The reback is a bookbinding staple: keep the boards but replace the spine with as little intrusion into the textblock as necessary. The owner of this book is a reader and wants functional copies that open well and look good on the shelf. Often times I am able to retain the original spine and reattach it over the new leather, but in this case it was necessary to blend in a new one, including the labels. The leather was hand dyed and the labels done in imitation of the original using handle letters.
