my phone died on this little book hunting excursion (rare moment when i leave my desk) yesterday but i think i found a new contender for oldest book in my amateur christian material culture archives here at the studio. i will show u in this thread below, if u want.
https://twitter.com/owenbroadcast/status/1370478956797890566
technically i think this may be the first fully non american book that is over a century old that i have obtained. cool cover: 
actually i just noticed it says Cambridge MA in here (didnt really look at it yet) so thankfully it is at least in some way american. a few names and even an address, in oxford. should i return it there
on some of the older books on the title pages if you look closely, like for example the R in the center of the first pic, you can see its actually indented, its pressed into the page via a letterpress. this also makes an indentation on the flip sides of the pages:
idk if everyone knows or if its obvious but thats part of what theyre talking about in the american psycho business card scene, that you can see the “subtle indent” from the letterpress as opposed to being printed via a more typical modern machine
anyway looks like the latest and maybe only date comes at the end of the preface (not expecting you to read just showing you the aesthetic). it says 1846 so this must be from at least around then, making it about 175 years old. pretty cool
its cool
a random selection of topics covered
general aesthetic of how the text is laid out:
the binding is mostly fine but its coming off a tiny bit in the bottom front (i have noticed this is common). you can see (i think) that the pages are bound in folios. there is also a ghost, maybe rubbed off, of the guy on the cover on the back as well
theres tape on the back spread, i guess someone tried to hold it together (very successfully). maybe the original printer put it in. theres the 1.5 centuries old address again in the back so, later when i return from dog class i will ask my wife who reads european to look it up
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