Bible Design and Binding

HTML in Comments

I've made a couple of changes to the blog -- minor things that will hopefully improve the experience for us all. First, I figured out how to allow 'limited HTML' (Typepad's term, not mine) in the comments, which means you should be able to create hyperlinks the old-fashioned way, use bold and italics, and what not.

Also, remember when those funny, microscopic arrows showed up and suddenly it was next-to-impossible to figure out where the comments had gone? The little arrows led to extra pages, but they were hard to see (and still are). Well, it turns out I have the option of adding text beside them, so I did that, which should make it easier to navigate through some of the really lengthy comment-heavy posts.

So give in a whirl! And as always, thanks for dropping by.

NASB In Touch Ministries Wide Margin Edition in Blue Calfskin

flop, originally uploaded by blairbw6.

Brian Blair has posted photos of his NASB In Touch Ministries Wide Margin Edition in Blue Calfskin to Flickr, including the one seen here, which demonstrates the limp binding. Here's what he has to say about it:

"It features a one inch wide margin around the text, Concordance, Maps, Presentation Page, Verse Format, Black Letter, Two Column Text. It is 10 x 7" with 1150pp OT and 336pp in the NT. The one thing to say first about it is that it is limp or maybe liquid would be a better word - especially for such a large Bible. In fact it makes it quite a difficult Bible to carry in one hand, one has to hold it like a clothes peg in the hand or close to the body. The leather is quite spongy as the covers seem to have no support in them - you can roll them up from the corners. The margins are decent and the pages bright and substancial enough for highlighting and notetaking without too much see-through."

I'd heard about these before, but this is the first time I've seen what they look like. Pretty interesting, I'd say. Thanks, Brian, for letting us have a look!

Cambridge Cameo KJV with Apocrypha in Red Morocco

No, it's not on my shelf (sadly). It's an auction on eBay that still has a few days to go:

Cambridge Cameo Reference Bible KJV Morocco Apocrypha

This KJV Cameo edition includes the Apocrypha, which is pretty rare, and it's bound in beautiful red French Morocco. Unlike today's morocco bindings from Cambridge, which are sometimes rather stiff, the vintage ones seem to always be thin and flexible. Not surprisingly, the bidding on this one is already upwards of $80. The condition looks pretty good.

One of the topics I'm always getting e-mail about is where to find vintage Cambridge editions. The ideal is to find some "new old stock" sitting in a bookstore somewhere, but eBay is a more realistic option for most of us. And every once in awhile a gem like this comes along. Check it out!

Glimpse: Holman Legacy KJV

Another out-of-print gem: the Holman Legacy KJV. It's a Holman UltraThin Large Print Reference Bible bound in black, hand-finished morocco with a leather lining. The measurements are 6.75 x 9.5 x .8 inches, making it slightly wider and an inch taller than a Thinline ESV. It has two ribbons, generous in length.

Did I mention it's kind of flexible?

Glimpse: Cambridge Loose-Leaf KJV

I'm not a socialist, but I sometimes wish the US government would take charge of the cellular networks, so that we'd get coverage wherever there happen to be roads and competition would focus on building better phones rather than spinning off redundant (and incomplete) networks. Whenever I float this theory -- usually while driving through someplace like Montana where AT&T doesn't seem to think cellular reception is needed -- it usually gets shot down. Even I don't agree with myself entirely, because this rationale sounds a little bit like the argument for why we should only have one Bible translation. And I happen to think that in a multitude of counselors there is wisdom.

But there's no denying that when the Authorized Version rules the waves, diversity held sway in the realm of design and binding. Instead of forty translations, each available in black and purple plastic, there were a variety of formats that seems utterly decadent in retrospect. Perfect example: the loose-leaf Bible.

Glimpse: New Geneva Study Bible NKJV

File this one under nostalgia. In my recent move, I discovered a box of older Bibles I haven't seen in a couple of years, including my original copy of the New Geneva Study Bible, the precursor to today's Reformation Study Bible. I bought it at a Ligonier Conference when they first came out. The layout was a turn-off, of course. Desktop publishing was still fresh back then, and people hadn't figured out that being able to put grayscale boxes behind everything was no excuse for actually doing it. Still, re-acquainting myself with the New Geneva, I'm impressed how pleasant the genuine leather of yesterday was. What happened in the last fifteen years? Did all the cows turn into cardboard?

Glimpse: The Great News NIV New Testament

A lot of thrift store bookshelves are downright depressing: rows of cracked spines and garish mass-market paperbacks from yesteryear. But I came across this little volume in one, and my spirits were buoyed. It's the NIV New Testament in a format obviously designed for outreach (you can tell because of all the clip-art people, who send the subliminal message that "this book is for everyone").

Glimpse: 1599 Geneva Bible Facsimile in "Rembrandt" Leather

This has to be one of the oddest volumes on my shelf: a massive facsimile of the 1599 Geneva Bible bound in thick, unlined brown leather with a heavy-duty buckled strap to keep it cinched tight. It looks like the sort of thing a modern-day Friar Tuck might carry to the Renaissance Festival. At the time, I thought it would be cool. I planned to carry it with me everywhere. But the size and weight of the thing, combined with my wife's good judgment, modified that plan. Still, I like to take it down every so often and flip through the pages. The modern edition of the Geneva Bible from Tolle Lege is much easier to read, but I appreciate the look and feel of the facsimile. (Even if the unlined cover has a tendency to shed all over the place!)

More Brown Goatskin Snapshots

One of the reasons I was so excited about the KJV Pitt Minion in brown goatskin was that it would match, more or less, my enlarged edition of the Book of Common Prayer, also in brown goat (albeit not as high a quality). I shared photos of the Pitt Minion earlier, but forget to take any of the KJV/BCP combo. So here they are:

Glimpse: Two Vintage KJVs

Over the summer, my wife and I moved into a new house -- really, an old house -- and I've set up a permanent photo studio in the basement, which means it's easier than ever to snap pictures of Bibles. Who benefits? You do! I'm inaugurating a new feature, 'eye candy' with a twist. I'm calling this category Glimpse, because I'll use it to share volumes I don't plan to review in full, but would like to do a bit more with than just post a random photo.

Above: Two vintage Bibles, side by side, representing the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth.

We'll begin with a couple of vintage KJVs. A reader was kind enough to send me a box of various editions, including this pair of compact Bibles. One is a hardback Cambridge edition dated 1870 on the title page, which originally came with a clasp (now missing) to keep it closed, and the other is a very limp Oxford Self-Pronouncing Bible ("Brevier 16mo Black-face") inscribed 1936 inside the cover.