Quote:
Originally Posted by crich70
I'm assuming you're joking since the Gutenberg Bible was never hand written. He printed up some 200 copies as I understand and only 48 of them are still known to exist. Usually in museum collections and under environmentally controlled conditions to help preserve them as he didn't know of acid free paper.
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Actually, all books before the late 19th century were printed on acid free paper. Acidic paper came about as a consequence of large scale industrial paper manufacturing processes developed at that time - which is why books from 1800 are often in better shape than books from 1900.
My school's rare book library had a Gutenberg bible in a special display case (they turned a page each day); it was less yellowed that paperbacks I bought in the 80's.
However, there are a lot of other factors, especially humidity, that can affect old paper.