Absolutely cannot believe my luck on this one. One Gary Seven queries the Archivist for information on Smith Premiers and this prompts a late night search for a link to the 1928 BMED PDFs online. This turns up a copy for sale at a very budget-friendly price. Considering the rarity of this item, and the fact that *all* existing reprints and PDFS are partial and low-quality, it was a steal, and I snagged it!
Take a look at the binding – it’s a metal clamp! That means the pages aren’t glued together and I can disassemble the binding and scan the pages flat without damaging the book! :D
Now I just need to find a copy of the 1924 ADBM! If you have one for sale, please let me know. (:
Looks like a fantastic resource.
An amazing find. The metal clamp binding is wonderful – especially for the scanner.
Super nifty! That’s hours of entertainment, that is!
A great find! How many pages? It looks like 1100 or more. That post binding system was used by accountants prior to the 1950s, and were referred to as ledgers and journals. You could buy extension posts to increase the capacity. I assume it was a yearly subscription, and you would get updates for certain sections each month.
yep, over 1000. I think the subscription was the idea, and there was at least one update. Unknown if there were any others.
I’ve never seen metal binding before! Coming from a bibliophile and library associate, it’s truly fascinating. Well that, sir, fell into just the right hands. Enjoy!
Great resource Ted. For how many years were the BMEDs and ADBMs published?
I’ve only ever heard of a 1924 volume for ADBM, and 1928 for BMED, however, I have heard that the BMED was first published in 1927, with the 1928 edition being an update.
What a great find. Publishing and printing were rightly seen as arts back then.