[DCRM-L] help with note for signature oddity

[Noble, Richard]

Top of my head: Compositors will letter the signatures in order of
composition. Binders will work in  their usual direction--they would be
instructed to arrange and sew the gatherings in reverse order, but they
will want the signature to appear on what is for them the first leaf of
each gathering. The text matters not at all to them (and they might not be
entirely literate in English--binders, or at least their operatives, didn't
need to be the sharpest knives in the drawer).

As for the NT pattern, might the $2 signatures, intended to mark the second
leaf in the same manner as the first, be just consistently misplaced? (This
edition seems not to have found its way into ESTC yet. It's not one of the
8 records with the "ara" code in the database.)

RICHARD NOBLE :: RARE MATERIALS CATALOGUER :: JOHN HAY LIBRARY
BROWN UNIVERSITY  ::  PROVIDENCE, R.I. 02912  ::  401-863-1187
<Richard_Noble at Br <RICHARD_NOBLE at BROWN.EDU>own.edu>

On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 9:39 AM, Cates, Patrick <cates at gts.edu> wrote:

> I'm working on an edition of the Psalms in Arabic published in 1725 by the
> SPCK (ESTC T154998). It's an octavo in fours signed A-2G^4 with only the
> first leaf of each gathering signed. In the usual Arabic fashion, it's
> paged back to front and the gatherings are likewise collected back to
> front--in other words, if you opened it as though it were a European
> language book, you would find the last page of the last gathering (2G4v in
> this case). What's weird about this book is that the signature marks are on
> the last page of each gathering so that the page signed B1 is functionally
> B4v. This is obvious on inspection, but I'm having a hard time coming up
> with a concise or even a lengthy note to explain it. SPCK's 1727 Arabic New
> Testament is signed similarly, but with the added complication that each
> signed leaf is signed on both sides (e.g. A on one side and A2 on the
> other). Any suggestions would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Patrick
>
> Patrick Cates
> Technical Services Librarian
> Christoph Keller, Jr. Library
> General Theological Seminary
> 440 W. 21st Street
> New York, NY 10011
> 646-717-9789
>
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