Facsimile
Dust Jackets
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Facsimile
Dust Jackets
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Click Here to see what Vintage Books with Facsimile Dust Jackets I may be selling on ebay
It might be just as reasonable to ask someone who'd lost their winter coat, 'why they were thinking of replacing it.'
Just as their name implies, dust jackets serve a very practical purpose. Books do best and survive longest when they are well-protected against dust, sunlight, and abrasion. A book's dust jacket helps do all these things. I'm constantly searching for books with jackets, but also for jacketless copies of those same editions in order to restore jackets to them. Without question, I have found that the books which have retained their dust jackets are more reliably in great condition. The original jacket might be falling apart, but the book beneath it often looks great because the jacket has done its job. Happily, there are still many, many, many jacketless books well-worth preserving with new jackets.
After all, the supply of books with “original” jackets is pretty scarce and getting scarcer all the time—as the paper and inks are naturally degrading. There are certainly not enough originals out there for all who would like to have them—or for the books which deserve to have them.
So, originals are justly coveted, but facsimiles are a great solution for books that have already lost their jackets. You are giving back to the book what it once had, but lost. You're protecting the book-from sunning, from rubbing against other books in your collection, and you're lending support to all spine edges—one of the most vulnerable areas of the book. AND you are also getting to enjoy the incredibly beautiful artistry of these Victorian and early twentieth century jackets, in the way they were meant to be seen.
All Lady Bluestocking facsimile dust jackets are accompanied by matching bookmarks and are preserved by clear, acid-free dust jacket covers with some ultra-violet protection built-in.
ALL JACKETS ARE CLEARLY DESIGNATED AS FACSIMILES in small print on the inner flaps of the jacket—to avoid any possibilty of confusing them with original jackets—either now or in the future. All reputable facsimiles should be clearly marked as facsimiles. Do not knowingly buy one that isn't marked as such.
Lady
Bluestocking dust jackets are printed on a single sheet of coated
acid-free paper using a compatible archival inkjet printer with an
estimated ink-life of 60-80 years (dependent upon storage). They are
preserved by clear, acid-free dust jacket covers with some
ultra-violet-protection built-in.
Please
Note: My
facsimiles are not meant to boast of absolute perfection in every
detail—but are as near a likeness as I can intelligently make them.
A few of these jackets (especially the Victorian dust jackets) are so
old that there are very few left in circulation at all—and those
often tattered and torn. In some cases small portions of the original
dust jacket may have been damaged or be missing altogether—in which
case I will have done my best to improvise the missing details from
other portions of the jacket, or from similar editions by the same
author and publisher. Feel free to inquire about the origins and
condition of any specific originals.
(By the way, if you are lucky enough to have old books which still retain their original jackets, be sure to preserve them in archival-quality dust jacket covers. Choose only those lined with white paper—to protect your book from sunning in the areas where pieces of the dust jacket may be missing.)
DISCLAIMER:: These dust jackets are not intended for mass production, (either now or in the future) but are meant solely to be an aid to the private book collector for purposes of restoration. It is my understanding that these images have long since entered the public domain. But, if you feel you hold the copyright to one of these images, and object to its use, please do contact me.
I am in the process of making long overdue changes to my website and hope soon to be using a shopping cart, but it will take me some time to get that up and running. In the meantime, please email me about the dust jackets you are interested in. If you are ready to order jackets, include your name and address and what payment method you prefer. I will then send you a confirming email and invoice, naming the jackets and the total amount, with shipping and discounts figured in. Payments may be made by credit card through paypal, or by personal check or money order. (In the case of personal check, your first dust jacket order may be held until your check has cleared the bank.)
Jackets can be resized to fit different editions—other than the one they were originally designed for. In this case, I would definitely need to have the measurements of the height and width of the upper board and the width of the spine included with the order. If you have any doubt about the publisher of your edition, it never hurts to include these measurements—so I can double check the fit.
One good way to start an order or query list is to begin by creating a simple text document or clicking the “Contact Lady Bluestocking” link and simply adding the names of your dust jacket choices or questions to the message as you browse. You can keep that message (or file) open (or minimized) while you browse the entire site--or save it for a later time.
A Note on the Dust Jackets and Their Pricing: My Prices Are Changing
For several years now I have offered my dust jackets at amazingly low introductory prices, exceedingly lower than most facsimile dust jackets on the market, particularly those most similar to my own, with longevity inks and protective dust jacket covers. This was not because I thought my product was actually worth less than the others—or because I thought others were charging too much for their jackets. I simply recognized that my focus was slightly different than most facsimile makers and therefore rather unexplored territory. I priced my jackets at super-low introductory prices to introduce them and share them with as many collectors as possible.
I have finally had to admit to myself that it just is not a viable option to sell the dust jackets so cheaply. So regretfully I will be raising my prices a little, beginning with immediately removing the $2.00 Discount for ordering three or more dust jackets while I make my price changes. Because I was a complete novice at web page design when I designed my website, I cannot think of any easy way to immediately make these changes—other than opening every single page and changing it. So I apologize in advance for pages on the site, which may still suggest there is a $2.00 discount for ordering three or more dust jackets and any disappointment that may cause. For the present there is no discount.
I've made no price distinction between first edition and reprint jackets, partly because I found I was not always sure whether a specific first edition publisher's jacket was actually the first printing, the second printing, etc. I've settled on simply giving the publisher, the year, and the picture in most cases.
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*A Lady Bluestocking Original Custom Creation is not a Facsimile of any dust jacket appearing on any previously published edition. It is a facsimile made by using artistic elements from dust jackets, soft covers and/or actual book covers of the 19th and early twentieth century—connected with the title in question. Like my other jackets, they are made from scans of originals in good condition, printed on one sheet of acid-free paper by an archival inkjet printer (80 yr. inks), and preserved in archival plastic. Their origins will always be clearly marked on ad pages and on the jackets themselves. I became attracted to the idea of creating these jackets in part because of the scarcity of Victorian jackets, and the beauty of many of the softcovers, which often more accurately depicted the clothing and culture of the time in which the book was actually written. |
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First Edition Publisher |
$12.00 each* |
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Reprint Editions |
$12.00 each* |
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Original Custom Creations* |
$12.00 each* |
*Any Exceptions to these Dust Jacket Prices will be clearly marked.
SHIPPING CHARGES: Airmail
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Quantity |
U.S. & Canada |
Rest of World |
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First 4 Dust Jackets |
$5.50 |
$11.00 |
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Each Additional Jacket |
$.50 |
$.50 |
Kandice McCallum. I've been a life-long lover of old books and beautiful images. Growing up, I spent a lot of time reading about, writing about, and even drawing lovely ladies of the nineteenth century. (The “blue lady” at the top of this page is an example of a drawing of a character in one of my stories.) As I grew older I became increasingly fond of mysteries written in the 1920s and 1930s, and the “film noir” movies of the same era which mirrored them so well. No surprise that the elegant, classy noir dust jackets should also strike a chord with me. It was love-at-first-sight.
For many years I worked in a print shop, doing typesetting, paste-up, camera work, and drawing. (It was there I learned to be a perfectionist about print quality).
I began collecting dust jackets in 2004. 'Discovering' how beautiful and rare so many of them were, I soon began restoring the images, hoping that others might enjoy preserving their books, by returning something they'd lost—or simply enjoy the dust jackets as works of art in their own right and fascinating reflections of their culture.
That part of me which wanted to be a writer and an illustrator, particularly loves ferreting out the different artistic examples connected to a literary work. I often design the matching bookmark, which accompanies every dust jacket, using artwork from another edition of the same title so the collector has more to enjoy.
