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The Collation

A Pin's Worth: Pins in Books

The object you see tucked in the gathering of the book in this month’s Crocodile Mystery is a pin.

Recently, I have become aware of the presence of pins in a number of books at the Folger Shakespeare Library. At one time, curators and conservators removed them from the books and placed them in curatorial files. Now, we leave pins where we find them if they do not risk harming the book or the reader. A note in the cataloging record alerts readers to their presence.

This discovery led me to do a bit of research on pins and what they might be doing in our books. 1 During most of the early modern period, they were comprised of two pieces, the shank and its head, both made of metal wire, mostly brass or copper. Molten lead or tin was used to join the head to the shank.

A pin removed from Folger book F1058

A pin removed from Folger book F1058

  1. Mary Beaudry, Findings: the Material Culture of Needlework and Sewing. New Haven: Yale University Press, c2006.
  2. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. London: : Printed for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell, in the Strand., 1776.
  3. See, for example, this article on Jane Austen’s use of pins in her editing process.
  4. John Foxe, The First Volume of the Ecclesiasticall History, Contayning the Actes [and] Monumentes of Thinges … London: John Day, 1576, second edition, STC 11224. Unfortunately, these pins were removed in 1946 and it has not been possible to identify to which of the two Folger copies of this book, they belonged.

Comments

Very interesting, I have never seen a pin used for these purposes.

Jan Kellett — August 4, 2015

Reply

Great post! Pins and books have a long history that is yet to be written, from using pins and a Bible to tell the future to playing games in reading instruction (or pointing to the passage to be read aloud as in the Chardin painting) Leaving them where they are is a good idea.

Andrea Immel — August 5, 2015

Reply

Thank you, Andrea, for pointing to other uses of pins in books (I had never noticed the pin in Chardin’s painting before).

Caroline Duroselle-Melish — August 10, 2015

Reply

Fantastic post. Are we able to reliably date some of these pins? I’ve often wondered how old a pin holding a volvelle down or otherwise stuck in a book is. You mention that the detatchable head may indicate pre-19th century. Are there other ways to tell what era a pin might be from?

Laura Aydelotte — August 10, 2015

Reply

Thank you for your comment Laura. Mary Beaudry indicates that it is difficult to date pins precisely as they were made the same way throughout the early modern period. I suppose that testing their metal composition could help with a more precise dating. Meanwhile the best indication of a pin’s date is whether or not it is composed of one or two pieces.

Caroline Duroselle-Melish — August 10, 2015

Reply

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