Conserving Photos from the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition
The page is from the 1915 souvenir book, Views of the PPIE Prints. I shot the photo while in the process of trimming the pages to minimize damage to the color plates. Note the acid burn (yellow stain) along the edges of the sheet.
The 15-inch VeriChrome Formica ruler was inside an 18th Century lap desk I gave Susan about twenty years ago. Auction sales of similar rulers date them from the 1920s. Print advertising pages from the period state the material was "Made from anhydrous Bakelite resins."
My grandfather gave me the metal ruler in the 1970s. It has a chart of decimal equivalents (in 10,000ths of an inch, not metric lengths) on the reverse. Miller & Stern were "Distributors of industrial, automotive and machine shop supplies, tools, and equipment" according to a 1973 copyright renewals publication by the United States Library of Congress. My grandfather probably obtained the ruler when he was a car mechanic in the ‘50s.
The tools shown are where I set them down to pick up my cellphone and take the photo. The gizmo on the left border is a rotary paper trimmer. The clips kept the straightedge from shifting during utility knife cuts.
Conserving Photos from the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition
The page is from the 1915 souvenir book, Views of the PPIE Prints. I shot the photo while in the process of trimming the pages to minimize damage to the color plates. Note the acid burn (yellow stain) along the edges of the sheet.
The 15-inch VeriChrome Formica ruler was inside an 18th Century lap desk I gave Susan about twenty years ago. Auction sales of similar rulers date them from the 1920s. Print advertising pages from the period state the material was "Made from anhydrous Bakelite resins."
My grandfather gave me the metal ruler in the 1970s. It has a chart of decimal equivalents (in 10,000ths of an inch, not metric lengths) on the reverse. Miller & Stern were "Distributors of industrial, automotive and machine shop supplies, tools, and equipment" according to a 1973 copyright renewals publication by the United States Library of Congress. My grandfather probably obtained the ruler when he was a car mechanic in the ‘50s.
The tools shown are where I set them down to pick up my cellphone and take the photo. The gizmo on the left border is a rotary paper trimmer. The clips kept the straightedge from shifting during utility knife cuts.