My favourite antique shop here in St Louis opens each month from the 1st to the 7th only. This month we made a trip this weekend and they didn’t disappoint.
I found a ledger which is smaller than the ones I usually see, the size is what drew me to it initially and when I saw that it was almost all filled in with ledger type stuff from the 1920’s I was sold. It contains information about mail deliveries, egg accounts and Jessie’s music expenses from 1928!
I bought this fabulous chunk of vintage paper to paint on and put into art journals, but I am not sure I can. The more I look through it, the more interesting it is! For now, this is safe in my collection of old books.
I also found a People’s Cyclopedia from 1890 without its cover but so interesting. It is the D-L volume and full of 1890’s information and illustrations. It still has the wonderful marbled cover pages and the inside of the bindings is revealed as the cover is gone. Each signature is there alongside the cording of the spine and the label and tape with would have been hidden under the cover.
How fascinating is this graphic of ‘The World’ from 1890, from the population figures to the pie chart of races.
I also found the scissors which are pictured, they work well and just need the layer of rust removing!
I hope you had a lovely weekend and found time to be creative.
Happy Monday x
Clare Davis Etheridge 
What an interesting find!
Oh WOW! That ledger is just dreamy. I would have bought it for art journaling too, but yes…it would be so hard to tear apart as well. I see your dilemma. I’m glad it found a caring home!
I have other ledgers which I am happy to chop up but this one is just so precious!
Beautiful finds! I love the binding & marble end papers of the broken book.
I’m intrigued by the world description – what do you think they mean by ‘red’ in the race section?!
Hi Jo! How cool is that book! I just love it! I can only assume that ‘red’ refers to ‘red indians’ or native Americans. Not sure though to be honest.
I have a ton of old books like this and I LOVE them. I use the extremely tattered ones to paint on. 🙂
Yes! I bet your paintings on the old book pages are amazing.