[DCRM-L] Strangely bound book: explanations?

[Nina Whittaker]

Kia ora / hello colleagues, and greetings from New Zealand. My name is Nina
Whittaker, and I'm the cataloguing librarian at the Auckland War Memorial
Museum. I hope you are all managing to stay well in these changing times.

I have just encountered the strangest book, and I was hoping someone might
have an explanation for it. It is, all in all, bizarre. It's an 1884 book
(OCLC Number: 5806137): $a Two treatises on civil government /$cby John
Locke ; preceded by Sir Robert Filmer's "Patriarcha" ; with an introduction
by Henry Morley.

It's been case bound, and the top edge is lovely and smooth and gilded.
However, the bottom edge and fore-edge are a mess, because each gathering
seems to be made up of a whole bunch of different-sized sheets, some of
which have deckled edges, and some of which are completely unopened. I
don't think it's a simply unopened or uncut book though, because some
leaves are perfectly cut (as per below), and there are open pages which are
smaller than some of the unopened sets of pages.

There is a consistent signature pattern throughout, with A1-A2, B1-B2, etc.
being signed. Each signature has sixteen leaves, and they seem to have two
recurring patterns.

Unopened/opened/cut/uncut: leaf pattern for signatures B, D, F etc.:

   1. Two smaller, opened leaves;
   2. 4 larger leaves with deckled fore-edges, the latter 2 of which are
   unopened along bottom edge;
   3. 2 smaller pages unopened along bottom edge;
   4. 1 set of 4 leaves, unopened along fore-edge and bottom edge;
   5. 1 set of 4 leaves, deckled on bottom edge and unopened on fore-edge.

Leaf pattern for signtatures A, C, E, etc. (no deckled edges in these ones):

   1. 4 opened and cut leaves, but all of odd sizes;
   2. 2 sets of 2 leaves each, unopened along bottom edge;
   3. 1 set of 4 leaves, unopened along fore-edge and bottom edge;
   4. 1 set of 4 leaves, unopened along fore-edge, inner pages mismatched
   in length.

The font and printing are consistent throughout, but the paper changes with
the different leaf patterns in each signature. I thought it might be a
sophisticated copy, but don't know why it has been bound with the top edge
gilded and neat, and the rest of the book unopened/uncut/mismatched. If
anyone has any ideas or explanations, I'd love to know! This one well and
truly has me stumped...

Sending you all warm and bookish regards from Auckland,
Nina

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