Our restoration and repair service isn’t only offered for antique books. Well used recipe books, fiercely loved children’s books, any precious tome that has found a place in someone’s heart will get the same care and attention as the rarest first edition. 

David has worked on volumes from a number of archives and collections including The Bodleian and The British Library along with working for several private collectors who have sent him books from as far away as Antarctica.

Some books arrive as a bag of pages with only a scrap of their former covers, others are severely damaged, some repaired inappropriately. Before any repairs can be made there may be a period of time-consuming preparation: removing debris and glues, once even gaffer tape from a leather spine, which David was still able to restore successfully.  Pages may need to be mended; a complete resewing might follow.  Leathers need to be pared and dyed to match old covers. Even a fragmented spine can be restored to a book by attaching it to a new leather one.  

If repair and rebinding is wanted without complete restoration David can suggest an appropriate design which may involve simplified tooling and alternative materials in keeping with the book. Successful repairs of this kind have included the addition of block printed endpapers, designed and cut by the original author and hand-written pages pertinent to the book’s provenance.