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A customer brought me a book to fix that was held together with duct tape and a wish | Bookbinders - Vivisector

A customer brought me a book to fix that was held together with duct tape and a wish

This was maybe two years back at my old shop in Boise. A guy walks in with this sad looking copy of 'The Old Man and the Sea' that was basically in three pieces, all wrapped up in silver duct tape. He said, 'My grandpa fixed it like this in the 80s and I just want it to look nice again.' I started peeling the tape off and it was a mess, the old glue had turned to dust and the tape goo was everywhere. The funniest part was he watched me for a solid ten minutes and then asked, totally serious, if I could just put new duct tape on but in a 'fancier color.' I had to explain that cloth tape and a proper reback was the way to go. He seemed a bit let down that maroon book cloth wasn't as shiny as his silver tape. Has anyone else had a client who was weirdly attached to a previous, very bad repair?

4 comments

4 Comments

troyknight6mo ago

@zara_sanchez that envelope idea is smart but I gotta say I just don't get the attachment to the broken fix itself.

paul877mo ago

That maroon cloth story hits home. I had a lady with a 1950s cookbook her mom had "fixed" with about thirty rusty paperclips along the spine. She was convinced the clips were part of the book's charm and history. Took me twenty minutes to gently argue that the rust was actively eating the paper, and we could save the stained holes they left as proof. She finally agreed to linen thread, but she still looked at those old paperclips in my trash can like I'd thrown away a family photo.

zara_sanchez7mo ago

A client last year had a bible held together with three rubber bands that had melted into the cover. I showed him how the bands were pulling the leather apart and offered to save them in an envelope inside the new box. He liked that idea because he could still touch the old bands, and it saved the book.

craig.viola7mo ago

Oh wow, that's it exactly. I see this all the time with stuff people bring in, not just books. They get so attached to the broken thing that was holding it together, like the fix itself becomes a memory. I mean, my grandma's old address book had a hairpin holding the pages in, and she refused to let me take it out even though it was bending everything.