⏳ PRINTED ON DEMAND — Please allow 3–4 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. Hardcover binding takes longer than paperback. Please allow 3–4 weeks from order to delivery.

About this book

The 1898 Sign Writer and Glass Embosser by W. and W. G. Sutherland is two trades in one binding — and in 1898 those two trades belonged together. The sign writer lettered the glass; the glass embosser decorated it: brilliant-cut borders, sand-blasted grounds, acid etching, and the glue-chipped and embossed panels that made a Victorian storefront glitter. The Sutherlands teach both sides of the shop, from the sign painter's alphabets and layout to the glass worker's cutting, etching, and embossing processes.

The glass-embossing chapters are the rare prize here. Glue-chipping — the hide-glue process that fractures the glass surface into frosted fern-like patterns — acid etching, and embossed work were the luxury finishes of the saloon window, the bank screen, and the office door, and period instruction in them is scarce. Combined with full sign-writing instruction, the book is the complete 1898 storefront manual: how the lettered and decorated glass of the era was actually made.

For reverse-glass artists and gilders, this is the period companion to the gold-leaf work — the embossed and etched grounds the old glass signs were built on. For sign painters and restoration glaziers, it preserves techniques that the 20th century largely let die, described while they were still daily trade practice.

An antique sign painting book with a second trade inside it. For sign painters, glass artists, and restorers of Victorian storefront glass.

Details: 6×9" hardcover (case laminate), 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This is a print-on-demand reprint of a scanned historical document.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 1898 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 1898 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 1898 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.