Recently, Jenn Fisher asked me if I owned the first printing of the 44th Nancy Drew book, The Clue in the Crossword Cipher. I replied that I did not, and she shared that she does not own one either. We wondered why it is so hard to find.
I was reminded of this when I received a complete set of all 56 Nancy Drew picture covers. This set came from someone's collection. It contained nearly all first printing picture covers from #8 up through #56. #44 was one of the very few books that was the second printing instead of the first printing. I already had the third printing, so now I have both the second and third printings.
I find it very odd that the first printing is so elusive. Now I have an idea about this, but it is based upon what I think is the true scarcity of the first printing. I need to get an idea of how many other people actually own one.
I have created two polls. The first poll asks whether respondents own the first, second, or third printing of Crossword Cipher. The first printing of Crossword Cipher lists only to #42 on the back cover. Both the second and third printings list to #44, and I bet many people own a second or third printing and think they have the first printing.
The second printing of Crossword Cipher has no interior list, either pre-text or post-text. The third printing of Crossword Cipher has an interior post-text list of titles that ends with #43.
In my second poll, I ask which scarce picture cover printings are owned by the respondents. The list includes the $1 box editions, #7 with the 1932 text, #11 man with pipe 1934 and 1965 text variants, #41 with the tri-fold, #44 listing to #42 on the back cover, #49 with the yellow overlay on back cover, #55 first printing, and #56 first printing. That should cover the scarcest picture cover printings, aside from any unusual anomalies that have been mentioned in this blog but not documented in Farah's Guide.
This brings me to what I really think: I suspect that the first printing of Crossword Cipher is an anomaly and that possibly very few examples exist. I could be wrong, so I need to get an idea of how many people have one. I know it exists, since Farah's Guide has documented it. But was it really an entire print run as is suggested by Farah's Guide? I doubt it.
Crossword Cipher was published in 1967. Checking Farah's Guide, 1967 books tend to list to either #43 or #44 on the back cover. 1965 and 1966 books tend to list to #42. It is rather odd that the 1967 first printing of Crossword Cipher lists only to #42. This is why I think it might be an anomaly—perhaps it was a mistake or leftover back boards were used on some copies.
Aside from that, it will be interesting to see how many people own the other scarce picture printings, especially the ones that are regularly touted as so extremely RARE on eBay.
If you own one of the first three printings of Crossword Cipher or any of the scarce picture cover editions, I would really appreciate you taking the time to answer the polls.
6 comments:
The so-called first printing is probably just a variant, a few leftover back boards. This is one of my beefs with the series book guides. To call such variants 'printings' is not bibliographically correct. If the texts are printed at the same time, that is a 'printing'. If they are given a leftover back board, or leftover endpapers or DJs, from a previous time, which happens often, it doesn't make them different 'printings'. The guides are misleading collectors on these items. As in another post here, the guy who uses the Abebook points - those are the old AB Bookman standards that were in use for decades before the Internet killed off AB Bookman (a weekly booksearch magazine). The current guides are amateurish and speculative and do not follow bibliographical standards. That poster was correct - variants in a first edition are not necessarily different printings, just variants. There were indeed bibliographical standards before eBay and the current speculative guides. They are easily found by googling, if anyone cares to learn them. Which most younger collectors don't because it's too easy to be led like dumb sheep by guide gurus. One recently tried to make an expensive collectible out of a PC Hardy by claiming a variant point and giving it a minimum bid over $200.
Mike
Hi, Jennifer,
I left a comment on this post before, but it's not showing up, so I guess I did something wrong - I'm going to try again.
This is a great post! Since I don't have Farah's Guide, I am one of those people who thought they might have a 1st printing of Crossword Cipher, but I actually have the 3rd printing (twice). That's assuming we count what is possibly a "variant" as the first printing.
I am interested to see the results of the polls also. Since I had trouble finding the original text Diary PC, I was surprised that it was one of the highest percentages with half the respondents owning it at this time.
Regardling the $1 boxes, are the books you have listed in your poll the only ones that were printed with it? I've been wondering about that. Also, were all of the books that were printed with the $1 box, also printed with the blackened box (I'm assuming indicating their second printing)?
Thanks again for the very informative post and for the interesting polls! I'm looking forward to tracking those results.
Just #1-6, 37, and 38 were printed with the $1 boxes. All of those books also were printed with the blackened box, which is the second picture cover printing.
As people began to answer the poll, I realized that the printings that people desire the most are going to have the largest numbers, regardless of their true scarcity. People really value the 1932 text Diary and Whistling Bagpipes with the tri-fold, so people who collect the harder to find picture cover editions make sure they have those books.
My thinking is that the second printing of Crossword Cipher really is the first printing, and a small number of copies were bound with the boards that list to #42. Normally Farah's Guide does not differentiate subsets of printings into separate printings. For instance, Farah states for the first printing of Mirror Bay that some books have the yellow overlay error on the back cover, so he classifies the yellow overlay error as a subset of the first print run.
He does the same thing with the first printing of Crocodile Island. There are two variant versions where the front cover art is tinted differently. Many copies of both versions have surfaced, yet he refers to both as the first printing.
With Dancing Puppet, he states that some of the first printing books are 18 mm thick while others are 21 mm thick. He considers both versions to be the first printing.
I suppose since some copies of Crossword Cipher list only to #42, he decided to call that version the first printing, but as I stated, I think that the first and second printings were printed at the same time.
Someone in the Nancy Drew Sleuths group spoke to David Farah in the last few days, and she said that he stated that he did not add specific printings to the guide until three different examples were independently verified by different people. So, at least three different people independently verified the existence of Crossword Cipher listing to #42 on the back cover before it was added to the guide.
Hi Jennifer,
Wow, it has been SO LONG since I have had a chance to do any reading of your blog, or really to do anything with my series books! I've just had such a chaotic schedule and have been up to my eyeballs with so many other things for many months, that I have been very out of it with my series book collecting! I've been missing it a lot! Well, I just saw a couple of messages on the Nancy Drew Sleuths e-mail about this #44 today, & I checked in briefly. I'm so glad you brought this up! Here's my input:
Since I realized about 2 years ago this whole issue of the elusiveness of the #44 1st Printing existed, I went on a search to see if I could find a #44first. I contacted David Farah, Jenn Fisher, and other collectors I knew. No one I asked had one! Dave Farah did verify with me as well last year that he had seen at least 3 copies of this book and therefore listed it in his guide as the 1st. He said that his criteria for listing a book as a first printing is what was first available to the public. (I had gotten some interesting comments on this from Mike--oh I forget his last name--he sells lots of series books on ebay--last year about variants not necessarily being different print runs. I shared his info. with Dave, and Dave responded that he lists as a 1st printing that which is available to the public first. So I never really got a satisfactory answer about this issue of the #44 1st really being the 1st or not, and it's rested as an uneasy point in the back of my mind ever since.
So I'd be interested in the conclusions you draw from your surveys. Now, one thing I can tell you is that I know of 2 copies that do exist that are supposedly 1st printings. I saw that both were sold on ebay between a year to 2 years ago. One was purchased by a long-time collector, Michie McDonald--I forget her ebay handle right now (I could look it up). I corresponded with her last year, and she verified to me that she had purchased a 1st from ebay that she did not want to sell and wanted to keep for her collection (of course!). Also, I know there was one sale on ebay of a #44 1st to a collector in Texas--I believe her ebay handle is payne1700, I'm trying to remember her real name (I could look this up also). I corresponded with her after I saw the sale and asked her about buying it, but got no response. Now, I haven't verified that either of these books truly lists to Pine Hill, but we could do that by contacting both of these ladies. I searched for several months on ebay (have since not had the time to do so) after that for a #44 listing to Pine Hill but have not been able to find one. And it is true that Dave Farah told me that he himself does not have one either.
Hope that all makes sense! This is a very interesting topic to me, and I'd certainly LOVE to find a copy myself and hope to do so in the future! It would be very interesting to determine what the true 1st of this book is, and how the copies listing to #42 came about (printed with leftover boards?), and how many are actually out there!
All my best,
Kris Ludwinski
Has David Farah indicated when the 13th printing of his price guide will be coming out? Also has he decided which Crossword Cipher will be listed as true first - the one without the interior list or the one with? After many years of searching, I have the later.
Love your blog. Nora
We have no indication of when the updated guide will be ready. My understanding is that he hasn't started working on it yet. I also do not know what he will decide about Crossword Cipher.
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