This is a lovely cloth binding from 1849 that had seen better days.

Both boards were detached; the spine was damaged with losses to head and tail; the headbands were frayed and damaged; the front yellow fly leaf was detached but needed to be saved because of the handwritten inscription; scotch tape needed to be removed; the corners of the boards were bumped and frayed.

The general treatment was to reback the book which means making a new spine. I used thin skiver leather that was a good colour match. Covers were cleaned; detached boards were tidied up along edges; damaged glassine guards were discarded; paper repairs were made where necessary; pastedowns lifted; detached pages re-attached with Japanese paper flanges; new hollow made; new case made using new spine and existing boards; book cased-in; original spine piece glued to new spine; finally gold lines were tooled on boards to reproduce the original.