What makes the book odd is that the book has unprinted endpapers.
The glossy flashlight editions have unprinted endpapers, but all of the matte picture covers are supposed to have printed endpapers.
The book is a matte picture cover edition of The Clue in the Old Album. The back cover lists NDC, #1-25, #53, #26-52, and #54. By the back cover list, the book matches the 1977B-44 printing according to Farah's 12th edition. The first problem is that the 1977B-44 printing is supposed to be the introduction of the 1977 text, but this book has the original 1947 text. The second problem is that the 1977B-44 printing is also supposed to have an order form inside the book, but this book has no order form nor is there any indication that an order form was ever present.
This another uncommon variation of boards, endpapers (or lack of), and text block that is not mentioned in Farah's Guide. Does that mean that the book is RARE? Not necessarily. There may be a bunch of these, for all I know. Just because a book is not mentioned in Farah's Guide does not mean that it is rare. Some sellers try to sell books from printings that are not yet documented in Farah's Guide as extremely rare, valuable books. Farah's Guide is a continuing work in progress and will never catch all of the variations. It is an impossible task.
I went back and looked at my older posts on Nancy Drew printing anomalies. Several of these oddities have a common denominator: The books list to Parchment either on the back cover or inside the book. Check them out:
Nancy Drew Printing Anomaly
A Bizarre Nancy Drew PC Anomaly
Nancy Drew Mirror Bay Black Print Back Cover
Did something go screwy in 1977?
8 comments:
There is also a lot of yellow space at the top. Is that usual, unusual or a misprint?
It's not usual, although I don't know whether it has anything to do with the other oddities that this book has.
I have seen some scattered yellow spine books with a wider band at the top. I have also seen some books in which either more of the top part or more of the bottom part of the cover art is visible than usual.
I now know of someone else who also has this same Nancy Drew picture cover. The other copy of Old Album has the same characteristics of the original text and unprinted endpapers.
I had a feeling that my copy was not the only example, and if two copies exist, then I expect that additional copies exist.
Since this post was about some differences that occur in Nancy Drew PC's, I thought this would be a good place to ask my question. I've noticed that many 1962 first printings of the ND PC books seem to have good quality covers that are shinier than later matte covers and stay cleaner. Also, the colors are very intense. These books are really beautiful!
However, I do have some first printing PC's from 1962 that are VERY dull and dark looking. Even though they are in excellent condition as far as wear and tear goes, and they appear to be clean, the cover is not as smooth as the shinier ones, it has a rough feel to it, it is dull, and kind of foxed (I guess) throughout, so that all the colors appear darker and subdued. There usually are some brown spots but not many, just a general "browning" on these covers. The inside pages are fine. The color difference on the spine is amazing. The shinier covers are still bright yellow, while the dull covers are yellowish-brown. They aren't faded from being exposed to too much sunlight, they are "browned".
Is there any explanation for the difference since they are all first printings from 1962? I have two Ringmaster's Secret books, and they both have the same dull covers.
I know that different materials were used for some of the printings from the early 1960s. As far as I know, the same bindery in Kingsport, Tennessee was used for all of the 1960s Nancy Drew books. They must have had different suppliers for the boards, etc., and some of the suppliers had poor quality materials.
The $1 box edition PCs tend to have the bad materials. They tend to have really heavy wear and discoloration because the materials used were shoddy.
The book club edition PCs (the ones that have the blank yellow back covers and are stated book club editions on the title pages) are almost always found in horrible shape. I don't even like the book club edition PCs very much because of how horrible they usually look. They tend to be foxed, have stains all over the covers, and have heavy wear to the edges of the boards.
I don't have a definite answer, but different materials were used to build the books, and certain printings are the ones that got the materials that were of poor quality.
I also have found a copy of Old Album with blank endpapers. However, this book lists only to Forgotten City on the back cover. It is like your book in all other aspects: has the original text, no internal list, and the wide yellow band on the front cover.
That means that the unprinted endpapers occurred with more than one printing. On Tuesday, I received some books that I bought recently. In that lot, I found another example of Old Album with unprinted endpapers. The book I just received lists to Parchment like the one I mentioned in this blog post. It seems that these books with unprinted endpapers are not extremely scarce, but they are still a bit uncommon.
I have now found an Old Album with unprinted endpapers that has the Nancy Drew Cookbook ad on the back cover. This means that at least three different printings have at least some books which have unprinted endpapers.
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