Nifty old Dickens Books
May. 11th, 2014 09:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogWhile at a thrift store with Danae yesterday, I found a pile of interesting books that have traveled a long way in their long lives. They caught my attention immediately both because they were sitting in a pile by themselves, and because they looked fairly old. I picked up a few to look through and found that they were a series of stories by Charles Dickens. More interesting to me, there were a few uncut folio pages within them.
(To explain: older printing processes printed multiple pages on large sheets of paper which were then folded and bound into separate pages in a book. The folded edges were often left uncut, leaving it a task for the buyer to "open" the book with a sharp instrument.)
I looked for a date on them, but couldn't find one. I guessed they were from 1900 or so, but they were in great shape for their age. The dust jackets were all there, and with only minor damage even though they were thin paper ones. They don't even seem to have shelf wear.
Sadly, three books are missing from the series, and they're three of the big ones. Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, and David Copperfield. So I have 15 volumes, including things I've never heard of like Martin Chuzzlewit and Dombey and Son, along with more familiar titles like Oliver Twist.
Anyway, I'm trying to figure out how hold these are, and whether they have much value. Danae found some similar books listed for sale online for around four hundred dollars, but those have red cloth boards. Mine have blue boards, but seem to be entirely the same otherwise. As best as I can tell, these were printed in the 1920s; I was wrong about how late books were commonly printed with uncut pages. But regardless, these are in remakably good shape for their age.
Mine are also kind of neat in that they were printed in England, and have prices in shillings stamped on the covers. (We didn't know what the crossed-out 7/6 net next to the 6/- meant at first other than a guess that it was a price, but I found it via googling.)
Anyway, I'm going to bring one with me to school and see whether our archivist can give me any help with tracking down more information about this edition. I'm also going to ask for her opinion on removing the price-tag sticker that the thrift store stuck to the back of each book. (Oh, that breaks my heart.)
Meanwhile, I don't suppose any of my readers have resources or knowledge about books like this that you could point me to?
(To explain: older printing processes printed multiple pages on large sheets of paper which were then folded and bound into separate pages in a book. The folded edges were often left uncut, leaving it a task for the buyer to "open" the book with a sharp instrument.)
I looked for a date on them, but couldn't find one. I guessed they were from 1900 or so, but they were in great shape for their age. The dust jackets were all there, and with only minor damage even though they were thin paper ones. They don't even seem to have shelf wear.
Sadly, three books are missing from the series, and they're three of the big ones. Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, and David Copperfield. So I have 15 volumes, including things I've never heard of like Martin Chuzzlewit and Dombey and Son, along with more familiar titles like Oliver Twist.
Anyway, I'm trying to figure out how hold these are, and whether they have much value. Danae found some similar books listed for sale online for around four hundred dollars, but those have red cloth boards. Mine have blue boards, but seem to be entirely the same otherwise. As best as I can tell, these were printed in the 1920s; I was wrong about how late books were commonly printed with uncut pages. But regardless, these are in remakably good shape for their age.
Mine are also kind of neat in that they were printed in England, and have prices in shillings stamped on the covers. (We didn't know what the crossed-out 7/6 net next to the 6/- meant at first other than a guess that it was a price, but I found it via googling.)
Anyway, I'm going to bring one with me to school and see whether our archivist can give me any help with tracking down more information about this edition. I'm also going to ask for her opinion on removing the price-tag sticker that the thrift store stuck to the back of each book. (Oh, that breaks my heart.)
Meanwhile, I don't suppose any of my readers have resources or knowledge about books like this that you could point me to?
