The fixed version of Mechanic's Companion is back in business. Orders are going out, orders are coming in and the world is happy once again.
If you have a copy missing two pages from the Geometry chapter (23-26) and would like a corrected copy, please let me know and I'll send out a copy free of charge.
Now it's back to working on updates for the Toolemera Press Museum site. It used to be the Free Stuff site, but there were too many people asking for free stuff, so I was forced to change the name to Museum. Annoying, but there it is.
Also, what books to do next? There's the Practical Brewer from the 1860's which is a must. A few others I've been working on and then there are those in the wings. Recent sales, along with comments on various titles, indicates a high level of interest in introductory titles. When thinking about what titles fit this category, the choice is not as simple as you might think.
The majority of the 19th and early 20th C books on craft were intended for the teacher/instructor rather than for the student or hobbiest. While these books hold much valuable information, I'm doing my best to dig up books that address the needs of the student/beginner/average person. So why the problem?
Finding decent copies, or any copies, of said books is not easy. If it was a book for students, they were either used up, messed up, thrown away or otherwise maltreated during the course of their lives. If it was a book for the instructor/teacher, there were far fewer of them published but most often, these books are in better shape. It's just that there are not as many of them hanging around.
Some books were, I suspect, failures and as such are rare but not desirable. Some books were of quality but small and easily lost, printed on fragile paper and cosigned to the dustbin or overwhelmed but other, more popular authors. Mr. Nicholson is a case in point. His books were and are so popular that many can be had at reasonable prices even today. Other authors of his time period often copied his work or attempted to challenge his standing either unsuccessfully or with only minimal success even if their book was as good as or better than Nicholson's.
So what's a guy to do? Why, buy more books of course. After all, I have to buy more books in order to pick out the best ones for publishing, don't I?
Till next, Gary
