Cape's 'waste-not-want-not' approach keeps us collectors on our toes!
James Bond first editions sometimes sported jackets left over from previous printings - which can create a bit of a minefield when it comes to determining originality:
Perhaps it was the waste-not-want-not attitude of the late 1950s-early 60s, but Jonathan Cape – publisher of the James Bond titles – certainly didn’t let anything go to the bin if it didn’t need to.
As such, the annuls of the Cape archives are full of instances where – instead of pulping excess stocks of DJs and letting them go to waste – these left over dust jackets were re-used.
Of course, it made economical sense for Cape to do this, especially if any later impression book of the same title came out ‘before’ any price increases, or the next novel in the series (that would otherwise mean a new book needed adding to the list of previous titles).
In these circumstances the same jacket could (and often were) be used on more than one impression. Famously, some third state first impression jackets of Live and Let Die, for example, were used on second impressions. Or, take On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which had five impressions during 1963 alone, and for the first three impressions, the same jacket could be used for all of them.
The Fourth and 5th impression jackets ‘had’ to be changed, but only because the back panel of the original first impression said From Russia With Love was ‘to be filmed in 1963’. By the time of the 4h impression, From Russia With Love had been released at the cinema, and so the panel was changed to read ‘now a highly successful film’ - see below:
Changes in prices didn't stop previous jackets being re-used
The top photo above is an example of where the jacket could be reused because the price (16s in the case of OHMSS), hadn’t changed.
Other times, though, for instance when there ‘was’ a change in the price of the book, even here, Cape didn’t let this small detail get in the way of reusing old jackets either.
This was when the practice of adding a new Cape price sticker was used. Here the new (more expensive), price sticker was simply placed over the existing printed-on price on the front flap (for a more detailed look into this, see this blog).
At the time this was purely a practical solution, and there wouldn’t have been a single thought as to the impact this might have on book collectors years later. After all, why would anyone worry about a sticker?
Of course, latterly, this small addition has created some (arguably naval-gazing) debate about whether a jacket with a later re-priced sticker on it can legitimately be called a first impression jacket. (I said it was naval gazing!!)
For the time being, let’s run with it though, because it ‘does’ divide collectors.
The book where this debate is most obvious is on copies of Thunderball.
Collectors are taught to look out for the first impression points of this book: most notably that it ought to have a printed-on price of 15s. So far, so simple.
But Thunderball is notable for being one of the first occasions where a Bond book had an over-zealous first impression print run (50,000), and it failed to sell as quickly as it actually did.
As such, lots of copies were left unsold, and so these unsold books needed re-pricing – to 16 shillings – with the Cape sticker placed over the old 15s price (see picture left - with the new over-priced sticker).
Gilbert notes that of the total 50,589 first impressions printed, the first 41,000 had the 15s price printed on the jacket, and the remaining 9,500 were eeked out over the next few years with the updated sticker.
Apparently, the 15s jacket was offered during a selling window of 1961-62, while the second selling window was between January 1963-October 1964 (see Gilbert p303). When the second impression did actually come out, in 1954 (some four years after the book was originally published – the longest gap between a first and second impression), it featured a ‘printed’ price of 16s.
So, basically, Thunderball is a bit of a quirky book because people argue the first impression legitimately exists with two different prices – with its second price also being the same price as the second impression.
Collecting quandaries
The presence of this 16s sticker has always been a difficult one for some collectors.
Technically, there will be those that regard the over-stickered jacket a less desirable second state of the first impression. Equally though, I’ve seen other sellers simply describe it as a first impression.
Leaving this debate to go on somewhere else though, the point I’m trying to make, is that books with a new Cape price sticker were typically done for a specific reason – a price rise, or to move unsold stock between impressions.
Sometimes the new price sticker was put on top of the previous (original) printed price on the DJ, but also, there are examples of where the old price has been clipped, and the new price sticker is placed next to the diagonal sniped edge (see this picture of For Your Eyes Only below:)
Again, so far, so good.
But recently I saw a Bond book that had an overpriced sticker on – but which didn’t stick to any of to these usage rules.
In fact, I can’t actually work out ‘why’ the sticker was put on at all.
This is the book in question – it’s a first impression of The Spy Who Loved Me.
A standard first impression should have a jacket with a printed-on price of 15s and a blank back flap.
But as can be shown in the picture here, this first impression’s book is price clipped with a new sticker next to it.
Ordinarily, having this sticker next to a clipped front flap would signify that this is a first impression book that hasn’t sold straight away, had hung around, and so needs a newer – more expensive – price stuck to it, with the old price snipped off.
That is, until you look at what this new price sticker says. It doesn’t show the higher price that we might expect, rather the ‘EXACT SAME’ price as what a first impression should be!
In other words, the ‘new’ price of 15 shillings is exactly the same as what the original price should have been.
So why has the 15s printed-on price been snipped off, and then replaced by a sticker with exactly the same price?
At first, I thought someone was trying to fool me, by having a later jacket put over a first impression book, to give the impression this was a complete first edition, first impression book.
You see there is an odd quirk with The Spy Who Loved Me, whereby the jacket for the fourth impression jacket is ‘almost’ the same as a first impression one – in particular having the blank back flap (even though the second and third impressions did not have blank back flaps).
It isn’t 100% the same though, and the only difference is that the printed-on front flap price has been updated from 15s to 16s.
So, could a 4th impression jacket, with a 16s price on it, have been snipped off, to disguise the jacket, and make people think it’s a first impression one?
I thought this at first, but then I thought about it again.
And then I thought that it doesn’t seem to make sense. For if that were the case, why would an official Cape sticker to be next to it, saying 15s?
[For reference, the 4th impression also came out in 1962, the same year as the first impression – but right at the end of the year – December – and so that’s why it had a price rise. Price rises were typically at the end of one year/the start of another - see list of impressions below:]
So, I’m genuinely perplexed.
Would could explain this?
Here’s a few thoughts…
- The book was destined to go abroad, but then didn’t:
[Ps Thanks to my collector friend Tony Jelly for suggesting this]. Could this book have been an export-destined copy, where the UK prices were typically removed in advance so different territories could add their own currency price? Could it have ended up ‘not’ being sent (for some unknown reason), and then than rather than wasting the jacket, it was re-used and given an official Cape sticker at the same price of 15s?
- The book was returned and then needed re-pricing:
Could this book have been sold, then returned to the seller for some unknown reason? If the buyer bought it and sniped the price off (maybe because it was bought as a gift), the book then needed re-pricing, and so the bookseller will have added a 15s Cape sticker. It’s possible! The intended recipient may not have wanted the gifted book, and wanted a refund instead.
Of course, we won't ever know the answer.
I believe this is a first edition first impression book with a correct (but re-priced) first impression jacket.
But it just goes to show, that there are little quirks like this out there, that keep us collectors on our toes, and keep us guessing.
Collecting would be so much less interesting without these oddities I think!
Comments