Leather bound books often become damaged at the hinges of the front and back covers where leather is often thinnest often this leads to hinges splitting and detaching completely. Spines then also become detached and is quite common in 19th Century bindings. Tops and bottoms of spines are very vulnerable to wear and damage due to the way books are gripped and removed from shelves.

We repair this type of damage by re-backing where the spine of the book is removed and the leather closest to the hinges on the covers lifted and a new piece of leather inserted to create a new spine. The lifted leather is then carefully re-pasted on the original spine if reusable. We re-tool missing areas of leather on the spine in gold to closely match the original and replace the inside paper hinges with a strip of paper as closely matched to the original as possible.