This book was not still used as a cookery book, but kept as a curio and a memento of former days. It had been in the family for three generations and obviously used a great deal at one time. The customer wished to keep it to pass on to the next generation, but was dissatisfied with its decrepit state.

My customer had shared this book with both her children and grandchildren, but it had got to a state where it was difficult to look at without the risk of further damage. A patch for the missing area on the front cover was achieved with the aid of a scanner and a computer, the result being printed out on similar paper to the original and the repair made in the usual way. Otherwise the pages were repaired and re-sewn, and the spine replaced with a new cloth piece of similar colour.

This set of books was generally in good condition, but the leather was very dry and showing signs of wear. Some of the labels were missing; others were badly damaged and unusable. Apart from gently dusting the pages with a soft brush, the only treatment required was to clean and dress the leather. I then made and attached a complete set of replica labels, and the set was given a new lease of life.

The original binding was disintegrating and would have been quite difficult, and therefore expensive, to repair neatly. The customer wanted something that would look and feel  as close to the original as possible, but was not concerned about keeping the original binding material. I have lettered the new binding with my own type face, but it would have been possible to have had a block made to match the original lettering if that had been considered important.

This was a fairly straightforward cloth re-back. The most time consuming part was removing the sticky residue of some kind of pressure tape which had been used previously to hold the book together.

This old comic book was worn and fragile along the page edges and falling apart at the spine; a condition mainly due to the acidity of the paper. The book, however, did not warrant extensive treatment and the customer wished to keep the cost of repair to a minimum. I was able to de-acidify the book enough to work on and give it a few more years of use, with a partial spray of magnesium oxide. All the repairs were made with heat-set tissue. The book was then re-sewn and re-cased.

This hard-back paper binding was falling apart and no longer protecting the pages. The spine had gone and the board edges and corners were badly damaged. Lettering down the spine was not required.

The original binding was completely covered with plastic transparent film and was not deemed to be worth preserving. The customer asked me to re-bind the book in a simple half calf binding with cloth sides. It is a hollow back with false bands.