[DCRM-L] Puzzling signatures

[Matthew Murphy]

Hello Barbara,

        I believe these might be "Press figures", which Carter describes in
"ABC for Book Collectors" as:

"Numerals, letters or symbols printed in the lower margins of many 18th
century English books (and a few American) normally on the verso of the
leaf and seldom therefore liable to be confused with signatures. (they are
sometimes found in late 17th century and early 19th century English
books--the Waverly novels are a well known case.) Each press or pressman
was assigned a mark, and these were used for computing  piecework earnings
...."

Hope this helps!

Best regards,
Matt


On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 2:29 PM, Barbara Tysinger <btysingr at email.unc.edu>wrote:

>  Calling on those with more experience than I...
>
> I am cataloging a copy of the 1st ed. (London: J. Johnson, 1771) of  *The
> natural history of the human teeth : explaining their structure, use,
> formation, growth, and diseases*. by John Hunter.  [8], 128, [16] p. 28
> cm. 4to (plus 16 plates, but I'll address those below)
>
> In attempting to record the signatures I notices some anomalies that I
> didn't understand.
>
> First, ignoring the anomalies, the volume is gathered and signed as [A4]
> B-T4
>
> The plates are numbered, interleaved and sewn-in between the leaves of S-T
> 4, each plate facing the page that describes it. From examination of the
> chain lines, S-T4 appear to still be 4to gatherings and not singletons.
>
> The real anomalies are numbers (and an occasional letter) that resemble
> signature marks, but are in addition to the alphabetic sequence above, and
> do not appear where one would expect them to be.
>
> For example, the leaves in signature B4  are marked: B   B2  [blank]
> [blank], as one might expect. But on the verso of B2 is the Arabic numeral
> 6 and on the verso of B3, the Arabic numeral 4. These numbers are centered
> at the bottom of the page, apart from the catchwords.
> This first caught my eye in C4 which is marked:   C   C2  4   7 although
> there are no markings on the verso in this case.
> At first I thought perhaps it was some notation to show cancellation, but
> the 4to gatherings seem to be intact, and with the exception of A4 (which
> is completely unsigned) and S4, all of the signatures have at least one
> of these odd additional markings.
>
> I will happily ignore these extra markings if they are unimportant, but I
> do not have the experience to know!
>
> Thank you, I hope I haven't asked a question with an embarrassingly
> obvious answer!
>
> Barbara
> PS. I am attaching a spreadsheet in which I have attempted to record the
> signature sequence and the anomalies.
>
> ...................All opinions are entirely my own....................
>
> Barbara R. Tysinger                                Phone: (919)966-0949
> Health Sciences Library                            Fax:   (919)966-1388
> University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
> 335 S. Columbia Street, CB# 7585
> Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7585
> e-mail: Barbara_Tysinger at unc.edu
>
> ......."Non pilus tam tenuis ut secari non possit."-- St. Minutia......
>
>
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