. 2nd Street, Arkansas City, Kansas, June 9th, 52 (wed.)  Washed missionary clothes, mended diapers and blanket, plan to iron tomorrow."

"guy very sick with quinsy and was operated on Wed. Feb. 23rd. I went out that eve and spent the nite returning Thurs.”

I guess the question we can't answer is why did she use the margins of a dictionary for her journal?  Was she too poor to own a regular journal, was this her main go-to book that she carried with her for entertainment and knowledge?   Did she ever suspect the book would  survive 70 more years and be read by later generations?  Would she care that we are sharing her life?  Would that make her happy?

We restore a lot of books each year, but this one is special.  It came to us in horrible condition.  It had been previously and improperly repaired, perhaps as early as the 1960s.  The pages were falling out and most were torn in places, the Scotch tape holding the covers together. 

Madeline spent two full days just doing paper repairs with archival heat set tissue, but some of that time she was just reading it too.   Another half day sewing the text block back together.  New cover boards and a new binding.   We were so deep into this job that I had underquoted a little extra work was not going to matter one bit, so we made an archival storage box for this gem of a book and we sent it back in time for Christmas, but I think the real present was our chance to read this amazing dictionary turned journal. 

How I Learned to Putt - from a Ten Year Old

I gave up golf years ago.  I could hit the ball off the tee, get out of the rough and sand traps fairly consistently, and even occasionlly hit the green in regulation.   I just couldn't putt.   I took lessons from pros, gifted amatuers, and from friends and golf partners.   Anybody and everybody and nothing worked.  It wasn't until the latest book project arrived in the shop that I realized I was fighting a losing battle from the start.  I had started playing in my later twenties and that I found out was the problem.

Sherri Mignatti wanted us to make and bind a book about Golf,  her son Garrett Whitfield had written and drawn in a small spiral bound notebook.   Garrett was ten years old when he wrote the book, but he had the gold wisdom of a fifty year old. 

Here's the opening chapter:

Who ever the putter

is you face the direction

you want the ball to

travel.  Then square

your feet, kness,

shoulders and arms

parallel to a path.

Put your eyes on the

dot or on the middle part

of the club and

point it to the hole.

to make the putter

stroke, get into

your proper alignment

over the ball and

take one last look

at the line.

Take the putter back

with your arms and your

shoulder swing together.

That's how the whole book is written, in a poetic manner.   

Here is his advice on reading a green:

hear is a few

other ways to

read a green.

knele down,

and look at the

greens if you

can’t see which

way it is going

then pretend

your eyes

are a golf cuputer

game and your

putting and

then see how

your green is going.

I play golf myself, barely adequate most times.   Here is what I learned about golf as I transcribed the written text into Adobe  Illustrator for placement opposite each scanned image.

You have to start young, very young. You should not try to be perfect because nobody is perfect.   You should teach your child the rules of golf and never permit Mulligans and gimmees.  Your first putt should always get with a barrel's diameter of the hole for an easy second putt.   You should have an uncle who teaches you all this at ten years of age.  You should have brothers and friends to play with who look out for you.  

I still can't putt and I'm way to old to care.  Perhaps that would make me a better golfer these days. I may have to just take Garrett's lessons to heart and make a trip to the local course early this spring, meanwhile I think the book itself when done, 8 was the equivilent of reaching a par 5 in two so that I can share with you.

We took the original notebook and scanned each page.   We transcribed the written text into Illustrator and place the text opposite the matching image page.  No editing or formatting was done to the text.  It was perfect as originally written.   We printed the pages out on acid free Johannet paper.  Garrett had drawn several images and we used on, a pair of hands holding a golf club for the front cover graphic and another drawing of the 18th hole for the rear fly page.   The cover was done in forest green goatskin, titled in gold leaf.  The end papers were custom designed paste papers depicting a dog legged golf hole.  

This was a fun job, and an educational one.  Here's a few photos of the finished book.

Postilla Super Epsitolas - 1490

Postilla, from Latin for "Post illa" was a word used in the Middle Ages for short comments on individual verses of the bible.  The full title of this book is Postilla Super Epistolas et Evangelia De Tempore et Sanctis et Pro Defunctis.    A loose translation is Notes on the Epistles and Gospels of the Dead Saints.  

This handsome copy was bound in a calfskin? leather, over wood boards, and tooled in a panel design with blind embossing, sewn on four raised cords, with two clasps, now missing.  It appears the clasp may have been leather straps, as peices of velleum are still attached on the rear board at the original clasp location.  Several hand made brads are still present in the boards.  Inscriptions on the front fly page which I cannot interpret. Two hand written inscriptions on the title page, one appears to be a gift note in English or French, the second note with hand written date of 1524, appears to be old latin and is "Ad usum sacredotis Theoderici De Galen, Ordinis Praedicatorum, 14, Octobris Anno 1524."    Quite possibly this person was related to the famous Catholic family of Bishop Van Galen.

Inside the book, are numerous hand written marginalia, but the most impressive feature I think is that the red lettering at the start of each paragraph through the book is hand done in red ink.  

Guest Speaker at Collingswood Book Festival

I was invited to be one of the speakers for the Sages of the Ages group.   I spoke for 45 minutes on book restoration techniques to a very enthustiasic group of book lovers. I had a lot of fun and I want to talk Rosemary Fearon and Margaret Smith Chairpersons for the fair for the invitation and the nice thank you that Rosemary sent.  

   "Thank you again for speaking at our Sages of Ages event.  Based on the comments on the survey sheet each attendee completed - it is unanimous - YOU were the best speaker of the day and I wholeheartedly agree.  Your presentation was wonderful - I could have listened all day to you speak about your specialty."

David Donahue speaking at one of the preliminary events of the 2013 Collingswood Book Festival. 

The Collingswood Book Festival is now in its 11th year and is the biggest book festival in South Jersey.   One of the organizers told me they expect 10,000 or more people to attend the open air fair, held in the downtown area of Collingswood, NJ on Saturday Oct. 5th, 2013.    The fair features over 242 exhibitors including many authors and book publishers. This is the first year we will be exhibiting at the fair and if you visit our booth number is #47.     The all day duty to set up and man the booth has fallen in Madeline, since I will be in Chicago at the Chicago Book Fair.    

At Collingswood we will be exhibiting for the very first time, some of our Harry Potter Clam Shell Boxes and one lucky person will actually win one of the boxes just by signing up for this blog email notifications.   That's a $750.00 value, by we are really hoping a young wizard to be wins the clams shell box.  

We will also have a sign up sheet for two classes we will be offering in early 2014.   One class, a single day event will be for booksellers or book collectors who want to learn how to do basic book repairs.  In this class we will be teaching japanese tissue repairs to damaged leather and cloth, hollow tube replacements, and how to reattach cover boards with Japanese tissues. 

The other class will be Restore Your Family Bible.  In this class, the participant will bring thier own family bible to the class and we will guide them step by step through the repair process and when they are done they will have a fully restored family bible.  

So Madeline is looking foward to meeting people at the fair and next week we'll post some pictures of the fair.  

Jane's Fighting Ships Restoration

Jane's Fighting Ships was first published in 1898 by John F.T. Jane.  This set of three volumes recently restored for James T. Flynn, Jr. are 1908, 1910, and 1912 editions.  According to Jim, a Historian for the US Coast Guard Tug Association, any copy published before WWII is hard to find, and even harder to find in useable condition. This is the third set of Jane's Fighting Ships that we have restored for Jim.  

Each of these books was in need of a cloth reback, and some titling.  For the 1912 edition we successfully  removed the existing spine material with the title intact and after the cloth reback was completed the original spine was reattached over the new cloth.    

1910 Edition Before 

1910 Edition Restored

The 1910 edition, in a different color and cloth material had a spine title that was so damaged we could not save enough to make a decent looking spine if we tried to use what was left of the original title, so we decide to make a new spine and stamp it in the same manner as the old one.   

The last volume, a 1908 edition was missing the spine cover entirely, so we had to duplicate the spine titling, but do that without breaking the bank.  We could have scanned the 1912 spine, converted the scanned image into a graphics file, then tried some computer magic, and finally sent the file off via email to have a stamping die made that would be an exact match to the original, but the value of this book just did not warrant that level of expense.   Instead we used a graphics program and match the font size and style as close as possible, then printed the title out on acid free paper.  This title was then trimmed to size and applied over the new cloth spine, then hand colored and aged to look 100 years old.    We did have a little trouble getting the gold color to look just right on the dark blue background, so eventually it was printed and hand colored to get it just right.   

The Boston Cook Book

September was a crazy month in the bindery, as we prepared for two different book show events, so I decided to go back into the photo archives and pull up an older job that looked like a disaster but turned out pretty nice in the end.

People love cookbooks.   I have one client who collects White House Cook Books. The first White House Cook Book was issued in 1887, and then came out every time there was an executive change in the White House and sometimes when there was a change in the White House Chef.   

But the most common cook book that finds its way to the shop is Fannie Farmer's Boston Cook Book.  The first edition was published in 1896 and only 3,000 copied were produced.  Since then it has become of the standards cook books of our time and is still produced today.   I believe I have restored no less than four copies of this book, including one an original from 1896.  The one I am going to show you here was a later edition.

View fullsize

Here is what it looked like when it came in.  You can't see it in the picture, but most of the spine was present, but the real issue was the tape that had been used to hold the book together.  In this photo, most of the tape is off, but it took over an hour just to get it off.  

The pages are heavily damaged, the cover corners worn and bent, and the text block was very loose.    Since the client wanted to continuing using this copy the book, I told her it would need to be resewn.  

So, I finished taking the spine and spine material off, got the rest of the tape off, repaired the paged with a combination of heat set tissues and glued on Japanese tissues.   I injected wheat paste into the bent corners then cover the bare sections with  a strong paper.    After I sewed the text block I did a cloth reback  and put the old spine back on over the new cloth.   The book was now structurally sound, but it was still looking much like a hurt book.   I used water color pencils to enhance the faded titles, then I mixed a fabric dye to match the original color and I applied it sparingly where the color was most washed out.   Since the new cloth used for the reback was a different shade of yellow, the dye would not change it enough to match, so I had to resort to some arcylic colors and finally made a good match.    Here is the rescued book in all its new glory.  

The Flea Market Find

I took a call one day from a new customer.  He told me he had a book "worth a couple thousand dollars" that he found at a flea market for twenty five cents and he wanted an estimate to get fixed as it was in pretty bad condition and he wanted to sell it.  So I told him to bring it in and I would look at for him, but then I didn't hear from him again for months and one day he just showed up unannounced  at the shop with the book, "A Walk Across Africa" by James August Grant, and yes it was in terrible shape. 

"So what makes you think this is worth a couple thousand dollars" I asked.   

"Well, I saw it on line for about $3,000."   I did a quick search with the shop computer and found the copy of the book he was citing but then I had to bust his bubble a little.   "This $3,000 copy is a leather binding, in pristine condition, with the rare map still intact and in very good condition.  Your book is a cloth cover, heavily soiled, missing the spine, and has the map, but the map is torn in many places and needs some restoration work.  There is a cloth copy on line for $500 without the map, so I guess your book is more likely in that price range before restoration.   If you restore the cover and spine to original condition,  and fix the map, you could ask $1,500 and that would be a fair price."     

Partially cleaned cover

Being a low end flea market hunter, he didn't have the money required to put the book back into a condition where it could command a price like that.  But I had book seller who I thought would be willing to buy the book at the right price and make an investment in the cover restoration.  Laurie Wolfe from Classic Books said she would be interested, but  only if I could duplicate the original spine design, clean the crummy covers,  and print and insert a facsimile copy of page of definitons that was missing.  

I downloaded a jpg of the original spine that I found in a Google search.  Imported the image  into a graphics program, traced it and made two  magesium stamping dies, one for the main title and one for the publisher info located on the bottom of the spine.   Next up I tried cleaning the cover, so I tested a small area for color and  book cloth durability with the cleaning process.  You can see how well the cover cleaned up, but it was never going to be pristine again.  

I selected a light color premium book cloth to use for the reback but before I mounted the cloth, I stamped the original spine graphics in gold, with the newly made stamoping dies and did this while the cloth was flat.   Matching the color and patina of the cleaned front and rear covers was problematic,  because despite the dramatic improvement that came from the cleaning, the overall cloth color was not uniform and still had large color variations throughout.  I used dry color pigments mixed into a wheat paste mixture to produce a "book cloth paint" that would be archival in quality, yet not look painted.   It did take numerous trials before the exact color match was made, and then the replacement cloth was paste tinted to the matching color and then allowed to dry before being coated with a fixative.   The damage sections of the valuable map were repaired on the reverse side with tegujo tissue and archival paste, but not until a small sample of the map was tested for color fastness.   By this point all the hard work was done and the only thing to do was to mounted the new cloth spine.  

This job turned into a win-win-win for everyone.   The flea market hunter made a large profit on the sale to the book sellers, I got the job of restoring the cover, and the Laurie and Craig picked up a rare book with an even rarer map.   

For history buffs here is a short synopsis from Wikipedia.  

James Augustus Grant, CB, CSI,FRS, FRGS (11 April 1827 — 11 February 1892) was a Scottish explorer of eastern equatorial Africa.

Grant was born at Nairn in the Scottish Highlands, where his father was the parish minister, and educated at the grammar school and Marischal College, Aberdeen. In 1846 he joined the Indian army. He saw active service in the Sikh War (1848–49), served throughout the Indian Mutiny of 1857, and was wounded in the operations for the relief of Lucknow.

He returned to England in 1858, and in 1860 joined John Hanning Speke in the memorable expedition which solved the problem of the Nilesources.[1] The expedition left Zanzibarin October 1860 and reachedGondokoro, where the travellers were again in touch with what they regarded civilization, in February 1863. Speke was the leader, but Grant carried out several investigations independently and made valuable botanical collections. He acted throughout in absolute loyalty to his comrade.

In 1864 he published, as supplementary to Speke's account of their journey, A Walk across Africa, in which he dealt particularly with "the ordinary life and pursuits, the habits and feelings of the natives" and the economic value of the countries traversed. In 1864 he was awarded the patron's medal of the Royal Geographical Society, and in 1866 given the Companionship of the Bath in recognition of his services in the expedition

The Fables of Fontaine or 1 + 1 = 1

The Fables of Fontaine are a classic of French Literature, originally published between 1668 and 1694.  Here is a link to the wiki article.  

There have been many subsequent editions, but one of the most famous and most sought after is the edition that was illustrated by Gustave Dore.  So imagine our surprise when Harry, the cabinetmaker in the shop next door brings in his friend, a young man with a Gustave Dore  edition Fables of Fontaine, but the books had no covers, numerous torn pages and missing frontispiece.   Harry's friend wanted a new binding put on so he could give it as a gift to his girlfriend.  I gave him a quote for a new  period style binding with raised bands and blind tooling.  But after he left I did some research on what the original bindings for this edition looked like.  I wanted to get as close to the original as the budget would allow. 

Book as presented

I found several copies on line and realized the original binding was very ornate Art Nouveau design, with a stamped gold Dore emblem on the front cover surrounded by an rectangular blind stamp pattern, and raised bands on the spine with titling. I knew the budget wouldn't cover even the cost of matching that design. 

Then I  had an idea and went back on the internet and found  an ex-libris copy for sale that had the text block falling apart, with some  missing and damaged pages, but the cover was still mostly intact.  I contacted the seller and requested a photo  of the cover, and with that in hand I went back to our customer with a different plan.  

 I purchased the second copy, removed the covers and restored the damaged covers to near new condition.  There was some minor damage to the cover corners but judicuous use of japanese tissues repaired them nicely.  I rebacked the book with new leather, dying the new calfskin to match the original color.   The reback was necessary as our customer's copy had swelled slightly without any binding to hold it together and the purchased copy's binding was just a tad too tight over the swelled spine.  The reback solved that and gave the added benefit of  insuring the outer leather joints would be brand new and not break.   New inner hinges, headbands, and endpapers were added.   I got lucky the original endpapers had deep  yellow color that I was able to match with one of our  stock end papers.      

So two books, each one in desparate shape, were combined to make one really great looking book.  And here it is, an impressive book restored to its original glory with an original binding.    In our business, it just doesn't get much better than this. 

Front cover of restored book

View of Restored Spine with Reback