Stumbled on a 1950s binding manual at a garage sale

Found this old book called 'Practical Bookbinding' by a guy named William Matthews at a garage sale last Saturday. Paid two bucks for it. What surprised me was that he claimed a good binder could do 300 books a week by hand in the 1940s. I checked online, turns out that was standard in big shops before automated case makers took over. Has anyone else run into old manuals that blew your mind with the production numbers?

2 comments

2 Comments

irisg5723d ago

Tbh it's wild how much we've lost sight of what people could do before machines took over. Makes you wonder what other skills we've traded for convenience that we don't even think about.

evab5222d ago

@irisg57 right? I can barely fold laundry without YouTube telling me how.