1870 Family Bible Restoration

I found this broken down beauty in a used bookstore just crying out for restoration and couldn’t resist picking it up for my personal collection. 145 years old, this huge Bible had seen a lot of wear and tear. Somewhere in the past century it migrated through the midwest, picking up newspaper clippings and losing a spine. Probably used mostly for display, the outer surface of the leather was worn almost completely away on the back cover from years of sitting on a table and being scooted from place to place. The leather on the edges had cracked, allowing moisture to seep in and warp the boards, popping them apart. Without a spine, the exposed stitching began to fail and the loose signatures took a beating. Something about the book’s history and former loveliness called to me, though, and hours of restoration later I can see why.