[DCRM-L] Gathering in 9s?!

[Manon Theroux]

Bowers cites an article by Blanck that might make for interesting reading:

"Jacob Blanck in a recent article on Washington Irving's Salmagundi
pamphlets (1807-1808), which often exhibit the initial gathering in
9's and even in 11's, refers to several early nineteenth-century books
regularly gathered in 9's: see "Salmagundi and Its Publisher," Papers
of the Bibliographical Society of America, XLI (1947), 7 n.6a."--p.
229

-Manon


On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 3:30 PM, John Lancaster <jlancaster at amherst.edu> wrote:
> There are lots of 18mo's gathered in 9s; I've only seen it in American printing - a quick look at the American Antiquarian Society catalogue, using "18mo" as a keyword, turns up several in the first couple of dozen I looked at.  There are at least as many gathered in 12s+6s.  I imagine it is uncommon to find both versions in one volume, though.  (Matthew Carey's Miscellaneous trifles in prose, Philadelphia, printed by Lang & Ustick, 1796, is a combination of 12mo and 18mo, the 18mo part gathered in 9s.)
>
> Typically, the singleton is the center leaf in the gathering (at least in my experience), but it always needs to be specified, e.g. "A-D^9 ($5 a singleton)".  [Sorry, I can't do superscripts in this e-mail program.]
>
> Gaskell, A New Introduction to Bibliography, gives one common 18mo imposition (fig. 61); Savage's Dictionary of the Art of Printing gives dozens, with commentary.
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu on behalf of Deborah J. Leslie
> Sent: Fri 10/2/2009 2:44 PM
> To: DCRM Revision Group List
> Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] Gathering in 9s?!
>
>
>
> When giving my lecture on format in Rare Book Cataloging, I used to say that there was one exception to the rule that you couldn't have an odd number of leaves in a gathering. I stopped saying it because I think it just confused the issue. But you can have an 18mo in 9's, and the only one I've ever seen was a late 18c Philadelphia German imprint. I have no idea how the forme would be imposed. Wherever I read the explanation (which I now cannot find and cannot even remember where I came across it) must not have had a diagram. The alternating 12's & 6's is at least as strange to me.
>
>
>
> From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] On Behalf Of Ann KD Myers
> Sent: Friday, 02 October, 2009 14:34
> To: DCRM Revision Group List
> Subject: [DCRM-L] Gathering in 9s?!
>
>
>
> I have a bit of a conundrum here. I'm cataloging a 1795 Philadelphia imprint (Richard Baxter's A call to the unconverted to turn and live) and the signature pattern I'm getting is: [A]-D¹²·? E-H?
>
>
>
> How is a gathering in 9s possible? The alternating 12 and 6 gatherings suggest 18mo to me, so 9s makes mathematical sense, but not physical sense in terms of how the paper was actually folded. I see no evidence of cancels or additions of any kind and the binding is coming apart enough that I can see the structure pretty clearly.
>
>
>
> To further confuse the issue, while the book in hand has vertical chainlines, the citation in Evans indicates that this book is a 24mo, which doesn't seem like it could be right.
>
>
>
> Any wisdom on this?
>
>
>
> --Ann, feeling very befuddled
>
>
>
> Ann Myers
>
> Special Collections Cataloger
>
> Morris Library Mail Code 6632
>
> Southern Illinois University Carbondale
>
> 605 Agriculture Drive
>
> Carbondale, IL 62901
>
> 618-453-1499
>
> amyers at lib.siu.edu
>

--

Manon Theroux
Head, Cataloging & Metadata Services
George Mason University Libraries