Recently, I have been cataloguing the rare books, including making notes of where and which bookcases the books are located.
I recently found the Larousse Medical Illustre', circa 1924 which is delightfully illustrated with numerous colored and engraved plates, some of which are shown here.
As with many rare books libraries, there are always bad actors lurking around who are notorious for slicing the color and engraved plates from historic and rare books.
To do our small part in preventing any thefts, we are making a database of what books are in our collections, and any color or engraved plates are marked on the reverse with an indelible MedChi stamp.
So, as I am making notes on the database as to where the books are located, I am also leafing through them, checking their condition, dusting them off , checking prices, and making notes.
Hello Meg, Those old illustrated books are great. I think that for some of those mouth diseases (the scorbutic one, for instance--I would not have put my finger on that lip) it was time for the doctor to give up the case.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about the illustration thieves. When I lived in Boston, many of the illustrated books in the main public library had been ravaged. I have also been in rare book libraries in which you can only use their notepaper which has a large hole in the center, so when you leave they can hold up the pages to make sure that nothing is in between, although even this method isn't foolproof. I hate it when people buy books to strip out the illustrations, although I admit that when coming across individual orphaned illustrations, I have succumbed to buying a few of them. On the other hand I have bought photos and documents that I didn't really want just to keep original sets together.
--Jim
Agree 100%. I hate going to antiques shows and seeing tons of color plates which you KNOW have been removed from old books. I get such joy out of seeing these plates intact. (Happy New Year!)
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