⏳ PRINTED ON DEMAND — Please allow 2–3 weeks for delivery

This book is printed one copy at a time when you order it. There is no warehouse shelf of these — your copy goes on the press after you check out. Please allow 2–3 weeks from order to delivery.

About this book

Stephen Chalmers' 1916 The Gilding Star belongs to the last generation of gilding books written before the trade's old methods began to fade. Published when gold-leaf work was still a daily living for sign painters, frame gilders, and glass men, it covers the gilder's ground as the working man knew it: the leaf itself, the oils and sizes, the laying of gold on wood and glass, and the shop practice that turned an apprentice into a gilder.

The 1916 vantage point gives the book a particular interest. The craft was at its peak of refinement — centuries of water gilding, oil gilding, and glass gilding distilled into standard shop procedure — yet the world that supported it was about to change. Chalmers writes as a tradesman to tradesmen, in the plain instructional voice of the trade journals of the day, concerned with results: clean leaf, true color, work that would stand.

For the modern gilder, a 1916 manual is a bridge — later than the Victorian handbooks, earlier than the postwar revivals, speaking the language of the shops that did the last great wave of gold-leaf sign and frame work. Collectors of vintage gilding manuals will value it as one of the scarcer titles in the field.

A vintage gilding manual from the trade's Edwardian prime. For gilders, sign painters, and collectors of the gilding literature.

Details: 6×9" paperback, black and white interior, cream paper.

⚠️ Please read before ordering — about print quality

This is a print-on-demand reprint of a scanned historical document. The pages were scanned from an original 1916 printing, and the print quality of your book reflects the condition of that original scan.

What that means in plain terms: you may see faded text, uneven inking, age spots, show-through from the back of pages, and other imperfections that were in the 1916 original or introduced by the scanning process. These are preserved as-is — they are not printing defects, and they are not something we can fix.

We are not responsible for the condition of the original source material. If you want a pristine modern typeset book, this isn't it. If you want the actual 1916 book with all its character intact, you're in the right place.

Printed on demand by IngramSpark. One copy at a time — no inventory, no waste.