Series Book Questions Late Summer 2012

These are questions that I have received recently.  I have rewritten the questions in my own words so as not to include direct quotes from private communication.

Which Penny Parker books were printed with the glossy frontispiece illustration?

The thick books with good quality paper and a glossy frontispiece go up to Ghost Beyond the Gate. Hoofbeats on the Turnpike and Voice from the Cave can be found in thin books which have good quality paper and a glossy frontispiece. The last five books, Guilt of the Brass Thieves up to The Cry at Midnight, can only be found in thin books with poor quality paper and a plain paper frontispiece.

I found a Beverly Gray A. L. Burt book that was paired with a Grosset and Dunlap jacket.  Do you think that the books came this way, or were they mismatched years later?  Also, I have a Beverly Gray Grosset and Dunlap book that seems to have the insides of a Burt book. 

I have an Orient Burt book that is matched with a Grosset and Dunlap jacket. I have seen and heard of other Burt books that have Grosset and Dunlap jackets. I have read that when Burt went bankrupt and sold the rights to Beverly Gray to Grosset and Dunlap, the Burt books that had already been printed were also sold to Grosset and Dunlap. Grosset and Dunlap then printed its own jackets and put on the books. This means that likely quite a few Burt books have Grosset and Dunlap jackets.

Since Grosset and Dunlap bought the Burt books and printed dust jackets for them, the Grosset and Dunlap jackets were likely paired with the Burt books from the very beginning.

I have also heard that Grosset and Dunlap often bought unbound books from other publishers from their discontinued stock. They probably also ended up with some unbound Beverly Gray books that they bound in their own binding. That would explain any Grosset and Dunlap books that look like a Burt book on the inside.

I found an Outdoor Girls book that has green boards similar to some of the Bobbsey Twins books.  It has a silhouette image of three girls on the cover.  When was this book issued?  I am trying to figure out whether it is matched with the correct dust jacket.

The Outdoor Girls books did switch to solid green boards with the silhouette you described. This happened at about the time that The Outdoor Girls at Cedar Ridge, The Outdoor Girls in the Air, and The Outdoor Girls in Desert Valley were published. I am pretty sure that the last two titles are only available in those boards, but I am not certain about Cedar Ridge.

I have seen many of the other titles with the green boards.  Most likely, all of the other titles went through at least one printing with those boards. The jackets are a match if they list to either one of the last two books or perhaps even the one before. As long as the jackets list to a title near the end of the series, then they should be matches for the books.

Is there a way I can run a search to figure out which of your Nancy Drew books have the 25 chapter texts without having to click on every single listing?

Yes. I am pretty sure that I have a statement in every one of my original text Nancy Drew listings stating that the book has the original text, meaning the 25 chapter version. If you go to the main page of my booth,

(link removed since no longer valid)

and look right above the first line of photos of items that are for sale, you will see a search box towards the right side of the screen. Put the following in the search box:

nancy drew original text

Do not put quotations around it. Enter exactly what you see on the line above. The results page will pull up all of my Nancy Drew books that have the original text.
...........................................................
You will notice from this and previous questions that I am often asked how to find the original text books.  Buyers seem to be overwhelmed trying to figure it out, and this is why they often pay high prices for the Applewood editions.

These buyers know that the original text books have 25 chapters rather than 20 chapters.  Their problem is that they have absolutely no idea how to figure out which listings online have the 25 chapters.  The buyer who asked me this most recent question was clicking on every single one of my listings trying to figure it out.  I'd get frustrated and give up if I were trying to do it that way.

Figuring out whether a Nancy Drew book has the original text is actually quite simple.  If the copyright date is anywhere from 1930 to 1956, the book has the original text with 25 chapters.  It really is that simple.

Sure, some sellers might give the wrong copyright date for a later revised book, but buyers are going to be doomed regardless when encountering one of those sellers, who are usually the ones who do not answer questions correctly.  Most sellers will give the copyright date that actually appears in the book.  So, if the copyright given by the seller is 1930 to 1956, the book has the original text.

This is why I place the original copyright date in the title of each of my listings so that buyers can see by the title that the book has the original text.  I could solve the problem by adding "original text" to the title of each listing, but that would cause the titles to be truncated for being too long.  I would rather keep my titles shorter with the series name, key title words, and copyright date.  It is my great wish that buyers who seek the original text books would figure out that the copyright date gives some very useful information.