The publisher Taschen, known for its art and photo books, had a massive sale recently. That included discounting its facsimile copy of the Gutenberg Bible that’s in Göttingen, Germany—considered one of the best-condition and decorated ones on vellum, or calfskin—edited by Stephan Füssel, the director of the Institute for Book Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz. Normally $150, the sale dropped it to $60—plus $10 shipping, a bargain for a sixteen pound (7.25 kg) book!

It’s slightly smaller than the original 42-line Bible that paved the way for all European printing that followed and eventually printing worldwide. I was just coming off an intensive week-long class studying the context of what’s called “B42” with two fantastic instructors: Elizabeth Savage, a scholar based in London of early printed works, and author of (among other works) Early Colour Printing: German Renaissance Woodcuts at the British Museum; and Eric White, the curator at Princeton of the Scheide Library of early printed works and the author of a book massive in its own right digging into B42, Editio Princeps: A History of the Gutenberg Bible, which I bought to go along with the class.

Anyway, it arrived, and my unboxing (auspacken?) caused some mirth for me and Lynn.