Restoring an old book - GIF

[Inner]

As someone who has done this work longer than she's been alive, I say job well done!

Perhaps of historical interest:

(a) The false "hubs" or "bands" she used on the spine (the strips of leather) may or may not have been original. These hubs organically came about from covering a book sewn on cords or bands. In this example neither are used and the spine is naturally flat hence the need for false hubs This also leads to her doing a 'case style' binding (from roughly the industrial revolution timeframe) versus a leather over boards attached to the text block.

(b) The use of a magnesium blocking die to do the gold tooling is very modern. Although brass/copper dies were not unknown, most fine binding of the time was done with individual tools. Each panel between the hubs would show some variation. Imitation gold foil on a roll was not used, but rather genuine gold leaf (although that can be put on a roll as well) involving many more steps not shown.

(c) I could go on, but regardless she's done a nice modern job. She'd never make it as a counterfeiter but it will look great on a bookshelf! And very few people today want to pay 10 times more than what she'd charge just for the sake of historical accuracy.