The oldest tool in my collection?
Posted on 10 December 2025
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.
Bookbinding wheel 1
The pattern had a brief resurgence in the mid-19th century, and I've seen a handful of bindings from then with the pattern on them. However, when the tool arrived I was surprised by a few things - it was a little more naively engraved than a professionally made 19th century tool, however the complexity of the design showed that only a very skilled engraver could have made it. The roll was also very small, less than 2 inches in diameter and had unusual radial lines on the sides of it. It was also quite worn around the edge of the pattern, a lot more than most of my tools.
So what had I bought? Was this a small 19th century tool or could I actually be holding at a rare 17th century survival from the golden age of British bookbinding? I probably got far too invested in the history of this one tool, but I began researching bookbinding tools to try and determine if the roll was a more modern example or if it really could be the oldest tool that I own.
The case against it being original
There were a number of strange things about this tool, so I immediately started contacting a few people who might be able to help me. One of them was the extremely knowledgeable Tom Conroy who literally wrote the book on antique finishing tools (Bookbinder's Finishing Tool Makers 1780-1965).
He was interested in this tool, but did point out a few things that could have stopped my thoughts of it being 300 years old immediately with a resounding "no":
The most immediate feature that flags this tool as not entirely original is the carriage, the metal fork and tang that holds the wheel and would have connected it to the now missing handle.
The current carriage is a short one quite well made from some kind of iron or steel, and Tom pointed out that nearly all images of finishing tools from before 1800 show a much longer tang, often up to ten inches or more between the roll and the wooden handle . This provided better leverage and sighting for the binder. My roll's mount is consistent with 19th and 20th century versions.
an 18th century wheel engraving
So, could the roll have been remounted on a later carriage?
Yes, it certainly could have - in fact it is quite common. This could have been done if the carriage itself became very rusted or was damaged. The roll itself, made of engraved brass, was the most valuable and expensive part of the tool. The carriage was simple blacksmith's work, cheap and easy to replace in comparison. There is some evidence to show that in the past the valuable wheels were often stored or transported without their bulky carriages to save space or keep them safe. I have seen one example of a custom mid-19th century box made to hold wheels without their carriages. I also have in my own tools an early 20th century wheel that is in a much earlier, probably early 19th century blacksmith-made carriage, showing that the reverse is also possible - a much newer tool in a much older carriage.
So if the carriage can't give much evidence to help date the tool, what can?
Size matters
The roll is the smallest of any roll or wheel that I own, measuring barely 1.8 inches (~4.5cm) in diameter. This number is important, and turns out to be a key indicator that the tool is from an older, pre-industrial era. In my communication with Tom Conroy, he noted there was a slow but steady growth in the size of finishing rolls over the centuries, driven by changing economics and binding trends.
Before the Industrial Revolution, brass was an expensive commodity, and engraving a long pattern was the most costly part of the tool's creation. Both factors, material cost and labour cost, strongly incentivised toolmakers to keep the diameter as small as possible. In contrast, a larger wheel was easier to sight and held more heat, allowing the binder to work for longer before reheating; these are the qualities that began to drive diameters up as brass became cheaper. Bernard Middleton in his History of English Craft Bookbinding Technique noted that when the roll first appeared in England around 1500, they were less than 2 inches in diameter. He was able to calculate this number by measuring the repeating patterns on surviving early English bindings.
roll engraving
Tom also explained that the standardisation of English and American wheels at around 3 inches in diameter occurred in the early 19th century. My roll, at 1.8 inches, sits firmly below this standard, and Tom had found wheels around this size in French 18th-century engravings.
My own small collection of antique books provided further insight here. I have a c1675 binding that uses a very similar pattern, and I calculated the diameter of that tool’s impression to be only 1.3 inches. So the small scale of my tool is consistent with the late 17th or early 18th century.
An unsigned tool
So, the small size places the wheel before the 19th century, what else supports this?
One interesting piece of evidence is that the tool is not stamped or "signed" by its engraver. This is a strong indicator of an early date. Maker's stamps and signatures on bookbinding tools only became commonplace in the trade after the Industrial Revolution. This shift occurred because toolmakers began specialising and selling their products widely, rather than just supplying local binderies - as early as the 1820s companies like Paas were selling through catalogues. If this tool were a standard 19th-century tool (especially one as intricately and carefully engraved as this one), it almost certainly would bear the mark of a toolmaker. The lack of a signature again points to its creation before the era of industrialised finishing tool making.
The engraving
Now for the design itself. The pattern was highly fashionable in London and Oxford immediately following the Restoration in the 1660s, and it continued to be popular in Britain throughout the late 17th and early 18th century, and continued in Scotland especially until the middle of the 18th century.
However, the execution is peculiar. I argue that the engraving is "too naive" to be the polished, professional work of a 19th-century cutter, yet the design is too complex to have been tackled by an amateur. It occupies a strange middle ground: the work of a capable, but perhaps hurried or less technically refined - very possible the work of a professional operating in an earlier environment with less access to refined engraving tools.
engraving on roll
Tom Conroy also observed the finely crosshatched elements within the design—the puffballs or stamens of the flowers. This fine, detailed work would have required a specific graver and suggests a costlier, more difficult technique, linking it conceptually to other refined decorative details seen in 18th-century bindings. Furthermore, the pattern itself was generally not in vogue in the 19th century (although there are a few exceptions), meaning that though there is evidence of this pattern being occasionally used in the 19th century, there was no mass production of tools with this design.
Together, this evidence suggests a skilled hand working before the 19th century, far removed from the mass-produced standards of the post Industrial Revolution world.
Radial lines on the sides of the roll
On both sides, there are unusual radial lines that extend from the edge of the roll all the way to the centre where the axel joins it to the carriage. Speaking to Brien Beidler, a bookbinder who hand-engraves bookbinding tools using historic techniques, he suggested that these could be the evidence of filing the side of the wheel at a steep, small angle. This angle was necessary to create a good "sight line" for the engraver, allowing them to see exactly where the graver point met the brass while cutting the pattern.
radial lines on roll
These lines in some places to not match up exactly with the final engraving on the edge of the tool, meaning they could be guide lines engraved by the engraver when they started working on the wheel - guiding the layout of the design. 18th and early 19th tools can have similar radial lines, but these normally only extend half an inch into the side of the roll, there are no other examples I have found of radial lines extending all the way to the axel. This less standardised filing process is perhaps consistent then with earlier production - although lack of comparable examples does not help. It certainly rules out production by a professional engraving house of the late 18th or 19th century.
A bunch of scratches
Mixed in with the deep radial cuts are smaller, unrelated scratches. I initially wondered if these could be practice cuts - small tests made by the engraver on the side of the expensive brass roll itself, rather than damaging another piece of material. I have personally seen this practice on 17th-century lantern clocks, where practice engraving can be found hidden on the back of the dial pr under the chapter ring. Tom Conroy suggested they could be from testing files or from a later repair. Their unusual location, grouped on small areas on the side of the roll, does not feel like random damage from use or storage.
other side of the roll
A 19th century tool
Just after finishing the main content of this story, I was lucky enough to buy another roll on eBay. This roll had more or less the same pattern as the roll we have already been looking at, but with one key difference - this second roll was a 19th century copy. So how did it compare to the previous one?
The size of this second roll was not too dissimilar to the first, it was very slightly larger at 2 inches.
19th century N Hill wheel
That, however, is where the similarities ended. The engraving of the pattern was much finer and much less deep, it also had no radial lines on the sides of the wheel - these were flat with only a few millimetres at the face of the wheel having been cut when the engraving was done. It was also signed, in this case by N. Hill.
The final verdict?
- The carriage could be a later replacement, and does not really help indicate the age of the wheel itself.
- The size of the wheel is smaller than the standardised tools made by the major finishing tool makers of the 19th century, aligning instead with the expensive brass and costly labour of the 17th or 18th century.
- The tool being unsigned suggests the tool is from before the rise of toolmakers who would sell their finishing tools country-wide, which was common in the post-Industrial Revolution era.
- The pattern itself was popular during the Restoration period and is executed with a complexity that suggests professionalism but a naivety that does not match 19th century engraving practices.
- The marks on the side are the ghost of the engraver's process, showing evidence of fluid design changes and filing techniques inconsistent with faster production that occurs in modern tools.
- Having now been able to compare it to a known 19th century copy, the differences were even more obvious. The processes behind making the two rolls were very different.
Considering all of this, there is enough evidence for me to be quite happy in saying this really is a 300 year old roll that would have been used in a British bindery at the end of the 17th century - within living memory of major events such as the English civil war.
Unfortunately, without matching this roll to an exact impression match on an early binding, it is not going to be possible to prove without any doubt that this is an original late 17th or early 18th century tool (and believe me, I have gone through hundreds of photos of 17th, 18th, and 19th century bindings that use this design). I wouldn't be surprised if there are a handful survivors from this golden age of early modern bookbinding hidden among the tools of bookbinders, but many will have much simpler patterns that won't prompt investigation.
I did reach out to the original Ebay seller who had sold me the tool, but they dealt in general antiques and had no idea of the history of the tool or the name of any previous bookbinder who had owned it.
I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to Tom Conroy, who provided incredible insight into the history of early modern bookbinding tools, and to Brien Beidler, for his invaluable perspective on the realities of cutting these small brass wheels.