The KB also collects objects related to book binding. For modern book bindings this includes designs made by the binder or the objects that played a special part in the production. This includes drawings that indicate, in detail, with lines, colours, colour and form codes and sometimes roughly (for example by means of leather samples glued onto the design), what the binding is supposed to look like. The collection even contains a block of wood that served for the application of a very special stamp. Other objects dealing with book bindings are for instance loose clasps, either kept in sets or not, loose pieces of covers (some of which have been found in excavations) and cut and pasted finishings. None of these objects were bought. The designs are furnished by the binders alongside a binding made for the KB; all other objects mainly stem from the Mensing collection, or were donated to the library.
A special kind of object is formed by binder's tools. This includes tools, both hand and press tools, from Proost and Brandt (a permanent loan), tools from the binder Willem Callenbach and a collection of mainly eighteenth century tools. Although with this collection the KB owns an important overview of tools, there is no active acquistion in this field.
Early draft for a binding by the American art bookbinder Jean Gunner (Pittsburgh). The binding was made in 1982. The almost overblown tulips on the front cover and the tulips in bud at the back cover refer to the contents, a book which amongst others deals with the tulip craze in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century (Wilfried Blunt. Tulips and tulipomania. London, 1977. Shelf-number 1770 C 25). The drawing on tracing paper indicates in detail how the pieces of leather that go on the binding ought to be cut and what colour they ought to be (Inventory number Binding inv. F 6). The KB also owns samples of the leather to be used for the same binding and one completely worked out in gouache. For the ultimate result see also: A Hundred highlights from the Koninklijke Bibliotheek.
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