Found a 300 year old book bound in what looked like human skin at a garage sale in Ohio

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Found an old medical textbook at an estate sale in Cincinnati that had a similar leather binding. Turned out to be a 19th century anatomy book bound in calfskin, but the seller said sometimes old doctors used human skin for certain editions (yikes, right?). I checked with a local rare book dealer who confirmed human skin bindings are called anthropodermic bibliopegy (try saying that five times fast). Ended up donating it to a university library - they had the proper facilities to handle and study it. My advice would be to reach out to a university's special collections department, they usually love this kind of thing.

max_foster13d ago

Funny how the weirdest things always end up in estate sales, like life's leftovers nobody planned for.