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em: Vintage Mid-Century Religious Text / Holy Bible
Cover Material: Hand-Carved and Inlaid Mother of Pearl (Nacre) with Abalone accents
Origin (Cover): Bethlehem, Holy Land (Artisanal Hand-Carved)
Origin (Text): Great Britain (Likely Collins or Oxford University Press)
Era: c. 1945–1955 (British Mandate / Early Post-Mandate Era)
Physical & Mechanical Specifications
1. Binding & External Construction
Front/Back Covers: Features a complex mosaic of hand-cut Mother of Pearl tiles. The central focus is a "Bethlehem Star" design in open-work carving (pierced relief), revealing a secondary layer of shell underneath.
Spine: Original tan leather or cloth binding with gilt-stamped lettering.
Artisanal Note: The text block is adhered to the covers using traditional heavy-duty bonding agents consistent with Bethlehem souvenir production, resulting in a structural lamination of the first three pages (frontispiece illustration).
2. Printing & Typography
Text Block: Printed in Great Britain; features the Authorized King James Version.
Rubrication: "Red Letter Edition," with the words of Christ printed in red ink.
Typography Style: Classic serif font, likely "Clear-Type" or "Plantin," typical of mid-century British liturgical printing.
3. Primary Philological Anomaly (The Error)
Classification: "Fold-over" or "Printer's Out-of-Square" error.
Location: Book of Titus, Chapter 1.
Description: A mechanical misfeed during the industrial trimming process resulted in a "missed trim" on a specific signature leaf. This has left the page wider than the standard margin, requiring a manual fold-over to fit the binding.
Alignment Defect: The page displays a "Linear Ascent Shift," where the lines of text physically slant upward toward the outer edge. This indicates the paper was misaligned on the press bed during the ink impression cycle.
4. Optical Feature
Diaphanous Frontispiece: The first illustration is integrated into the structural endpaper. Due to the high-density adhesive and paper weight, the image is intended to be viewed via transillumination (viewing with back-lighting), creating a "watermark" or "ghost" effect.
Condition Summary
Exterior: Hand-carved shell is in excellent condition
Interior: Features significant factory-production errors that enhance its scarcity and collectible value for bibliophiles specializing in printing anomalies.
