How to know the age of a book
How to know the age of a book
In the post-Soviet period, popularity increasedcollect antiques. In this case, one of the determining factors of the value of the object is its age. In an object such as a book, age by specifying the year of publication can be determined accurately and quickly. But what if the year is not specified? For this, there are a number of other methods for determining the age of publication.
Instructions
1
Collect all available information about the book. If it was kept in your home, ask older relatives about how long the book in the family, when and how it was purchased. This will help you at least approximately determine its age.
2
Pay attention to the spelling. In Russian history, several reforms were carried out, which greatly altered the spelling. Thanks to this, you can at least approximately date the text that you see in front of you. If the text contains such letters as "omega", "Izhitsa" or "yus", then the book was created before 1710, that is, before Peter I approved a new civil font. An exception can be texts created by the Old Believers - in their midst the old spelling lasted longer. The presence of the letter "i" indicates that the text was published after 1735, when this letter appeared. And the letter "e" can be found in books only from the end of the XVIII century. Since 1918, the letters "yat" and "fita" have not been used in the texts, a solid sign at the end of words has disappeared. Certain changes in spelling can be observed in newer publications. For example, until 1956 a number of words were written differently than they are now-devil, whisper, barber, and a number of others.
3
For books created before the 20th century, usedating on filigree. Filigree is a special type of watermark, which was applied to paper as a sign of the manufacturer. Each year, the shape and appearance of these signs changed. On them you can determine not only the time, but also the place of production of paper. The difficulty of this method is that. That he can give only the lower border of dating, for example, that the book was created not earlier than the fifties of the XVII century. But it could be written and published much later, simply and using old sheets of paper. Currently, many catalogs of both Russian and foreign filigree with appropriate dates have been published. These publications are available in the scientific library.
4
For manuscripts, dating by type is appropriatewriting letters. In the old Russian language, you can distinguish two basic fonts: - the charter, featuring a clear geometric writing of letters. In the classical form it was used in the XI-XIV centuries, - half-shell, with more rounded letters and superscripts. Appeared in the XIV century, after 1710 almost came to naught.
