Pocket-sized, marbled ledger books.
A series of eight Properly Made Books revisit the days of personal account and note keeping in a practical pocket-sized format
Size - 4½ x 3¼ inches, 106 x 83 mm
THE DETAILS These are made entirely by hand using exactly the same techniques and materials as all of our Properly Made Books, and they're made to last.
Featuring gold tooled leather spines, marbled paper covers, highly decorated foredges, rounded corners and antique ruled paper inside, these elegant bindings are like no other.
The books in this series feature genuine gold leaf tooling to the leather spines, each motif unique.
The patterns are applied with a combination of hand engraved brass tools, heat, pressure, and a steady hand! The board sides of the leather are tooled in a solid line marking the place where paper meets leather.
Beautifully covered with a unique hand marbled paper, made in traditional patterns by Payhembury Marbled Paper, located in northern Scotland.
The papers have been finished in the traditional way - burnished to a glossy finish and sealed with an old school shellac varnish which not only looks and feels wonderful, it also helps to protect the paper from damage and grubby finger marks!
Properly Made Books open flat and even beyond flat, ensuring they'll withstand years of rigorous real-life, every day use.
Would you like to know how Properly Made Books are so flexible? Check out our blog here.
Each book features rounded corners which not only look good, the rounding serves a practical purpose too, helping to protect the edges when the book is being taken in and out of a pocket or bag - there are no sharp corners to bend or catch helping to preserve the integrity of the most vulnerable part of the book for years to come.
Traditionally, ledgers would feature decorative marbled edges and so we've reinterpreted this tradition with shimmering decorative foredges sprinkled in various coloured inks and metallic golden powders.
Inside are 116 pages of upcycled and repurposed ruled paper taken from a huge old antique, mid-century ledger, cut down, folded and sewn into pocket-sized book blocks.
Because we've used larger parent pages taken from a full sized ledger for these small books, and folded them into smaller sheets, each page tends to be lined differently, lending random-ruled character to what would otherwise be uniform and a little bit boring!
The Inspiration - In use for hundreds of years, long before Microsoft Excel and Quickbooks, hefty leather and cloth ledger books were used by businesses across the world to record their financial transactions.
These Full Ledgers were filled with hundreds of ruled and lined pages for notes and account keeping.
Like our own pocket sized marbled ledgers, the large versions often had rounded corners and decorative foredges - this example has lovely marbled foredges. You can see the wear and tear on the leather corners too, showing the book being removed and replaced on a shelf over many years of use.
PROPERLY MADE BOOKS.
Properly Made Books are made over a period of weeks and months.
Imagine how a book was made in the 18th century - this is how our books are crafted. They are bound entirely by hand in Scotland to the absolute highest standard using traditional techniques and only the finest quality materials
All Properly Made Books are LayFlat allowing them to open fully without causing any structual damage and making them completely usable in the field or studio.
Properly Made Books can be found in countless collections around the world including the Met Library in New York City, Harvard and Yale Special Collections, Miami U and many more.
Every Properly Made Book is unique - VPCo never makes the same book twice
MADE ENTIRELY BY HAND IN SCOTLAND
