Saturday, October 01, 2011

Nancy Drew Sleuthing at eBay #19

Ending Today at eBay #1

Ending today, Oct. 1, at eBay is a format #1 Nancy Drew book, The Secret of the Old Clock. Check out the auction here.

It is missing the dust jacket unfortunately and is not in mint condition--they rarely are--but you may be interested in collecting the earliest format of Nancy Drew books. This format #1 as Farah's Guide calls it, features blue boards with no orange silhouette and the endpapers inside are blank (white) with no image on them.

The seller states he believes this book is a first edition. He is correct in that it is the original text of the story, but it is not a first printing. Do not confuse first printing with first edition--a rule of thumb to collect by especially when it comes to Nancy Drew.

Based on the question/answer section of the auction page, the information the seller gives to a potential buyer gives you a clue that it is not a first printing. The listing inside the back of the book of Nancy Drew books goes up to #7 which was first published in 1932. This dates this particular book to around a 1931/1932 range based on that alone.

By using Farah's Guide, I looked up the printing based on the information giving and this is a 1931D-9 printing, so it's a 9th printing overall. Farah's Guide gives the book a value of $150.00 which for a 9th printing, in my opinion, is a little on the high side of what you'd normally pay at eBay anyhow--especially in the condition shown.

These books in this format #1 are not rare and they're not really that scarce. What is scarce is the dust jackets that are often missing and probably discarded years ago. When you find a book in this format #1 with a dust jacket, then you've hit the jackpot!

Jenn:)

No comments: