The parts of the binding

Boards were originally wooden boards which medieval bindings covered with leather and secured with clasps; pasteboard replaced them from the 16th century onwards, and became the standard. The decoration of the binding is set out on the boards: fillet borders, corner fleurons and tools, dentelle borders, blind- or gilt-tooled panels, the owner's armorial bearings and monogram, morocco mosaic work.

The description records the boards by their material, decoration and condition: rubbed, sunned, abraded, stained, 'front board detached'; a warped board or a broken (cracked) board are structural defects. Arms at the centre of the boards make an armorial binding, to be identified; a detached board should be noted, and a binding in which a board has been replaced is a restored binding.

Corners are the part of a binding that suffers first: set down on a table, pulled from a shelf, the corners of the boards are crushed, rubbed and worn bare. Nineteenth-century binders responded with the half-binding with corners, where triangles of morocco, shagreen or calf extend the spine into the corners — the half-binding « with corners » became the standard binding of the bibliophile. Library bindings have corners of parchment or cloth.

For the bookseller, corners are described together with the spine: « half-morocco with corners », then their condition: corners slightly rubbed, bumped, worn, « upper corners of the back board rubbed ». Intact corners on an old binding are a sign of freshness; corners that have been repaired or retinted indicate a restoration that should be noted.

The headcap is the shaping of the leather at each end of the spine: the binder folds the skin over the headband and turns it into a small roll that protects the sewing and gives the spine its finish. In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century bindings, the headcap is full and rounded; in Bradel bindings and nineteenth-century half-bindings, it is flatter.

For the bookseller, the headcaps are the first point of condition to check: pulled at by readers, they wear, split and tear away, especially the upper headcap. The description will read "headcaps rubbed", "small loss to upper headcap", "headcaps restored"; a headcap remade in new leather, retinted, is a restoration that stands out and can be seen from the difference in grain.

Until the eighteenth century, gatherings were sewn on raised bands — hemp cords or strips of leather — subsequently fixed to the boards, which stand proud beneath the leather of the spine. In the eighteenth century, 'recessed' sewing, set into grooves cut into the spine, allowed for a smooth spine; the nineteenth century returned to raised bands for fine bindings, but most often in the form of false raised bands, strips glued onto a spine sewn without them, hence the description 'spine with false raised bands'.

The catalogue entry counts the raised bands ('spine with five raised bands'), states whether they are decorated with fillets or dotted tooling, and distinguishes true from false raised bands where possible: irregular, rounded bands are genuine, while neat, even bands are often false. The condition of the raised bands — rubbed, worn at the head — forms part of the condition of the spine.

As soon as the spine bears raised bands, binders decorate the compartments thus created with fillets, fleurons and small tools, and the smooth spines of the late eighteenth century imitate these compartments with fillets, hence the « false compartments » found in bibliographic descriptions. The head compartment and the one below it carry the title and volume number, either on lettering-pieces or gilt directly; the others bear the repeated fleuron that gives unity to a spine.

The bookseller describes the compartments together with the spine: « spine with raised bands, compartments decorated with a gilt fleuron ». Their decoration, through the tools employed, helps attribute a binding to a particular workshop and to date it; their wear — faded gilding, leather rubbed at the centre of the compartments — should be noted.

Before the seventeenth century, the title of a bound book was read on a manuscript label; bookbinders then took to gilding the title within a compartment of the spine, and later, on dark leathers or those difficult to gild, to pasting on a piece of coloured morocco on which the title stood out. The lettering-piece and the volume-number piece became a convention of eighteenth-century binding and of nineteenth-century half-bindings, down to cloth Bradel bindings, which were given one in morocco.

For the bookseller, the lettering-piece is described by its colour and material ("red morocco lettering-piece"), and its condition: rubbed, missing, renewed. A replaced lettering-piece is a common restoration, but one that must be noted; a piece of a different shade on a multi-volume set betrays a volume that has been supplied from elsewhere to complete the set.

The three faces formed by the edges of a volume's leaves: the top edge, the tail edge and the fore-edge. They may be left natural or given various decorative treatments: gilding, marbling, colouring, sprinkling or gauffering.

The upper edge of a volume when placed upright. It may be left natural, trimmed, gilt, coloured, marbled, or given any other decorative treatment.

The lower edge of a volume when standing upright. Like the other edges, it may be left plain or given a decorative or protective treatment.

The edge opposite the spine of the volume, corresponding to the outer border of the leaves that one grasps to open the book. It may be straight or concave, or bear various decorations, notably gilding or a fore-edge painting.

Leaves placed at the beginning and end of a volume to isolate the text block from its binding and protect it. They may be blank, plain, or decorated, notably with marbled paper. A particular distinction is made between the paste-down, glued to the inside board, and the free endpaper.