First/Limited Edition and Signed Books!
Entry posted by tripsis
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I've always LOVED books. But more than that, I love to own and collect books. As the years go by, I'm getting more and more interested in collecting signed/first edition books. I was having a little fun indexing some of my collection and thought I'd post here :P
A Game of Thrones - Advanced Reading Copy
Advanced reading copies are uncorrected proofs that are printed and privately released before the final book is published. They are for promotional purposes and often get sent to bookstores/newspapers/journalists/bloggers/etc. so the books can be reviewed and promoted by the time the final book is released. These are not intended to be sold and as such they're usually very scarce in numbers and usually have a very different style/layout/cover than the final published book, which makes them fun to collect :)
They also usually contain a few extra pages (or notes on the back) with interesting information about the promotional plans and publishing plans (such as how many books they intend to publish in the first printing, etc.).
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It's actually a funny story how I came across this book. I went to buy a used copy of A Game of Thrones on Amazon.com. I clicked on the listing for the latest hardback edition (latest being about a year and a half ago) and bought a used one for $12. Instead, I received this edition, which was valued at about $100 at the time. One recently went for almost $500 on eBay :)
I did go see George R.R. Martin do a speaking/signing after I bought this book, but I didn't get this particular one signed (I did get A Dance with Dragons signed though!). Still kicking myself for that. I'll be trying to go to another one of his signings until I can get this signed!
A Clash of Kings - Advanced Reading Copy
[Photo coming soon]
After getting excited about the Game of Thrones ARC, I decided to scour eBay for another. That's how I came to get this one :) It's at my house in California though so I'll upload a photo next week when I fly back.
A Storm of Swords - First Edition (US)
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The number line indicates that it is the first printing (since the lowest number is "1").[/hide]
A Feast For Crows - First Edition (UK), Signed
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A Dance With Dragons - First Edition, Signed
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See "First Edition" text and number line indicating that it is the first printing.[/hide]
The Lord of the Rings - 50th Anniversary Edition
Not my photo. I'll have to upload my own next week. But it shows the exact edition that I have.
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Northern Lights - Signed Limited/Numbered Edition
3000 copies were made of this limited edition of Northern Lights by Philip Pullman. Each copy has been signed by the author.
[Photo coming soon]
The Subtle Knife - Advanced Reading Copy
This is an uncorrected proof for the second book in the His Dark Materials series. I only just ordered this book but it hasn't been delivered yet, so for now I'll post a photo I found online of the cover :)
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The Subtle Knife - First Edition (UK), 1st or 2nd Impression
Now this one is very interesting.. and that's actually one of the reasons why I bought it :mrgreen: There was a misprint on the number line, which makes it impossible to be sure whether it is a first impression (printing) or second. The number line reads:
4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Normally how it works is that number lines start at 1 and go up to 10. For each new printing, the first number is removed. So a first impression would be:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
[hide=See Note]These numbers can be displayed in a variety of orders.. left to right (as shown above), right to left, or outside to inside (2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1).[/hide]
Then for the second impression you would take away the 1 so it would be:
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Long story short - the lowest number shows you what print cycle number it is.
But going back to this particular book, you'll notice that the number order is 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. So it starts with 1 but there is no 2 whatsoever. So there is some debate as to whether or not this is the first impression or the second impression. Funky stuff. Either way, it's still pretty difficult to find earlier printings of Northern Lights and The Subtle Knife (UK editions), so I'm happy to have it :) Plus I find misprints to be kind of cool! As I said, that's one of the reasons why I specifically bought this book!
The book is currently sitting at my boyfriend's house, so once again, this isn't my photo. But it is a photo of the same edition.
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The Art of God of War 3 - Limited Folio Edition
Okay it's probably silly of me to include this but I'm just so darn proud of it :P The reason it's silly for me to include it is because these editions haven't even sold out yet. Only 300 copies were made but they're still for sale. I guess that makes them less valuable. But they still have a really high price tag and it's an amazingly gorgeous book. So there you go.
This thing is like a bible.
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More Coming Soon!
I have a lot more books at my house in California to sort though. I'm in the processing of indexing all my first editions and signed books so I'll definitely have a lot to add to this list. I just included the ones that I have with me in the UK, had photos of, or were more recently purchased.
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