The Ancient Paper-Mills of Basle and their Marks

Monumenta Chartae Papyraceae Historium Illustrantia or Collection of Works and Documents Illustrating the History of Paper. General Editor: E. J. Labarre. VII. Edition limited to 600 copies. First edition, 1958. Hardback. 266pp. Black & white frontispiece. Unnumbered copy from a stated edition of 600. Grey cloth covered boards with gilt to spine. Bookbinder's ticket to front pastedown (hand-boekbinderij van Doorn, Utrecht). The colophon states that the end-papers were reproduced from a design lent by Armin Renker of Zekall, Duren, Germany and the binding by Brandt & Zoon of Amsterdam. As the endpapers are plain white, rather than having a design, and the bookbinder's ticket indicates a different binder from that mentioned in the colophon, together with this being an unnumbered copy, it seems possible - perhaps even likely - that this book was made up from unbound sheets remaining from the original print run and therefore might be a copy additional to the 600 produced for the subscribers. The book is correctly collated and all listed illustrations are correctly placed. In this work, Dr Tschudin has brought to light many previously unrecorded watermarks. A variant of these mute records which flourished in this restricted area for more than four centuries were the ream wrappers and the marks printed on them. This might be termed 'package salesmanship', for with the rise of trade fairs paper ceased to be a mass product but found a greater sale by means of favourably known 'trademarks', first embedded in each sheet of paper as a 'watermark' and eventually printed from woodcuts on each packaged ream. Such publicity soon created competition by the imitation of such marks, both at home and abroad, which the laws of former centuries were unable to suppress. To trace these marks and their imitations, the paper-mills, the papermakers and their relationships has been a work of love and scholarship. Book in fine condition with little evidence of use. A large and heavy book but no additional shipping charges to UK post codes.