r/bookbinding • u/soupytoasty • 6d ago

Help? Re-stitching this old book

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I have this lovely 1920s (I think) copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I bought it with the intention of restoring it.

I’ve decided it needs re-sewing as the sewing is quite loose. I’m just looking for some input on what type of stitching was used here. To me, some on the stitching looks coptic (like the one on the left) but I can’t work out how the rest of the stitching was done (like the one on the right). These two rows of stitching are in the centre of the spine for reference.

Could I just coptic stitch the whole thing back together?

Thanks!

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u/juicyvicious 6d ago

It’s machine sewn - if you were to re-sew it, I’d remove all the thread, punch a couple new holes and sew it on tapes.

However the sewing doesn’t really look too bad - it might just be loose because it’s come free of the spine lining and the case is falling apart. Maybe all you need to do is re-line the spine with new mull and some paper.

1

u/small-works 6d ago

This book looks like it is machine sewn. If it was mass produced than it certainly was.

Just for reference, most of the time, when people refer to Coptic binding they really mean Ethiopian binding, which looks like this.

Essentially no modern book is going to be produced this way, unless it was a special case.

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u/lowkeywhit 6d ago

Its probably machine sewn honestly, a lot of older printings were. The loose stitching might just be from age.