All,
Since some of you collect books, I figured I would pass this tip along that my brother informed me of today.
As some of you know, my brother is a mystery book collector, and has been collecting them for over 40 years. Today, he told me how to distinguish what printing edition a book is, using the codes in the front few pages of the book. This only applies to books starting sometime in the 70's, and some book companies do not use this.
Have you even noticed something like this in the front of a book.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
or
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
or
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
If all of the numbers starting from 1 are there, it is the first edition. So when you see one that only has:
8 9 10
then that is the 8th edition of the book. If there is more than 10 editions, they then display the numbers 11-20 and so on. If you have a popular college or school book it may say:
53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
Which means it is the 53rd edition.
He did say that you must be careful because a book may have been publish by one book company as a first edition, and then later published with another book company as their first edition. For example, he has some juvenile books such as the Hardy Boys series that have been recently reprinted, and they have 1 thru 10 on them which means it is a first edition. But the original printing has more value than they do, so you must be careful.
Guy
Since some of you collect books, I figured I would pass this tip along that my brother informed me of today.
As some of you know, my brother is a mystery book collector, and has been collecting them for over 40 years. Today, he told me how to distinguish what printing edition a book is, using the codes in the front few pages of the book. This only applies to books starting sometime in the 70's, and some book companies do not use this.
Have you even noticed something like this in the front of a book.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
or
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
or
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
If all of the numbers starting from 1 are there, it is the first edition. So when you see one that only has:
8 9 10
then that is the 8th edition of the book. If there is more than 10 editions, they then display the numbers 11-20 and so on. If you have a popular college or school book it may say:
53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
Which means it is the 53rd edition.
He did say that you must be careful because a book may have been publish by one book company as a first edition, and then later published with another book company as their first edition. For example, he has some juvenile books such as the Hardy Boys series that have been recently reprinted, and they have 1 thru 10 on them which means it is a first edition. But the original printing has more value than they do, so you must be careful.
Guy