Washable Binding...?

I have an English cookbook (Andre Deutsch) that says this on the bottom of the
front dj flap.
Does this mean I can throw the book in with the rest of my wash as long as I
don't use bleach?

Thanks in advance for an explanation of this unusual term.

Jonathan

i believe it means that after the spagetti sauce gets splattered on
it, you can wipe it with a damp cloth.

I'm sure that's what it means...and, in fact, the binding of this 1954 book
does seem to be a bit water resistant. (Although I'm not going to test it.)

What is of mild interest here is that it is the book, not the wrapper, that is
"washable." It's as if the publisher assumed that the book's new owner would
remove the wrapper before use.

Which brings up a larger question:

As collectors we consider dust wrappers indispensible. But what did book
buyers
(not collectors) in the early and mid 20th century think of jackets? Were
they considered something temporary to wrap the book in while taking it
home...and then to be disposed of?

Obviously this is question asked by someone who has too much time on their
hands...

Jonathan (a school teacher on summer vacation...)

"Jbrodie1750" wrote in message
...
As collectors we consider dust wrappers indispensible. But what did book
buyers
(not collectors) in the early and mid 20th century think of jackets?
Were
they considered something temporary to wrap the book in while taking it
home...and then to be disposed of?

My feeling is that dustwrappers were considered as more or less disposable
by most people until fairly recently, and even now a goodly number of people
probably don't really care what happens to the d/w on their hardback John
Grisham or Stephen King or whatever. I know that when I was growing up in
the early 1970s and had books with dustwrappers I didn't really think of the
d/w as being a necessary part of the book (although when I grew older I
began to appreciate and take care of them more). Now that I value books more
I make sure to keep the wrappers as intact as possible; my husband puts
mylar jackets on every new hardback that comes into the house, which does
make things easier.

I routinely took the wrappers off our son's children's books from the time
he was an infant, and stored them safely away from the book. I didn't
realise how much Tim (almost six now) took this to heart until about three
years ago, when I found him carefully removing the wrapper from a new
hardcover book he'd just received. I asked him what he was doing, and he
explained patiently, as to someone not quite all there, that he was taking
the wrapper off to put with the others so that it wouldn't get damaged.

"Congratulations, Mr and Mrs Roden, you have a healthy baby . . . book
collector!"

Barbara

I know that when I was growing up in
the early 1970s and had books with dustwrappers I didn't really think of the
d/w as being a necessary part of the book

I'm thinking back to the '60s when I was a kid. It seems to me that my
parents, serious readers both, thought of dj's more as an advertisment than
anything. In our house a book without a jacket was a book that had been read,
re-read, and taken seriously. It had passed a test; and the visible sign that
it had passed the exam was that it no longer had a jacket. Perhaps my memory
is exaggerating the situation, but it seems as though, in those distant days,
my family looked upon jackets as being a bit tacky.

Now things are quite the opposite. WESTWARD HA without a jacket is
trash..WESTWARD HA with a jacket is sublime.

How this change of opinion came about is a question for me to ponder.

Jonathan

On 22 Jul 2003 18:27:54 GMT, (Jbrodie1750) wrote:

As collectors we consider dust wrappers indispensible. But what did book
buyers
(not collectors) in the early and mid 20th century think of jackets? Were
they considered something temporary to wrap the book in while taking it
home...and then to be disposed of?

I kmow the question relates to buyers, not sellers, but I was reading
a book of essays by the 1920s equivalent of a "high spot" modern
firsts dealer like Ken Lopez or Charles Agvent, and this guy was
ridiculing the idea that dustjackets were ever going to be considered
valuable. He thought the idea of someone paying a premium for a
dustjacket the height of absurdity.

"R. Totale" wrote in message
...
On 22 Jul 2003 18:27:54 GMT, (Jbrodie1750) wrote:

As collectors we consider dust wrappers indispensible. But what did book
buyers
(not collectors) in the early and mid 20th century think of jackets? Were
they considered something temporary to wrap the book in while taking it
home...and then to be disposed of?

I kmow the question relates to buyers, not sellers, but I was reading
a book of essays by the 1920s equivalent of a "high spot" modern
firsts dealer like Ken Lopez or Charles Agvent, and this guy was
ridiculing the idea that dustjackets were ever going to be considered
valuable. He thought the idea of someone paying a premium for a
dustjacket the height of absurdity.

Sounds interesting...do you have the author's name or the title of the book?

There's an interview from 1992 with Anthony Rota, of Bertram Rota Ltd (a UK
"high spot" MF dealer for many years) at
http://www.sheila-markham.com/Archives/arota.htm in which he says "In First
Editions, fashion is playing an ever stronger part. An author may be in demand
one week, and hard to sell the next. Also, the modern collector is very fussy
about condition. We used to advise people to take dust jackets when they could.
But the market was always underpinned by those who did not care about them,
including some libraries. Now that underpinning has gone, I quite understand
that dust jackets should command a premium, but I am often staggered by the size
of that premium."

Sandy

On 22 Jul 2003 18:27:54 GMT, (Jbrodie1750) wrote:

As collectors we consider dust wrappers indispensible. But what did book
buyers
(not collectors) in the early and mid 20th century think of jackets?
Were they considered something temporary to wrap the book in while
taking it home...and then to be disposed of?
I kmow the question relates to buyers, not sellers, but I was reading a
book of essays by the 1920s equivalent of a "high spot" modern firsts
dealer like Ken Lopez or Charles Agvent, and this guy was ridiculing the
idea that dustjackets were ever going to be considered valuable. He
thought the idea of someone paying a premium for a dustjacket the height
of absurdity.


Sandy Malcolm wrote and I snipped:

Sounds interesting...do you have the author's name or the title of the
book?

John T. Winterich's Primer of Book-Collecting,1928 (p.105) comes to
mind:

"Some dealers and collectors to-day stress the importance of the
dust-jacket which protects a new book, and there are those who go so far
as to assert that in years to come a book will not be considered in
perfect condition=B9 unless the dust-jacket accompanies it. I doubt
whether the dust-jacket will attain anything like that market
consideration, but it does add something."

I included the above paragraph in an 03/15/2000 thread on Condition and
Pricing of Books; btw, the entire thread is worth reading again:
http://tinyurl.com/hu1u

I did not include Winterich's footnote=B9 because it either wasn't
relevant to the old thread or I didn't know how to make the =B9 smaller
three years ago..........so that's how ya do it!

Here is his footnote:
"=B9The absence of the dust-jacket cannot possibly justify describing a
book as imperfect, just as the absence of the cardboard bookmarker which
publishers sometimes insert as an advertisement does not make the book
deficient. Neither dust-jackets not markers are integral parts of the
printed book. They are wholly extraneous to the book, and the absurdity
of attaching undue importance to jackets lies, for one instance, in the
fact that many of them are either transparent tissue paper or plain
cartridge paper which anyone could supply.--EDITOR.

In Collector's Choice, also published in 1928, Winterich devotes over
eight pages (P.30-38) to the discussion of dust jackets. Already, some
dealers were increasing the value of a book by thirty percent if a dust
jacket, in immaculate condition, was present.

Jerry Morris


Welcome to My Library
Moi's Books About Books: http://tinyurl.com/hib7
My Sentimental Library http://tinyurl.com/hisb and moislibrary.com
http://tinyurl.com/hisn

"R. Totale" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 23 Jul 2003 19:09:41 +0100, "Sandy Malcolm"
wrote:

I kmow the question relates to buyers, not sellers, but I was reading
a book of essays by the 1920s equivalent of a "high spot" modern
firsts dealer like Ken Lopez or Charles Agvent, and this guy was
ridiculing the idea that dustjackets were ever going to be considered
valuable. He thought the idea of someone paying a premium for a
dustjacket the height of absurdity.

Sounds interesting...do you have the author's name or the title of the book?

I'm not sure and can't put my hands on it now, but I think it was the
same book I cited in another thread a few months back, "This
Book-Collecting Racket. A Few Notes on the Abuses of Book
Collecting." by Harry Schwartz.

Thanks. That's not one I have (although I do have the one that Jerry suggested
might be the source), but it seems to be relatively easy to get hold of. Harry
Schwartz's bookshop's still in business, I see, with a brief history (mentioning
This Book-Collecting Racket) at http://www.schwartzbooks.com/aboutus.htm. The
title's obviously a reference to AE Newton's This Book-Collecting Game, but, I
hope, more interesting.