Old Books Live Again
Britain is turning old books, no longer of value for their literary contents and once quite unsaleable, into a novel export.
London book binders are ingeniously coverting these old books into a range of library fittings—blotting pads, ink-stands, waste-paper baskets and book-ends.
Old-world looking, many of them beautifully tooled in gold and bearing ornate armorial devices, these forgotten volumes, bound in their day by master craftsmen, are living again in the New World.
Inkstands are made by hinging two volumes together. They can be ieft in the place of the ordinary inkstand on the desk where,, closed, they give an air of distinction. When the top book is raised a two-welled inkstand is shown below. The blotters are made from folio covers, mostly in Russian leather or pigskin, leathers now made beautiful by their patina. The wastepaper baskets are also folios, the covers of two volumes making the four sides. Boolt-ends are composed of three or more books fixed together. The United 'States Is buying these novelties in increasing quantities. One recent order from a single store was for 350 dollars’ worth of book inkstands.
AMUSEMENTS
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NA19411204.2.18
Bibliographic details
Northern Advocate, 4 December 1941, Page 2
Word Count
190Old Books Live Again Northern Advocate, 4 December 1941, Page 2
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