Half calf, and why the trade named a binding after a compromise
HalfCalf news Updated Thursdays
A Melbourne sale where the estimates said more than the results
Sixty-one lots of colonial Australiana, a third bought in, and a pattern in what did sell that says something about where the market has gone since 2019.
The bookplate that turned out to be the fourth owner, not the first
Provenance runs backwards more often than collectors assume. A worked example from a copy that changed hands four times in ninety years.
Foxing is not mould, and the difference matters when you buy
Publisher’s cloth: dating a book by its case
Buying from a stack: what to check in ninety seconds
Fair season: how the good stock moves before ten o’clock
From the pages of HalfCalf
Collectors on what they stopped buying
Six readers on the shelf they abandoned, and what they learned from having done it.
What half calf was for
A binding invented to look like more money than it cost, and how to tell it from full calf at arm’s length.
The fore-edge tells you more than the spine
Where to look first when a photograph is all you have to go on.