Collecting first edition books - a beginners guide.
Collecting modern first editions is a relatively simple hobby and can be very lucrative if you develop an eye for the market and can recognize a first edition first impression.
The first important bit of knowledge to know and understand is that hardback books are more collectible than the paperback version, this is not to say that paperbacks are not collectible, it's just that the hardback versions are normally the first version printed and therefore are more collectible due to them being the true first version of a respective book.
The second important bit of knowledge to understand is that origin does affect value! For example a book published by a British author, first published in Britain, will be far more valuable than the same book published in the USA (A good example would be JK Rowling and the Philosophers Stone, the original UK first edition first impression is worth about £10,000 more than the USA first edition). Book collectors are mainly interested in the First Edition and First Printing/impression (referred to as the first/first) of a title because it is the very first printing and state that the book becomes available in. It is more difficult to obtain as time goes by (many popular first editions were published in small quantities because the author was unknown and only became popular post publishing of their respective book). This is especially true when there are many more reprints/editions of the book in publication/circulation during the following years.
There are several methods you can use to determine the edition of a book, the usual methods of identification are:
a) Firstly, and most common - publishers usually use a numeric system for identifying the Edition of the book. On the Copyright and Dedication Pages, you will usually find a string of numbers (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10) which indicate the edition number. For instance, if the numbers from 1 to 10 are shown, you have a First Edition First Impression (1 represents the First, 2 represents the second, 3 represents the third and so on). A first edition second impression would show 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 (the number 1 has gone). Some publishers show the numbers in a different form (such as 10987654321 or even 13579108642) or use letters (such as abcdefghi). Warning note: some publishers only use the numbers 1 through to 9, so don't be fooled into thinking it is a tenth edition!
b) Some publishers simply state that it is a 'First Edition', or 'First Impression', or 'First Printing', and do not include the edition numbers as above Normally referred to a 'Stated First Edition First Impression'.
c) Some publishers simply state 'First Published' followed by the year (e.g. 'First Published 1990'), and if there are no further printings indicated with subsequent dates, then you may well have the first edition.
d) Some publishers make no distinction at all and further information or verification would need to be found by searching through the author's bibliography which will state the true first edition date and publisher of the book.
e) The scourge of the book collector, book club editions and reprint society editions, many collectors when starting out mistakenly pick up these editions thinking they have a first on their hands. These books are not worth the paper they are written on, as they say.
Finally, a handy sized authority/reference is the 'The Guide to First Edition Prices 2008' as published by Tartarus, easy to use and relatively inexpensive.
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