Scam Collector’s Editions: 100 Years Later

Fifteen years ago, I went to a used book sale at the University of Missouri.  I was usually accustomed to library sales which consisted of a few folding tables with a bunch of kid’s books and out-of-date nonfiction books, but Mizzou had better reserves than the average public library.    Oh, there was a lot of those books, but I did bring home numerous books printed in the 19th century, stuff that you wouldn’t normally find in North Dakota (where nothing is much older than the 1880s), but was plentiful enough in Missouri to be considered ‘junk’ to a library with far better acquisitions than some beat-up Hebrew bibles and yet another coffee-table edition of Dante’s Inferno with Gustav Dore prints.   I debated for quite a while, walking back to the ‘old book’ table, checking over a bunch of very beat-up 16mo editions of 18th century novels.  Most were missing covers, but they had uncut deckle-edges, gilt edges, and they all had plates throughout.   While I was young and green in the book collecting world, I knew that the ‘good’ stuff probably went during the first few hours of the sales, when the real dealers filled boxes with the valuable stuff.   I, of course, had money in my pockets, and I was finally turned on by the declaration behind the title page:  “Edition de Luxe:  This edition is limited to one hundred copies, of which this is Number 2.”   The “2″ was rubber-stamped, telling me that it had to be real: there were only one hundred copies of these books printed, and while not all were the same #2 printing, I got a dozen of the books, pieced together the loose boards as best I could, and spent my $1 a hardcover on them.

My first mistake:  buying 18th century novels.   I’m just not a fan of the genre.  If I were a better connoisseur of the period, I might understand the humor better, but there’s a reason Tobias Smollett isn’t taught in High School English anymore…tales of Roderick Random and Peregrine Pickle sound funny, but I seem to have misplaced my powdered wigs and high-heeled buckle-shoes, and the entertainment value simply eludes me.   Because of this, and the crumbling leather binding, these books sat on a shelf, up away from the other books (to avoid them getting bumped around too much), and because what remained of the spines was visually appealing.

My second mistake came to light fifteen years later.  I did, of course, note to myself that there was no publishing date nor copyright date in the books.  Judging from their age and construction, I placed them to roughly the 1880s, and I chalked it up to their “private printing” status.  On the title page, at the bottom, reads:  “London:  Privately printed for Members of the  Society of  English Bibliophilists“.   Bibliophilist:  a lover of books — that’s me!  As I was wandering my home looking for something to write for Collector’s Quest tonight, my eyes fell on this neglected stack of books.  Certainly, I must be able to find something out about these rare, limited edition books.  Of course, only a hundred of this particular edition were printed, so I may not find another copy from this series, but, really, a company comprised of fine publishers creating limited editions for bibliophiles must be documented somewhere!   I even found that Mizzou didn’t part with all of their damaged editions: they kept and repaired at least one of the books from the same printing.

The documentation I found was surprising:  In 1895, Publisher’s Weekly wrote of the Society of English Bibliophilists. They had received a letter from the Society, explaining how the company was in dire need of selling off some books, and were going to part with some of  their fine editions at deeply cut prices, sold only to fine book collectors.    PW noted that, in the editions they had seen, the first few pages of each edition were printed on a different type of paper than the rest of the book, and glued differently.

I took one of mine, with the most crumbled binding, and examined closely.   Sure enough, the first couple pages — the ones identifying the publisher as the Society of English Bibliophilists, and the page identifying the deLuxe printing number — were glossier, slightly thicker, and printed without as much pressure, or possibly lithographed.   The rest of the book is on a rougher, almost newsprint paper, with distinct press-through of the text.   The frontispiece plate was also glued a little funny.   What could it mean?   PW’s headline was “A NEW TRAP WITH OLD BAIT.”

The Society of English Bibliophilists did not exist: it was a marketing ploy.  According to Publisher’s Weekly, the Society bought remaindered books — those other publishers couldn’t sell — and rebound them with new title pages.   If they bought 100 remaindered copies of a Tobias Smollett library, it became a “limited deLuxe edition of 100″.   According to both PW and The Literary Collector, a reporter from the New York Sun actually did the foot-work: he tracked down the New York offices of The Society of English Bibliophilists, and found they had an employee of just one person, or so the reporter said: “I concluded that this [single employee] must have bought up a batch of what we call ‘remainders’ and edited and bound them ‘bibliophilistically’.”

Little did that one employee know, a century later, his scam would still be working:  his rebound, numbered edition would again fool a young, inexperienced collector who placed too much value in a fancily-named publisher, the declaration of a “private printing”, and a “limited edition” claim in the front.   Other purchases had already taught me that “collector’s edition” doesn’t always mean so, but I had no idea that such a scam had been perpetrated so long ago, and that it would have still had the same impact so many years later.  Publisher’s Weekly had the title absolutely correct:  a new trap with old bait.