Buying a book without its case

I came across several very tempting offers for FS books without the slipcase or clamshell case.
The asking price is usually about 40-50% less than the current average.
Since I am not really planning to resell , I was thinking about buying the item in question and making the case myself .
After all it's not that difficult, especially if the original case was not decorated.

Have you ever bought books without a case and what , if anything , you've done about that?

I frequently buy caseless books for the cost savings you noted and then make a case myself. It's become an enjoyable hobby for me, and a creative outlet. I like coming up with my own designs incorporating different papers and sometimes cloth, and creating my own labels, too. As you noted, making the case itself is fairly easy, and from there you can get as creative as you want :)

Not much resalable anyway (in terms of making a good slump of money) unless it`s something special. User `Wongie` displays his books without cases and finds the cases somewhat of an unnecessary evil. He likes his books dressed in the ways of Adam and Eve, I don`t understand it but tastes differ

I am very tempted and very likely to make my own case someday for a special book - even with decoration, and find it can be unique and a special treat

This kind of handy and creative artwork on Folio Society books would be highly welcomed

>1 dar.lynk:
I've bought a few, and haven't done anything about it. I'm not a strong believer in the efficacy of slip-cases. I am considering having clamshells made for those LEs sold with slipcases which are likely to cause damage, e.g. Edda and Riddley Walker. For some LEs made by other publishers, e.g. Fleece Press, slipcases have to be made to order separately by a different maker. I don't fancy their chances left to the tender mercies of Royal Mail and Canada Post, so do without for now. The books are stored on their sides out of the light -- I don't buy books for display.

My secondhand Folio purchases have all come with their slipcase, but I do have a number of Centipede Press books that were published without one that I've been contemplating trying to create some for. I like the idea of slipcase designs that reflect the content of the book inside- a sort of labyrinthine, arabesque pattern around a case for Vathek, for example, or a leafy, kudzu-like design for Karl Edward Wagner based on his story 'Where the Summer Ends'.

I've never been the arts and crafts type though, so I've been hesitant to try my hand at it.

I always buy with a slipcase, partly because I live in Canada and need to have books shipped from US or UK and don’t want bumped corners or a hassle to return the book. When I retire (or when my kids stop wanting me around and I have more free time!) I plan to learn to make my own slipcases for some of my books that were not made with a slipcase.

I love buying FS books without slipcases since they are cheaper. I can make replacement slipcases myself. You are thinking about it, give it a try. PVA glue is quite forgiving. You should get the hang of it after 4-5 tries.

For books with a dust jacket, I like to make a slipcase out of the dust jacket. That way I can still keep the artwork but get to read without the clunky dust jacket. I do this for Centipede press books.

>7 duonkha: Great idea, will give it a try!

As >3 Pellias: points out I prefer my books displayed au naturel. Perhaps you could give the sans-slipcase lifestyle a try too. Who knows, if it turns out to be to your liking then that'll save you the trouble of making them.

>9 wongie: Out of curiosity, what do you do with the slipcases from the books you buy that come with them?

I have a handful of nude folios. The clincher has been for me how much I want the title, and whether the book is sufficiently cheaper than the next cheapest (slipcased) copy on sale / the usual selling price. EG: I got Epics Of The Middle Ages slipcaseless for £20. Slipcased it would have been £40-45. I asked myself would I pay £20-25 for just a slipcase, and when the answer was a clear no, the buy was a no-brainer for me as that in effect was what I'd have been doing buying a slipcased copy. I don't do anything Blue Peter about the lack of slipcase, although I am careful to dust.

I am happy sometimes buying without the slipcases, it depends on the book. If it is a book I am very keen on, then I will pay extra for the protection as I think I will
want it for a long time.
I recently bought the two volume ‘From Dawn To Decadence’ by Barzun without a slipcase (£31 inc P&P), for this I didn’t like the look of the slipcase and so this was an easy decision.

I occasionally buy books without a slipcase, but have learnt only to do this for cheaper and not very attractive books that I want to treat almost like trade editions. Otherwise, not having a slipcase just annoys me too much. My attempts at slipcase construction have not been at all successful. This was a dummy run with cheap cardboard, but my attempt with proper board also didn't work
.
So, if it's a book I care about, I have learned that I need to pony up for a copy complete with slipcase.

Incidentally, the advice I got over at the Fine Press Forum group was to always buy the best condition you can afford and that advice has mostly stood me in good stead.

>10 RRCBS: I actually keep them, even though I don't use them I don't have the heart to toss out something that's perfectly fine even if they are plain and boring. My bookcases are deep enough that I can just hide them away behind the books. For my larger LEs and other fine books I have a dedicated case where I store the bulkier solanders cases. I've sold a couple of volumes over the years that I'd never intended selling so I find the original cases always worth keeping on hand just in case circumstances change. I do believe there's one or two other users around these parts that have no qualms about throwing their cases away.

>13 ubiquitousuk: Incidentally, the advice I got over at the Fine Press Forum group was to always buy the best condition you can afford and that advice has mostly stood me in good stead.

That reminds me not to join, I wouldn't belong ;) My general practice is to buy the cheapest copy I know I'll be happy to live with. Sometimes that results in my spending say £75 on a sparkling copy of a book that can be had for £30 with heavy wear or £3 in a cheap edition, but mostly it doesn't, regardless of my finances.

I've only a few Folio volumes with neither slipcases or dust jackets, I think I'll have bought most or all of those while out and about and without the information to hand as to which the book was published with - they're all old enough for that to be a question.

I never bought without a slipcase if it originally comes with the book I like them visually, they protect the book to a degree (solander boxes are better for the more expensive editions, though). But I have some books by Grim Oak Press which I bought elsewhere and then found that you can buy a fitting slipcase on their website if you order the book there. So far it's just too expensive to me to get them separately due to international shipping.

Does anyone have a website with good advice on how to make a slipcase that doesn't use inches etc. but centimetres and materials you can get in the EU? The ones I've seen were from the US and therefore not very useful.

>16 SF-72: That's what I am going to use: http://www.handmadebooksandjournals.com/create-custom-books/boxes-and-slipcases/...

This set of videos is also very good. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZbEml0uyM4tKqVY-soDaraxo5rZlhg4e
I am not sure where to buy supplies in UK

>17 dar.lynk:
>18 dar.lynk:
Thank you, dar.lynk.

One thing to like about the Library of America is that their books come in slipcases for subscribers but slipcases are also available separately for purchase.
https://store.loa.org/catalogsearch/result/?q=slipcases

I just bought Gulliver's Travels LE without clamshell case for $325 including taxes and shipping.

This will be my first project.

I am not sure I will recreate the clamshell, I like slipcases more.
I do hope I did not overpay... price seemed quite reasonable to me, considering what people ask for a complete edition ;-).

>13 ubiquitousuk: Ohh, that looks quite bad, I m very sorry for the book it was intended for...
Well, I've learned bookbinding at school. I sincerely hope I will do better:)
USSR schools were good at teaching how to make things with your own hands and I assure you no beating was involved.

My experience is that in Folio land people who treat their books well tend to keep the slipcase, so it hasn’t been much of an option to date for Folio books that I have been interested in.

With LEC volumes though, for a related example, for a fine or near fine edition, the slipcase alone often accounts for more than 50% of the purchase price if you work it out based on what is on the market. In terms of use value this seems like a pretty bad deal (possibly hundreds of dollars for some nicely upholstered cardboard), unless one is primarily concerned with resale value (I am not). Additionally, the slipcases tend to be quite fragile if old. I had to take my LEC Inferno out of the (decent condition) slipcase it came in because the slipcase would discharge crumbly paper bits every time I took the volume out.

Buying editions in fine condition that are missing slip case or dust jacket has made acquiring several books affordable for me that otherwise would have been outside my budget for the works in question (LEC The Prince and 1933 LEC Don Quixote, most notably). There is always the risk that no-slipcase-fine is actually not as good condition as slipcase-fine, but so far I’ve been lucky in this regard.

I would absolutely make the same trade off with an expensive Folio book that I wanted, if the option were available. If anyone is looking to get rid of some letterpress Shakespeare volumes sans solander coffin at big markdown hmu...

>16 SF-72: I’m not sure if these posts conform to the metric units etc. criteria, but maybe useful:

• OT: Making a Fine Slipcase


• OT - Slip case making: If I can do it ...

>21 dar.lynk: I would recommend looking through your own collection to see if any slipcase need replacing first. Make 4-5 to learn your preference about how the case should fit, the type of paper, the color. It gives you the chance to collect all the tools before tackling making a case for a big LE.

Then you can enjoy buying fancy books at lower prices :)

Here a photo of a case I made for an LEC Madam Bovary that I purchased without a slipcase

>24 abysswalker:

Thank you, abysswalker.

>25 duonkha: Nice looking slipcase.

>11 Retronaut78: "The clincher has been for me how much I want the title, and whether the book is sufficiently cheaper than the next cheapest (slipcased) copy on sale / the usual selling price. EG: I got Epics Of The Middle Ages slipcaseless for £20. Slipcased it would have been £40-45. I asked myself would I pay £20-25 for just a slipcase, and when the answer was a clear no, the buy was a no-brainer for me as that in effect was what I'd have been doing buying a slipcased copy."

Same here. Often un-slipcased copies sell for so significantly less that I can't justify the cost for the jump up to having a slipcase. With that said - un-slipcased Folios tend to be pretty rare, so I only have several.

I don't think I would for an LE... except the Letterpress Shakespeares because the solander box is just too big. But not for any other LE. But for regular editions? Absolutely.

I wrap collectible books in mylar, whether they have slipcases or not. (they often slide more easily in and out of a slipcase with the covering). Many fine volumes come without them so i don't see it as an issue. Only in the case of a really valuable book where I would be considering resale would it matter to me.

>23 abysswalker:
Re: Machiavelli - there’s a Fine copy w slipcase on Abebooks for 75 USD atm. I guess timing is everything - I have yet to get lucky wrt the 1933 DQ, and there I suspect you’re right to indicate I may never be...
(I agree with everything else you wrote.)

Edit: here’s one on eBay too, though maybe only
NF - https://www.ebay.com/itm/224385930037

>31 DejaVoo: I've also made a profit on some like The Master and Margarita which didnt have a slipcase.

Yes, but have you considered you would have made a substantially greater profit had you kept the slipcase? M&M is a book in very high demand. Personally, resale value doesn't interest me as I never sell Folio books unless they've been replaced with a new edition. But if you're planning on selling at any time in the future the lack of a slipcase will detrimentally affect their value.

Deleted duplicate post.

OK, so I promised to upload pictures of my versions of the slipcases or shells. Since I never made a slipcase before, I chose a simple project.

Bought this beauty for close to nothing because it had no slipcase:


Decided to make the slipcase pretty inside:


The slipcase halfway:


The gold does not show in the pictures, but its there!


Silver paper for outside:


A tense couple of hours and a bit of despair later - its ready and drying:


Well, here it is, my first slipcase :)




The original was blue, I personally like my color design better, but then, I am definitely biased.
Hooray!!!

As for the case design, I learned a lot .
Its work in progress, improvements will be incorporated into the cases which follow, as well as thinner boards, rounded entry, cases with some cutouts, etc....

BTW - If anyone can recommend a better way to share pictures, it would be welcome. I spent too much time on uploading/editing/re-uploading/linking the pictures to the post ... Sigh ....

>34 dar.lynk: Nice job, it looks great! Hopefully the papers used are all acid free. Next time, I'd suggest that the top fold-over go all the way to the end so the seam wouldn't be showing three quarters of the way across but that's a very minor nit.

>35 kdweber: Yes, they are all acid-free. And yes, you are right about the seam:). It was not supposed to do that but I made a miscalculation in measurement and did not want to throw the cut silver paper away. So it will be with the seam on the bottom. Do and learn!

>36 dar.lynk: Good save, nobody will notice if the seam is on the bottom.

>34 dar.lynk:

That's gorgeous, great job!

>34 dar.lynk:
Excellent work!

>39 wcarter: >38 SF-72: thanks!

That's spot on dar.lynk, you should go into business with that.

That looks great! What equipment did you use? Got a few slipcase-less books myself.

>42 Xandian97: bricks mostly:). Just kidding... I watched DAS book making videos from a guy in Australia, and started preparing a work area.
I liked him enough to start supporting his work on Patreon, he deserves it.
Got 2 trestles and peg boards from Ikea for the main table, sanded and polyurithaned a peace of plywood , put a big cutting mat I had on top.
Then got some peaces of wood for press boards, and made a cutting station with a small cutting mat like in his videos.
Board, paper, glues , brushes and some other instruments from Talas.
More paper from Hollanders.
Bricks from a neigbour.
The rest from Amazon and Ebay.
It took me a month to get everything I need and honestly, unless I open a business, I will never get ROI ;-). Think twice !

>43 dar.lynk: sounds like quite an endeavor, but your end product looked great, especially for a first attempt. I recently received a book whose slipcase was absolutely obliterated in the mail and was surprised to see the slipcase has double layers of boards on at least the top and back sides, slightly staggered so as to fit together nicely. Thought it was interesting as I’d always assumed they were just one piece of cardboard per side.

>44 ChampagneSVP: It actually makes sense. If you look, you will see that sides are thinner than top/bottom. I thought they used 2 diff thicknesses, but it it is easier to double the same thickness instead. As I was testing the materials, I learned the true thickness of the boards and now have 2 different ones with the third on the way ( the thinnest one). I guess I will have to open a shop after all :) since all these materials have to go somewhere!

>45 dar.lynk: I almost always use the same thickness boards for all sides of a slipcase but I have done a few where the books were particularly heavy where I doubled the thickness of the top and bottom and yes I staggered them. I've also used a double thickness when I was trying to match my new slipcase to an existing related book (e.g. The Iliad and The Odyssey). I also keep three different thicknesses in stock. Bigger, heavier books need thicker stock. Don't worry about having too many supplies, it gets used up faster than you may realize. I've had to order more consumables many times. You're off to a fine start, I predict you'll be doing a lot more slipcases.

>44 ChampagneSVP: I noticed a few days ago that the slipcase on A Narrative of the Voyage of HMS Beagle (1979) has disintegrated, and was interested to see how it was made - like two three-sided trays, one slightly smaller than the other so that it fits neatly into it and is thus double cardboard on the three edges. The paper seams have split all the way round but I should be able to stick it all back together and maybe re-cover it.

>47 overthemoon: >46 kdweber: Can you post pictures of the staggering? I am curious ....

>48 dar.lynk: Come to think of it I don't stagger because I glue the top and bottom inside of the sides and back spine so both pieces would be the same size. Staggered would be where the top piece was narrower by the width of the sides and spine forming a small ledge on three sides.

>49 kdweber: so staggering seems to be something like this:
one piece , the internal one, goes between the sides and the spine.
one piece, the external one , goes on top of the smaller one and is the width of the internal piece+ 2 thicknesses of the sides and its length equals the internal piece + spine thickness.

Hmm, I will try this design. Interesting...

P.S. I reread your explanation and it seems to be the exact reverse of what I understood :).

I'll post a photo tomorrow (Monday)

ok, hope this works, please let me know if it doesn't (four photos). I think the slipcase would have held together better if it had been glued. But it is more than 40 years old.

https://www.flickr.com/gp/overthemoon/q44H24
https://www.flickr.com/gp/overthemoon/FGWc9L
https://www.flickr.com/gp/overthemoon/bU2jcC
https://www.flickr.com/gp/overthemoon/C65q77

Sorry about all the clutter.

The textured paper that is supposed to be holding it all together has gone brittle.
It was interesting to take the book down from the shelf as inside I found one of those old FS bookmarks with perforated edge, from a postcard, and the pages from a Folio magazine with an article about the book.

>52 overthemoon: thank you for posting the pictures ! It looks like it is a case inside a case :).

>53 dar.lynk: yes, but only the narrow edges overlap; the sides are single thickness. I don't think it's the best way of making one - none of my others have split like this. Unless the sides are glued and a stronger material used for binding it.

I've recently bought an older copy of Moby Dick , which arrived with a split case. And yes, I could see the same double board structure.
I am going to glue the boards together and rewrap it in new paper. To avoid issues with additional thickness, I was able to apply MC to internal paper fringes and remove them without damage.

John Wyndham trilogy, bought on Amazon of all places for $90, without a slipcase, got new clothes.


Very blingy :)

Midnight Folk with Box of Delights, also purchased without slipcases, gave me a chance to work on rounded cutoffs, which I find very convenient.

I also thought that Slightly Foxed books as well as FS collectables, would like a slipcase of their own. I started working on it

>56 dar.lynk: Good work. How are those Wyndham editions? I've been looking for them.

>57 dar.lynk: Terrific! How do you cover curved front edges of the slipcase?

What beautiful work!

So many of the FS volumes come in plain slipcases and the slipcase, invariably, takes most damage.

I shall take heart and have a go.

(PS The Wyndham slipcases are lovely!)

>56 dar.lynk: Amazing job! That must be a rewarding hobby! Really enjoy seeing your pics and great idea about slipcasing your SF books!

>59 Tom9019: thanks. I personally like them even though illustrated paper, used for boards ,is a bit fragile.

>60 NLNils: thank you. Curved is a bit more complicated because the cover material must stretch enough to allow for wider external ark.
You can use glue that is more “watery” to get the paper be more pliable , you can precut perpendicular to the edge in several places or you can make turnovers narrower.

>62 RRCBS: thank you!

>61 ASheppard: thank you. They really are, pictures did not do them justice. The material I used is paper backed film which actually has a range of colors. Very difficult to work with, as I discovered to my dismay but it was worth it.

>56 dar.lynk: Great job, it's impressive how well the colours of the slipcases match the titles on the spines too. Bet that Wyndham set would look very handsome on a shelf next to the Hitchhiker's Guide series, all shimmering away :)

>67 agitationalporcelain: that’s exactly where it stands !!!!! How did you know ;-)?

>67 agitationalporcelain:

>56 dar.lynk: Fantastic skill! These look great! Makes me want to learn how so I can snag some good deals on books without slipcases, but mine would be a mess compared to this.

>68 dar.lynk: Haha! That's too funny, and I was right, they do look very handsome! Now I'm off to buy a lottery ticket ;)

>70 ChampagneSVP: Its just practice, imho - yes, at the beginning things may not be as good looking, but the more you do it, the more you learn and the better you become. With that being said, if your objective is to save money, it will take some time before you would be able to do that.My ROI is probably a few dozens books away and only then I can honestly say I am saving ....
My best project, as part of the setting up this workshop, was to restore a 100 year old book press, which I bought second hand from an E-bay seller, who owns a bookbinding business.
I ended up getting a different press than the one that was listed ( had to go to his shop for local pickup) and then promptly proceeded to stripping the old press of paint, repainting it completely and redecorating.
This is how it looked shortly after I started stripping it:



This is how it looked a week later





Mind you, I had never done anything of a sort before.
Don't be scared to try - get the right tools and materials and go for it.
If you fail, do it again. And again.
You will surprise yourself , I promise you , if you don't give up.