Buyer Confusion on Nancy Drew #2

I am going to use the questions and answers posted from a few listings to show what I mean by the rampant buyer confusion. What I see in these listings happens all the time. I am concerned because the buyers are having trouble understanding what they need to know in order to make educated decisions in buying older Nancy Drew books.

Nancy Drew Mystery Stories Set of 53 Item #330256877284

The seller states that it is a set of 53 and that volume 23 is missing. The seller should come out and state exactly which books are included, as the picture does not allow for us to read the titles. By the information given, it appears that the listing contains contains #1-22 and #24-54 for a total of 53 books.

Question: please let me know the number of chapters in each of these books. thanks

Answer: Books with 20 Chapters are 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,11,35 thru 53 and the rest have 25 Chapters. I hope this helps.

Personally, I think this would give the needed information, but apparently not, since a later question confirms lingering confusion. The problem may indeed be the seller's lack of information in the original description. I mean—it is really hard to know which books one is getting when they are not listed in the description.

Question: Hi, I just want to confirm that only 8 books have 20 chapters. Is that correct? Thanks,

Answer: No, that is not correct. There are 25 books with 20 Chapters and 27 books with 25 Chapters, Number 23 is not in the set. This makes a total of 52 books.

Ah, so now we know that there are only 52 books instead of 53 books. Anyway, if only volumes 1-34 were ever printed with 25 chapters, why would a buyer think that only 8 of the books have 20 chapters? I am bewildered. Apparently this person is under the impression that around 45 books were printed with the 25 chapters, unless this person thinks that the listing contains a bunch of duplicates.

Question: Do the books with 25 chapters have blue & white end pages?

Answer: Yes they do, both front and back.

Here is another piece of information that may be helpful for people buying the picture cover editions: All of the original text picture covers have the blue and white endpapers. There is no reason to ask. Understand, though, that some of the revised text picture covers also have the blue and white endpapers. The blue and white endpapers do not prove that the book has the original text, so this is not a relevant piece of information, unless one wants the earlier picture cover printings with the blue and white endpapers.

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Vintage Nancy Drew Lot of 18 TWEED Hardcover Books Item #300242077162

This listing has a question that in part states, "And is the Haunted Showboat book you have actually considered a blue cover book, because it looks like a newer version?" This person apparently does not know what the dust jackets look like for the tweed books, which is why they think it looks like a newer book.

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VTG Huge Lot of 28 Nancy Drew Books Carolyn Keene Nice Item #230271280802

I am mentioning this one so that I can give a tip for buyers that would avoid them having to ask a question. The seller's description gives the volume numbers as follows:

3 books were copyrite : 1957 number9535---1959 book club editionOld clock---1959 Hidden Staircase book club edition

1960's copyrite 9508- 9516 -9519 -9545-9546-9511-9544-9504-9505-9507-9506

1970's copyrite 9556-4-9552-9513-9512-9518-9517-9549-9534-9555-9551-9514-9515-9550-9552-

Here is the question and answer:

Question: these are usually numbered differently than you have indicated... the first book in the series was #1 and so on... can you list that version of the numbers? Thanks! Don

Answer: OK--Thankyou for your question. I looked at all of the books and found the following numbers----53 50 15 14 55 17 56 52 51 18 12 13 35 8 16 19 45 46 11 44 8 4 57 6 49 34 3 2 1 --------Hope that helps. Sorry for giving different numbers

It is frustrating that the seller gave the publisher's catalog number for each book and gave them in a random order. The seller also gave the volume numbers in random order. My tip for buyers is that the catalog numbers correspond to the the volume numbers. Catalog number 9501 is #1 Old Clock; number 9502 is #2 Hidden Staircase; number 9503 is #3 Bungalow Mystery; and so on. The last two digits of the catalog number give the volume number. If you ever see a seller do this again, you can decipher which volumes are included by looking at the last two digits of the catalog number.