KJV Clarion Reference Bible, Black Edge-lined Goatskin Leather, KJ486:XE Black Goatskin Leather

It started when my snap-cover bonded leather bible started to fall apart around the edges, while at the same time my vision was challenged by the tiny print. And my study bibles were so BIG for carrying around. Ditto a large-print one I inherited after my father died. And the in-between sizes? After using Bibles until the spines sagged horribly, or covers and pages just plain fell apart, I remembered the beautiful and supple goatskin, calfskin and sheepskin bibles at a shop I worked at years ago, but as a student and retail employee, high-end bibles were neither in my budget nor high on my priority list. Still, I remembered how beautiful they felt in my hands, and how they smelled, and how they were meant to last for a lifetime (or more) of regular use without breaking down.Did they still make them? Most bible/book stores I had been in mainly sold bibles in paperback, hardback or bonded leather (not so durable, not flexible, not beautiful). With so many versions to choose from, I always went with less-expensive bindings so I could have different versions and study features. Times have changed....for study, I can get any version I want online. And as I simplify my life, I realize that having just one Bible in paper form was all I really needed. My question was - Is there a Bible with a beautiful binding I could treat myself to?So I went down the rabbit hole to re-acquaint myself with the world of Bibles with fine bindings. Thanks to bloggers with a passion for this topic, I was introduced to so many options and factors to consider....and I was introduced to the Cambridge Clarion, which fulfilled my wish list:Buttery soft goatskin cover from an old and reputable bookbinding companyThe whole bible flexes, and lays flat when openMatte leather with a subtle, beautiful texture, neither shiny nor heavyNeutral ColorUnfussy: NO printing on front or back, NO fussy filigree imprinting around the inside edges of the coverSingle column "Readers' Style" pages and little in the way of "helps" to keep the size manageableSmall enough and light enough to fit easily into my handBig enough to read easilyAvailable in KJV: for long-term investment/use, the version I prefer for the beauty of the language and the integrity of the Textus Receptus, from which it was translatedThe Cambridge Clarion was the winner, but cost $245 retail, and the retail shop didn't have the version I wanted on their list. Ouch. I could go through any number of paperback bibles in my lifetime for that price, right? But it was near the holidays and I decided to treat myself to a used one at Amazon for $122. It came in a spanking new box, showed almost no sign of being used, the cover is handsome and has that awesome leather smell, on top of all its other features. And it looks really pretty with the white leather Snugg cover on my iPad (another Amazon bargain!), where I can access other bible versions and all sorts of study helps.The outside of the Bible is truly the least important part of it. But I am really, really enjoying it. Very nice purchase. If you know someone who loves God's word and loves to study and wants a beautiful and long-lasting hard copy in a version that they really enjoy using, it would be an awesome gift to invite them into the world of fine Bible binding and (once they find the one that meets their own wishes and understand the value of the binding) to gift them with the Bible of their choice. I imagine that a lot of the used ones on Amazon were gifts that were not quite to the receivers' taste...and a Bible is a very personal thing.

I had purchased a KJV Cameo with Apocrypha and I liked it but the print quality from page to page was pretty bad and I didn't like the words of Christ in red letter. Albeit it is the best red letter I've seen in a Bible, but it was still very distracting and hard on my eyes.So, I reluctantly returned it and purchased this instead.I'm very glad I did. The goatskin and edged-lined as well as the higher quality paper is something I immediately noticed between the two. In addition, the text of the Clarion is crystal clear on every single page and is extremely easy to read.This Bible will last you a lifetime and I love the single column and having all the text in black instead of red for Christ's words. It makes it a pleasure to read. I don't find that the text goes into the gutter at all to a point that you can't read it. It is perfect.If you're having any doubts, I can assure you, you will not regret your purchase.

This is probably the nicest Bible I've ever owned. The goatskin cover still looks brand new and it fits easily in the hand. The KJV translation in paragraph format is easy on the eyes (I'm in my late 50s with pretty shoddy vision) and the narrative flows beautifully. I fully expect that this will be the last bible that I will ever buy. Very much worth the cost.

Excellent Bible! Easy to read. I've owned several Bibles through the years, I've aquired a couple of antique Bibles even. This is by far the best Bible I've ever come across! The index on the side of the Bible is not distracting. The color of the page is more of a cream color and that combined with the paragraph format makes it easier for me to read for longer periods of time! You will not regret purchasing this great work!

Before I rant, I just wanna say I love this Bible and enjoy reading it now that I've gotten rid of the worst of the problems.I did a lot of research before buying this one. I wanted to leave a perfect review for this, but I can't. I just got this bible, and I am instantly disappointed at the seriously poor quality of ribbons. I have dozens of books with ribbons and none of those ribbons have ever been worth mentioning because they simply exist and function as handy little ribbons. However, I have never seen any of such poor quality as the ribbons in this Bible. And this is the most expensive Bible I own! What the heck, Cambridge? Even my $4 compact large print Bible came with a nice, single-faced satin ribbon in it, and it is nearly a perfect little ribbon several years later! I own many sub-$20 Bibles which have really nice, simple ribbons in them. Some of them were even added by myself over time for only pennies. I like ribbons to be simple and functional. I've never craved luxurious, special ribbons. I didn't think it was possible for pro book binders to seriously mess up a ribbon in a Bible, but somehow they managed to do it twice in a row with this one!I didn't expect ultra-premium ribbons, but these ribbons are not even single-faced satin, but double-faced trash! And I don't think they're any thinner than nice, thin single-faced satin would be. They are so cheap that they are fraying from top to bottom and look like crap! Even the parts which were shipped inside of the book are badly frayed all along the ribbons' lengths, have frayed bits of thread sticking out in all directions, and have a terrible fuzzy texture! They feel like ultra-lightweight chinese junk and they feel like they're going to fall apart very soon! They are a constant distraction and ruin the feel of this Bible for me. No matter what angle you look at this Bible from, open or closed, you can always see the ribbons. And with such premium construction in every other aspect of the book, the ribbons stand out like a sore thumb any time you look closely. You interact with the ribbons more than any other part of Bible except maybe the cover, and they are always visible. It's a constant annoyance.They're also some of the cheaper ribbon material I've seen, more closely resembling something you'd expect to find on a $2 toddler's toy than a ribbon one would expect to find in a nearly $200 premium quality, brand new Bible! I understand they wanted to use thin ribbons due to the thin paper, etc, but the weave pattern of the material is rough and unpleasant. You could have found a thin ribbon which looks and feels nice as well. The ribbons aren't even cut properly. They have an angled cut along the bottoms, but the cuts are crooked and the ends aren't burned well, so they will probably unravel with some use. This is common with angled cuts on ribbons, but a few extra seconds of care allows you to make a second finishing cut which makes the ribbons perfectly straight, or you can burn them until they're perfectly straight. I know, because I've added many ribbons to books. It's easy. I'll probably dress these up nicely if I can fix the fuzzing, but I shouldn't have to.How did you screw this up? Where is your Quality Control?? How is the corner-work on this leather cover so unique and beautiful and the binding so nice and the text layout made with such care, yet the simplest part, the ribbons, done totally wrong?? This must be a factory error, because you would have to be evil to purposefully sabotage such a beautiful Bible with such trashy ribbons.I could have dealt with cheap ribbons or the slight imperfections in the cuts, but not cheap, poorly cut, damaged, fraying ribbons which are so annoying that I cringe every time I see them, touch them, or even hear or feel them sliding across a page. Not from a brand new premium Bible.I'll upload a pic of a ribbon in this expensive Bible next to the ribbon of my old $4 compact Bible for comparison. Spoiler alert: The cheap Bible's ribbon is lightyears better. I wish you could feel how drastic the texture difference is, or how annoying the sensation of this junky ribbon dragging across the pages is.Why couldn't you just use decent materials? This is what I expect from those throwaway "economy" bibles which cost $0.99 for the entire bible. This is extremely annoying on a premium product. It feels more like a cheap nylon wrist strap from a toy than a ribbon.So, update, I tried several times in a row to gently burn the fuzz off of one of the ribbons in hopes that the problem might fix itself. I ended up with a somewhat rough ribbon covered with tiny plastic burrs even after trying to smooth it out, and it was fairly abrasive for a while until I tool several days of reading and toying with the ribbons to get them smoothed out by hand and get all the fraying gone with gentle flame application. Still not thrilled with this, but it's better than the previous fuzzy ribbon which feelt like an old sock in the process of falling apart.Next, when I hit page 11 in Genesis, I found a page which was not cut right, but has extra paper on it, folded up into the book, which now sticks out well beyond the border of the page when unfolded. I ended up just cutting it myself with a pair of scissors. It isn't perfect, but it doesn't stick out any longer. I know this happens occasionally, but I have never seen this happen in any other Book of mine. Hm.Now, all that aside, I love the layout of this Bible and I love the size and the quality of the binding and everything else. The cover is very soft and flexible, but the liner seems too shiny. If the liner were leather, the construction would be perfect in this Bible, at least on paper. But even as-is, I don't think this one will fall apart anytime soon. The cover is a bit slippery when your hands are sweaty, however, and it will slip out of your hands more easily than some other leathers due to the texture. It is not super slick, but also not grippy, so keep that in mind if you plan to read with it in-hand often. I would prefer a more natural finish with a bit less texture, but still some texture over this pebbly, cobblestone sort of textured finish. It does feel nice and supple, though, and just a bit squishy, which I love.The text block is not quite perfectly centered in the cover. The front side of the cover has a bit less yapp than the backside. For all but one edge of the text block, the paper sits almost perfectly flush with the inside line where the leather is folded over the edges of the cover. The leather is stitched and glued into place so the pages sit with no gap, and without overlapping this fold. If they overlapped, the pages would be damaged when closing the Bible. This happens a bit on another premium Bible I have, but not this one. However, the backside of the cover has a bit of a gap between the pages and the line of the folded over leather when closed. This is a tiny gap, and I only notice it when I really look for it. Kinda gives it character.The font is great so far. It feels like a novel. It really is a pleasant reading experience and is comfortable for marathon reading sessions, which is the whole reason I bought this one. The letters are not too bold nor too thin. The letters are nicely shaped and the space around them makes for comfortable reading. The paper is nice, but kinda thin for my taste, though not so thin that I worry much about it. If the were thicker, I wouldn't like the overall size of this one, so I agree with their choice on this paper. The ghosting isn't bad and my highlighter doesn't bleed through, so I have no problems with the thin pages aside from being easy to rip or get crumpled up and the fact that they blow in the wind too easily, but you can't have it all.I suggest you keep a second, cheaper Bible handy if you plan to use the references in this one often. The pages just crinkle too easily when flipping around. Thin paper, but you can work around it. I believe the cheaper Holman KJV personal and compact large print bibles have the same text in them. I use them to flip around and check references instead of tearing up more expensive Bibles.The size is really nice. A bit on the thick, bulky side for a portable, hand-held reader, but not too big. It is thicker and a little larger in dimension than I originally thought, but still a great smallish size. It's a handy size for street preaching. Not too big. And it's also great as a small desk-top bible. I would either call it one of the larger compact Bibles, or a smaller personal-sized Bible. While my compact bible is a little less than 1/2 the size of my "personal" size bible, letting me fit two of them sideways on the top of the larger personal bible without overlapping the edges, this Clarion is about 2/3 the size of the personal size. It is as wide as the personal size, but not as tall. It is a bit wider and thicker than expected, but not in a bad way. I believe they call this size "hand-sized", as an average man can lay his open hand across the cover and it will be almost exactly the size of his hand. It feels a little more than "hand-sized" when it's open in your palm and there's a breeze blowing, but it doesn't feel too large. I believe it's the perfect Bible for casual reading at home.The layout seems inspiring and easy to read. However, I think I would prefer to have the references in the gutter margin, and I would even appreciate a version without references, but only footnotes, and with footnotes along the bottom of the page in order to remove the side column. As they are now, it kinda feels like there's too much whitespace near the edges of the pages and we have to focus harder on the text toward the gutter. References don't need to be read nearly so often as the text, and I would prefer to have references tucked into the gutter margin, where I could look and focus closely on them when needed since they require extra focus anyway. If the main text is out on the flatter parts of the pages, it is more easily focused upon. The layout isn't bad or annoying, but it definitely feels a bit weird. I've never seen KJV in paragraph setting before and I'm loving it.I've read through the introduction letters and Genesis, and now that I've spent a while with it, I'm very pleased with everything about this Bible except the stupid ribbons and mis-cut page.I'm also not a fan of the red dye under the art-gilt edges, but I knew about that when I bought it and that's just my personal taste. I'm not complaining, but I would prefer plain thick-gilt edges with no dye underneath or a more modern coloring like blue or green. The red just feels too old-fashioned, but even though it's not my style, this isn't the worst red I've seen on a Bible. This is a minor thing and doesn't actually detract from the handling or reading experience. I also wish there were color options for the goatskin leather. I love this classic black look, but I may have liked a blue or green or orange or burgundy color scheme better. I bet you would sell more of these if they came in more color varieties.I'm also very impressed with the shipping from the New York Bookbox guys. It was shipped in a box with plenty of extra room, surrounded with plenty of paper for padding, then well wrapped in bubble wrap, then gift-wrapped in more paper, and finally in its original box, which had hardly any damage at all, and the Bible itself arrived in pristine condition. This is the first time I've seen a premium Bible shipped with such protection and which arrived undamaged in the mail, so I was extremely happy about finally having a nice Bible in mint condition. For about thirty seconds. If you want good prices and very good shipping protection, go with those guys. And take note, all you other Amazon sellers shipping premium bibles in bubble-mailers... That's not cool.This is a near-perfect Bible which had just enough wrong with it to always make it kinda annoying while handling it. I was not happy with this as it came. I fixed it and I like it now, but it wasn't right when I got it. This Bible isn't trash. It's really well made in general. I will keep it and I may love it for generations to come, but I am not totally happy with the condition I found this in out of the box.