first edition

I received an email recently from a reader at another blog I write, looking for help.   My reader had bought a book on eBay, and wanted some general information on how to identify if it was a genuine first edition.   The first email didn’t have any particulars on the book itself, so I gave him some basic advice:

• Books published in the last 30 years generally have a “countdown” on the copyright page: “10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1″.   A first edition is generally in sequence, with nothing missing or out of order.  Subsequent printings and editions transpose or drop numbers to identify the change.
• A dot or mark on the back cover, called a “blind stamp“, usually means a book club edition.
• The copyright page and dust jacket flaps are the best place to look for clues, and will be marked with the edition or if it is a book club copy.
• Collector’s guides are a good place to look for verification; well-known authors often have specific lists made by experts for identifying first editions.

Of course, I said I’d need more information before I could truly help, and asked for a scan of the copyright page, title page, and cover, if possible.

So, my faithful reader broke out the digital camera, and a couple days later I got a few images in my mailbox.  I saw the clues right away -

First, the corner of the inside front flap is a common place for a price: it’s blank.   That’s always a big clue that a book is a book-club edition.  Next, the book itself has plain boards, and the spine looks rather plain, which could be another indicator of a book-club edition, but isn’t guaranteed proof.

A book printed in the past thirty or forty years that isn’t marked “first edition” is a good sign it’s not, too.  The copyright year is correct, and the ISBN is actually right for the first hardcover edition…however, ISBNs are intended to be the same for the existence of the book, unless its format or content changes significantly, so even a modern edition will have the same copyright and ISBN number.

At this point, I was pretty suspicious that this was a book-club, or otherwise later edition, but I wasn’t certain.  Since King is a well-known author, I turned to the experts, and ended up at Stephen King’s own website.  Bev Vincent has published a companion to King’s Dark Tower series, and might be considered an expert on King’s works.    The Stephen King website has a document compiled by Vincent to help interested book collectors identify their first editions.   Vincent’s guide says The Shining had “first edition” specifically indicated on the copyright page.  My reader’s copy was missing that, and with the rest of the clues I sadly provided him the news that it was most likely an early edition, but not a first, and probably a book-club edition.  I then suggested he should take action with eBay if the seller had erroneously identified the book as a first edition, but my reader said the seller hadn’t misrepresented the book at all.

Had I know about the King website up front, it would have been the first place I’d have sent my interested reader, but the actual process of steps we went through is pretty much how I’ve proceeded when shopping for books myself.   The first few clues – absence of price, mark on the back cover, inconsistent information on the copyright page – disqualify a huge number of potential first-editions.  Like the hopeful with the supposed 8th Brasher Doubloon in their hand, the reason first editions are valuable is because of their rarity, so the assumption should start with assuming the book in your hands isn’t a first, and let the evidence prove otherwise.  This could certainly result in false negatives, but it does prevent against lost money and shelves full of those tricky early book-club editions, and it is the best I can do when kneeling at a cardboard box of books in somebody’s driveway on a Saturday morning.   My reader was disappointed by the non-first identification of his book — the “price too good to be true”, sadly, usually is — but he had wanted the book anyway, so he didn’t feel he had lost anything.

Now, you Collector’s Quest readers are probably tempted to email me with first-edition advice, but I can’t help everyone.  Use the tips above first, and also check out these other websites for help in identifying a true first edition:

• Bookseller World’s “How to Identify a First Edition”
• Empty Mirror Book’s guide to first editions and book club editions
• Bookpoi, an online 1st edition identifying guide
• A useful article on Book Club Editions, dispelling some myths

I’ve mentioned it before, but I once found myself in the possession of a book by Ayn Rand called ‘For the New Intellectual‘. I’ve always had a passing interest in Ayn Rand, in the same way I have a passing interest in Scientology, Dave Sim, and other completely wacky things that somehow acquire devout and rabid followings. Not only was this book a first edition, a claim verifiable by the initial pages, but it was signed by Ayn Rand herself.

This was a claim that was not verifiable at all, in any way.

While I had every intention on reading the book, once I discovered the signature on the title page, the book went safely into storage, untouchable and waiting for a proper destination. Authenticating a signature on an old book would surely be an expensive and time-consuming process, so I put it off.

I’ve been hesitant to trust anyplace that claims to be an authority on the quality of things. When the Certified Guaranty Company popped up eight years ago and began grading comics and sealing them in air-tight cases, they shook up the way that the world collected. Suddenly, people couldn’t read AND collect comics – they had to make a choice. While it ensured definite, inspected quality for buyers of ‘collectible’ comics, any comics that went ungraded dropped significantly in value – and grading was not an inexpensive process. Today, the price rests between $20 and $80 per issue that you’d like graded, so unless your comic is worth a few thousand dollars, the investment usually defeats itself immediately. Of course, you can wait 50 years and it might pay off, and they’ll be well-preserved between now and then, but for an industry that made it well into the 1960s by selling 25-cent comic books, it’s a bit incongruous and materialistic.

So, I didn’t pursue any kind of official verification on her signature. What I did manage to do was a good deal of my own investigating. I knew that someone would appreciate the book far more than I could, and leaving it to collect dust in a closet was no place for something that might be a valuable cultural artifact. So, in need of a few bucks and a few inches of space, I sold it on eBay.

The key to selling items of questionable veracity on eBay is to not make any unrealistic claims. Honesty is always the best policy. Never sell something with a chip in it and hope that the buyer doesn’t notice until they can no longer place a PayPal claim against you. My own research revealed that Ayn Rand had signed other copies of this book that HAD been verified by bibliophiles and authorities greater than myself.

Not only were these other books signed, but they were signed in the exact same place as my copy. The signature in my copy was clear and in blue ballpoint pen. Since the book was published in 1961, and ballpoint pens were introduced to the US in 1945, everything matched up so far. The signature also appeared confident. While it was entirely POSSIBLE that someone was just mimicking her signature on the title page, the strokes betrayed a kind of casualness in writing the name, which also displayed many of the handwriting traits found in other examples of her signature from this time period.

It was amateur detective work, absolutely, but it was enough to sell the eBay auction with. With very clear claims of ‘proceed at your own risk’ and ‘this is what I’ve found’ and ‘here are other examples’, the auction passed muster. It didn’t seem to be going anywhere for a while, but a last-minute bidding war drove it up to around $250, if I recall correctly. It was nowhere near the thousands of bucks fetched by other signed first editions, but it was a very welcome price for a potential forgery – and in a book that once belonged to a library and was filled with underlines, too.

Could I be a thousandaire if I took the time to verify it? Very possibly. It’s also very possible that the book would be proven worthless – something that I left for the next owner to determine, with no regrets. The first edition Stuart Little in my closet will probably provide even more adventures in bibliophilia… if I ever want to part with it.

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