Winged Horse Bindery Blog

This little mystery is about a tool I bought earlier this year. It was a pattern I had been after for a long time, and when what looked like a cleaned up 19th century roll with the pattern turned up on Ebay, I bought it immediately. It was a design that was popular on British bindings predominantly between about 1660 up until about 1750, although most popular in the few decades around 1700.

John Paas was born in 1790, in Holborn, London. Holborn, being adjacent to Fleet Street and therefore adjacent to the heart of the printing industry in London, was popular among bookbinders, printers, engravers, and many people involved in the world of book production. The Paas family themselves represented the immigrant success story of 18th-century London. John's father, Cornelius, had arrived in Holborn around 1765 from Germany. By 1783, apprenticeship records show Cornelius working as a master jeweller, but by 1793 he had transitioned fully into engraving and held some important contracts engraving the plates for bank notes. By the time of Cornelius' death in 1806, he would hold the title of "Engraver to His Majesty", there are several surviving fine pieces of silverware and copperplate portraits engraved by him.

This very worn tool came into my possession about a year ago, and has been a bit of an enigma ever since. The image is that of the fish and anchor used by Aldus Manutius when he began the Aldine press in 16th century Italy.

Is this one of the first examples of an attempt at creating a facsimile?

This "Official Copy" of the bible is one of an edition seemingly printed in or shortly before 1914, and there's evidence to show this edition was given out as part of the supplies to soldiers who joined the army around the start of the first world war, but other copies show earlier ownership from the first decade of the 20th century.