Sunday, August 28, 2011

Hardy Boys First Picture Cover Books

I decided to check out the local book stores on Saturday. I hit the jackpot at my first stop. I bought many first or early picture cover printing Hardy Boys books. I cannot be certain as how many of the books are actually first PCs, since I have an old version of Hardy and Hardy Investigations.

These books appear to be all first picture cover books since they list to Desert Giant on the back cover and to Screeching Owl on the inside, if an interior list is present.





The Hardy Boys picture cover books in the next two pictures are early picture cover printings. I also purchased one Hardy Boys and three Nancy Drew books with dust jackets as well as the first picture cover printing of Nancy Drew #18.



Later after I arrived home, I started worrying about whether I had missed any of the desirable Hardy Boys books. My main concern was that I knew that I had seen Aztec Warrior. I thought that Aztec Warrior listed to itself, and I had not checked for the tri-fold. I decided to drive back over to the book store, even though it is on the other side of the city.

Aztec Warrior turned out to be the second printing without the tri-fold, so I did not purchase it. I did pick up one more probable first picture cover and a few more of the early picture cover books.



This turned out to be a very nice book find.

2 comments:

Andy said...

Jennifer, the books are amazing. It appears they have very little wear at all. I've found that it's more difficult to find pristine copies of the Hardy Boys 1st printing PCs than it is the Nancy Drews 1st printing PCs.
I know this may be stereotyping, but maybe it has something to do with boys not being as careful with their books as girls might be.
Your books look to be in beautiful shape. Congratulations!

Paula said...

Heavenly find, Jennifer! How exciting - congratulations! :)