In the course of adding to my vintage paperback inventory, I often come upon books that can be greatly improved through some moderate fixing-up. After handling thousands of these books, I've developed some gentle and effective restoration techniques that can turn G-VG books into gems and Poor-Fair books into serviceable reading-copies.
Here are some before and after images of my recent restoration of a rare 1st of Black Wings Has My Angel, a PBO by Elliott Chaze.
As I received it:
Text block slanted and cracked into several pieces, peeling/splitting to spine and some deep creasing to the corners that were threatening to break away.
Using professional techniques and archival bookbinding materials I turned this into a square/solid, fair-good copy.
More pics from the restoration: 1, 2, 3, 4
These are repairs I regularly perform:
- tipping in loose pages
- fixing cracked bindings
- reinforcing heavy creases
- re-squaring spines
- removing/minimizing spots and stains
- closing page tears
- restoring cover gloss
I have this down to a one man assembly line procedure and can get through large stacks of books quickly.
I don't believe in--nor am I capable of--erasing all signs of age and character, but I do believe in preserving the book in a solid (and potentially readable) state and slowing or halting deterioration.Since I'm doing so many of these for myself I thought I would extend the service to other collectors. Simple book repairs can be done for $4-15 per book. More complex and time-consuming repairs and can be costed out ahead of time.
Do you have vintage PBs that need some TLC? Contact me and we'll work out the terms.
1 comments:
now that's impressive.
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