Buyer Confusion on Nancy Drew #30

Here we go again:

Nancy Drew: The Haunted Bridge (1937) 1st Edition? Item #220459821578

Here are the seller's pictures:

Question: Hello, Can you tell me if the book has orange title on the front cover, orange top of pages, & orange pics inside? Is copyright on the title page? Thanks.

Answer: Hi! The title on the front cover is black. The tops of the pages are blue. The pictures are black and white. The copyright is on the back of the title page. Sorry to have taken so long to answer, but I was called out of town.

First of all, the copyright date is never on the title page of a Nancy Drew book, except maybe in some oddball case that I can't quite remember. The buyer must know that, for many publishers, a way to determine a first printing is when the copyright date appears on the title page and is the same as the copyright printed on the copyright page. This is not true for Grosset and Dunlap. It would have required effort on G&D's part to print the date on the copyright page and to change it accordingly for later printings. G&D was low budget and low effort.

Next, the first picture tells me that the book is not thick and must be a tweed book from the 1950s. The reason I know is because the white spine wraps onto the left edge of the front panel, which indicates that the spine design of the dust jacket is too wide for the book. Most white spine dust jackets that were printed for tweed books wrap onto the left edge of the front panel. When the white spines were originally designed, they were sized to fit the thick books. As the books became less thick, the spines overlapped onto the front panel.

The second picture proves that the book is a tweed book. The list of Dana Girls titles ends with Black Flower, which was published in 1956. Therefore, this book was mostly likely printed in 1956 and must be a tweed book. Tweed books do not have orange endpapers, orange on the front cover, or orange on the top page edges.

As I have stated in the past, buyers need to educate themselves about the books before jumping into trying to buy a bunch of old books. Multiple websites exist that detail how to tell how old a Nancy Drew book is. Just a search for "Nancy Drew old books" will bring up some of the important pages. "Nancy Drew formats" works even better. A search for "Nancy Drew orange silhouette" brings up some good results. It is not hard to find the information, and having the information saves so much time. I would hate to have to ask every single seller whether a book has orange endpapers. It would waste so much time.