The scars of oversewing and a Demco hinge repair.

I seem to rescue one of these previously-repaired books about once a month. Sometimes the original sewing is completely gone, hence the stab-sewing, but in many cases it was completely fine. This kind of side-sewing is particularly bad for books with brittle paper, as the paper’s movement is restricted and it tends to break along the new sewing holes.

The “Demco Hinge” is a kind of product that involves a pre-sewn cloth hinge that is glued to the spine, and then the exterior flaps to both the fly-leaf and the paste-down/boards. It’s often accompanied by a good helping of book tape on the exterior of the spine, sometimes over the existing spine piece!

This kind of repair seems to have been very popular at some time in the past, as we have many books in our collection that underwent this repair.

Fortunately, the glue on the Demco hinge itself is water soluble. It’s the accompanying over-sewing/stab-sewing and book tape that causes the most damage!