Early printed books were sold as binder’s waste until the 1700s.

Evidence

What seems extraordinary to us was that many of these books were incunabula, books from the first age of print, the fifteenth century. The Dominican convent at Frankfurt had flourished precisely around the time that printing was invented in nearby Mainz, so the library had over 1,000 incunabula, many of them printed on parchment. Today, these books would be sold for phenomenal prices. To the Dominicans they were worth no more than the reuse value of the parchment. — Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen, The Library- A Fragile History, 497

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to how value is imposed on books rather than inherent; parallels later passage about rarity being a created construct. — connects to: Dissolution-era library books were used as toilet paper, kindling, and ballast — Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen, The Library- A Fragile History, 248
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen, The Library- A Fragile History, 497