Looked up old bookbinding guild rules and found out apprentices had to bind 100 books by hand before being allowed to use any machine at all

I was reading through a scanned copy of a 1920s bookbinders handbook my grandpa left me. Turns out back then, apprentices had to bind 100 complete books using only bone folders, thread, and glue before they could even touch a press. That blew my mind because I probably did fewer than 10 full hand-bound books before switching to my nipping press and finishing machine. Made me wonder what skills we lost by skipping that step. Has anyone here ever tried doing a whole project the old way start to finish?

2 comments

2 Comments

jones.angela4d ago

Read somewhere that some old school binders could identify who trained someone just by looking at the spine.

walker.hayden4d ago

Yeah man, I believe it. @jones.angela I've seen old timers flip through a stack in five seconds and call out "That's a Martinez bind, look at that crown gap." Meanwhile I'm over here staring at my own work like "that looks fine to me." I couldn't identify my own binding if it bit me.