I spotted this tiger-striped repair on one of our books in our special collections stacks. Looks like a “folk repair”, aka not something done by one of our conservation staff here at the library, but it’s hard to say for sure. The technique used is one we use all the time on books of all types (both common and rare), known as a reback. However, the leather on the boards looks as though it was lifted more than necessary. But it could have also been poorly previously repaired before this repair, which could be the reason why the leather looks like it has been lifted too much. It’s examples like these that make me wish we had better records of our book’s past lives (such as their physical condition when purchased or gifted), and the work of our “mending unit” before we had a conservation lab.

But I do love the effort that was put into making the new spine match the pattern on the original boards!