The book on the left has the normal illustration, and the book on the right has the purple tint. The book with the purple tint lists to Crooked Banister on the back cover. The inside lists Nancy Drew to 99 Steps and Dana Girls to Silver Dolphin. The book meets the points for the 1971A-100 printing according to Farah's 12th edition.
One collector reported that he has two of the books with the purple tint and recalls having a third years ago. The two books currently in this collector's possession list to the same titles as mine. Another collector reported having seen the purple version. Since we have had several of these books spotted, we can conclude that a number of them exist. Since we know of at least three copies that have the same points, then we can also conclude that at least a partial print run has the purple tint. This means that more of them are out there.
I find the purple tint to be quite attractive. While I have always loved this book's cover art, I like the purple version even better. I'm not sure if this is more due to the novelty or because the purple tint does indeed make the cover more attractive. I tend to think that the latter is true. When I placed a scan of this book on my Facebook page, at least four people stated that they like the purple version better, so I'm not the only one.
Farah's Guide gives the 1971A-100 print run a value of $5.00. Since collectors seem to like the purple version, the value of the purple book would most likely be higher than $5.00, perhaps around $10.00.
5 comments:
Who owns rights to The Dana Girls and Kay Tracey?
Simon and Schuster holds the rights to all of the old Stratemeyer Syndicate holdings, which would include the Dana Girls and Kay Tracey series. A few years ago, a collector sold some unofficial Kay Tracey books. He took some Dana Girls texts and rewrote them as Kay Tracey books. He then sold the books. Someone told Simon and Schuster, and they made him pull down the books. A lawyer representing Simon and Schuster also told a seller to remove some listings for old Dana Girls books, mistakenly thinking that they were also unofficial books.
I sold one with the purple tint back in 2009. I remember it was in super nice condition and the purple was very pretty. It stood out immediately for me in contrast to the regular green one as I had never seen it before. I don't remember what it listed to unfortunately. But I did find an old transaction & I had it up for $25 or best offer & it sold for $20.
With the number of people saying that they like this version, $20 does not surprise me. The book is probably worth $20 to $30. I didn't want to make that strong of an assertion in the blog based on no past sales. I'd probably price the book at around $20 if I had an extra in pretty nice shape.
Purple is my favourite colour and I like the novetly of a purple tint on a Lilac book, so I definitely prefer the purple version.
Post a Comment