leather joints (Q390)

A narrow strip of thinly-pared tanned skin which crosses the inner joint of a book. Such joints can be purely cosmetic and simply adhered across the joint, or may be sewn-in with the outer endleaf units. Leather joints were often made from the same leather as the covering skin, thus forming a frame of leather around the inside of each board, and were frequently decorated with tooling. Also known as leather hinges. Leather joints, although used in France in the seventeenth century, became popular across Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century. The English binder Roger Payne was unusual in using leather joints of coloured tanned goatskin in books covered in russia leather.