[DCRM-L] Gathering in 9s?!

[Manon Theroux]

Below are two additional articles, mentioned in the notes section at
the end of Tanselle's "The Concept of Format":
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/bsuva/sb/

Hector Macdonald, "A Book Gathered in Nines," Bibliotheck, 7.3 (1974), 76-78

Brian Hubber, "Eighteenmo in Nines: An Experimental Technique,"
Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand Bulletin, 7
(1983), 183-186

-Manon

On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 4:06 PM, Manon Theroux <manon.theroux at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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
>