First pass
Open the folder, set the page down, look without notes. No magnifier yet. Walk away. Come back in twenty minutes.
Methods · Working notes
Paper before ink.
How the bench actually runs. The first pass, the materials, the hand, the layout, the later edits, and what gets written in the report at the end. Short rules. Few exceptions.
Most of the work arrives in folders. A solicitor needs a clean answer for a sheriff. An archivist wants to know if a binding belongs to the body of the book. A family is fighting over a will from the seventeen sixties that was redrawn in a different hand on better paper. I take whatever comes in and write a short report, plain language, no opinions on the people involved.
I do not work blind. I read the provenance after I have looked at the page, not before. If a client tells me the document is genuine and important before I open it, I put the letter back in the envelope and look at the document first. The letter can wait.
I keep my own bench in Edinburgh, modest, a couple of lamps, a stereo microscope from the early nineties that still does what I need, a slow scanner, a long ruler, soft pencils, a notebook for each open case. I do not work on more than a few cases at a time. When something is interesting I keep it open longer than I should.
I have been doing this since nineteen ninety-one. The work has not changed as much as people expect. The chemistry has, the imaging has, the language solicitors use has, but the page itself behaves the same way. Ink still soaks into paper at its own pace. A nineteenth-century hand still leans the way it leans. A later edit still stops short of the original margin because the person making it was afraid of being noticed.
Bench order
Materials
Paper before ink. Grain direction, surface, watermark behaviour under transmitted light, weight, deckle, repairs. Ink behaviour, soak, bleed, sheen, response to a soft swab on a sacrificial edge if the client has signed for it.
Hand
Letter formation, slant, pen lifts, pressure variation, repeated quirks. Compare against known exemplars from the same hand, same period if possible. Never one feature alone.
Layout
Margin behaviour, line spacing, ruling, body text in relation to seals and signatures, treatment of the foot of the page, treatment of corrections.
Later edits
Inserts, marginalia, additions in a different ink or hand, paper added in. Look for fear behaviour. People making a late edit often stop early, copy adjacent letterforms, leave more space than the original around their own work.
Restoration history
Old repairs, modern repairs, lining, deacidification, sleeving, overcleaning. Over-restored material is the hardest to read. I write that down clearly and explain what has been lost.
Report
Short. Plain English. Findings, then reasoning, then limits. I do not say genuine or fake unless the page itself says it loudly. Most reports end in a measured paragraph that a sheriff or a family can use.
What I do not do
I do not authenticate by association. I do not take a case on a tight deadline if the document is fragile. I do not advise on value. I do not appear on television. I do not work on stolen material.
Equipment on the bench
- Stereo microscope, early nineteen-nineties, reconditioned twice
- Two adjustable cold-light lamps for raking and transmitted light
- Long steel ruler and soft graphite pencils
- Conservation-grade sleeves, blotter, weights
- Slow flatbed scanner, calibrated monthly
- Sacrificial swabs and solvents, used only with written consent
- Notebook for each open case, never digital first
Working images
