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The sheets on which the early block-books were printed were not quired, i.e. placed one inside the other to form a quire or gathering, as was done in ordinary printed books, but followed each other singly. In many of the books we find signatures, each sheet being signed with a letter of the alphabet as a guide to the binder in arranging them.

Among the dated block-books may be mentioned an edition of the Endkrist, dated 1472, produced at Nuremberg; an edition of the Ars Moriendi cut by Hans Sporer in 1473; and another of about the same period cut by Ludwig zu Ulm. Of the Biblia Pauperum there are three dated editions known, one of 1470 and two of 1471. A copy of the De generatione Christi has the following full colophon:—

‘Johannes Eysenhut impressor, anno ab incarnationis dominice Mº quadringentesimo septuagesimo Iº.’ Hans Sporer of Nuremberg produced an edition of the Biblia Pauperum in 1475, and Chatto speaks of another of the same year without a name, but containing as a mark a shield with a spur upon it, which he supposes to stand for the name Sporer. Many of these later books were not printed in distemper on one side of the paper only, but on both sides and in printer’s ink, showing that the use of the printing press was known to those who produced them.