Nelson Signature Slimline KJV

The picture says it all, right? According to the official site, the Nelson Signature series is "bound in the softest, most supple and durable calfskin," and you can clearly see the result: a Bible that can bend over backwards -- literally. These days, the edition pictured (#2019) goes under the title KJV UltraSlim Bible, but when I purchased it back in 2000, they were still calling it the Slimline Edition, so I'll stick with that nomenclature. Whatever you call it, this is an excellent Bible -- and, I would argue, a historically significant one.LUXURY VS. QUALITY A generation or two ago, the fact that a Bible was printed on India paper with a sewn binding and a calf or goatskin binding would have signaled quality. Today, quality has been redefined as a luxury. We pay a premium to get what it would have been unthinkable to omit not too many years back -- and if we do pay, there's always the chance a well-meaning brother will come along and denounce us for our extravagance. So we're left with a strange paradox. By traditional standards, most of the Bibles available to us are shoddy productions, but saying so makes us seem superficial.