The most difficult Bond book to find..?

It's not all fun being a book dealer. Trying to find a book you know exists but frequently dishes up disappointment has become the norm for one particularly hard to find book..

In last week’s blog a particular line might have stuck with you – my observation that book collectors (like myself), can sometimes be the worst book dealers. Why? Because (often), they buy books for themselves, and are terrible at letting treasured items go.

This week however, I feel it’s worth balancing things up, by adding that it’s precisely because book collectors-turned-dealers typically understand the thrill of taking possession of a rare book that they do (truly) get a buzz when they know they can furnish someone with the book of their dreams. It's why I transitioned from collector to dealer myself.

But the path to creating this beautiful ‘moment’ – can also be an arduous one.

Between a book being found, and passing to a new owners’ hands, there’s many untold (and often unseen), hard yards involved. There’s countless hours’ searching, frequent disappointments; deals that don’t come off, and numerous dead-ends to be negotiated.

Even when a book is secured, there’s often the disillusionment of books arriving below the condition I expected them to be in, and even issues around seeing Frankenstein books (see my previous blog here). In short, the ‘hunt’ is a time-consuming one, and can involve costly mistakes taking punts on books that turn out not to be as expected.

I’m not saying all this to elicit some sort of sympathy. It’s what I choose to do, and I take on my monetary risks for the customer satisfaction and reward that more often than not follows.

But this week I mention it to remind readers that whenever a nice new selection of books appears on my site, they really do come to buyers a lot more easily than they came to me in the first instance! And I thought I would illustrate this by describing what has recently become something of a saga – tracing a very particular book.

The Man With The Golden Gun

Perhaps nine months-to-a-year ago, a customer approached me looking for a very particular book that he had had no success finding himself.

Always up for a challenge, I said I would help. The book he wants is a first edition of Man With The Golden Gun.

It’s sounds a straightforward enough request, but if only it were.

He’s not just looking for any old one – and no, it’s not an example with the gold gun to the front board (right now, I reckon  one of these would have been far easier to find!!)

The book he wants is a first impression book that has silver foil lettering to the spine.

It sounds simple – but is it heck!

Of all the books I’ve tried to find, (including last week's final impression Dr No), I now regard this as perhaps one of the most enduringly difficult.

'So what's the problem?' I hear you ask. It's worth noting why this search is so taxing:

It’s quite possible The Man With The Golden Gun is the most complex book there is when it comes to different variations.

Not only is there the golden-to-board variant, there’s a Canadian-only variant with a reset half title; then there’s the one with white endpapers rather than the usual green ‘bamboo’ design, and that’s before one starts getting involved with the different foil variants involved and different cloth variants that exist (Linson, Excelin or Fabroleen) – the interplay of which means there are potentially double-figure combinations possible of a first impression of The Man With The Golden Gun.

For instance, the Canadian copies have only ever been seen bound in Linson, while examples of books with the white end papers (a variant numbering just 3,204 out of the total 82,000 print run), can only be found bound with Excelin. But, examples of the latter can be found of the spine lettering stamped in either a gold, bronze, plus Nuvap – which is described by Fleming bibliographer Jon Gilbert as more of a “pale or white-gold” foil.

The non-white endpaper books meanwhile were bound in Fabroleen, Excelin and Linson (the latter two are more of a dark brown/grey colour compared to the blacker Excelin cloth) – as an when stocks of each ran out, and all three of these exist with four different foil colours as stocks of this also expired. Copies can be found in the light gold gilt (Nuvap), as well as a distinctive bronze colour, plus a much deeper golden colour. The deeper gold, says Gilbert, shows up as a “richer and darker than Nuvap” and is – by far – the most common of all the foil colour types.

…which brings me to the 4^th foil colour – silver.

Not even Gilbert says much about this!

Of all the foil variants, this one truly is the most enigmatic.

Despite going into great detail about the three main foils, Gilbert is unusually casual (and succinct), when it comes to talking about the silver examples.

Of the several double-page spreads he devotes to the different states and binding variations of the first impression of The Man With The Golden Gun, when it comes to talking about the existence of a silver-foiled one, you almost miss his mention of it. He simply says: “Very occasionally a copy [of a second state – ie no golden gun to boards] can be found lettered in silver Nuvap.” [ie not the “pale or white-gold” Nuvap, but actually silver]

That is literally it.

Finding a needle in a haystack

Given the above, it’s hardly surprising why a silver-spined copy of The Man With The Golden Gun can be considered a very scarce item indeed (and why this particular collector covets one).

I’ve previously blogged about Jonathan Cape often switched to using silver foil (for first impressions) when gold was called for. This was when stocks of gilt ran out, and it was deemed better to keep production going rather than halt it. My collector-friend had clearly hit a searching brick wall trying to find a silver-spined Golden Gun himself – which was why he turned to me for help.

The difficult search

This necessary background sets the scene for what I can only describe as being one of my most protracted searches yet; one that’s been going for nearly a year, and has been plagued by setback after setback.

The only shred of good news I cling on to is the fact that I know I’m not looking for a unicorn.

The Man with the Golden Gun - with a silver spine!

I happen to know that a first impression The Man With The Golden Gun ‘does’ at least exist with silver lettering to the spine.

This is because the only other (similarly brief), mention of anything silver-spined related by Gilbert relates to his explanation of the first state of the first impression – ie the super rare (940 copies), state with a gilt gun to the front board. As per above, he is just as brief: “lettered in gilt, or very occasionally in silver.”

Here is my own copy of this book (see left) - with silver to the spine to prove it.

So, silver spined examples do exist. I just need to find one.

But from this point forward, I have to say it’s been an enervating experience.

Believe me when I tell you: gold has an awkward tendency to look silver!

Difficult though this may sound to believe, the biggest problem in this search has been the very real fact that what I see as silver in pictures is actually gold when the book is finally in my hands!

Two different colours, looking the same? Surely this is not possible – you must be saying to yourselves. Gold and silver are totally different from each other.

Well just let me show you.

For the last year I’ve been buying up any first impression books of The Man With Golden Guns where I think the spine looks silver.

But – and this is when the misery of being a book dealer really starts to emerge – I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I ended up receiving books that have had very demonstrably ‘silver’-looking spines (as per their pictures), but are actually books with gold lettering instead. Seriously.

If you still don’t think this is possible, take a look here:

I was pretty sure I'd hit the jackpot when I received this book recently... (see pic below of the book on its own.

But when I put what I knew was a regular gold-spined book beside it, things started to go awry. The first picture (below left) looked good, but as I looked closer and closer - and took more pictures - I could almost see the 'silver' morphing into a gold spine right before my very eyes. By the time I'd gotten to the picture of the right, it basically looked gold, albeit a slightly worn/faded shade of gold. See below for yourself, moving from left to right to see the transition for yourself:

Exhibit 1:

Believe it or not, the 'silver' spined book in all these pictures is the same book (with a gold spined book on top of it), but as you move your eye along - from left to right - it starts to become clear that this isn't silver at all. Maybe (and actually, I think this is the case), this book actually one with the so-called 'pale gold' Nuvap rather than silver Nuvap.

Undeterred though, I then went on something of a spending spree, and started buying up all of the 'silver'-looking spined I could find. Here's what I found:

Exhibit 2:

Below are the pictures I saw of a second book that definitely looked like it had a silver spine that the seller sent me. To me, this spine looked silver - so I was willing to give it a punt.

Alas it was a bust - appearing just like the photos above - very much gold rather than silver.

Exhibits 3 and 4:

Below are two separate books I then bought next. I didn't have the best of pictures to go on, but these (despite being a bit blurry), looked promising:

Below (left) are the original images of the books I was sent.

Compare these to pics (below right) - the books I actually received. What do you think?

Here's some further photos, this time with a proper 'gold'-spined book to the far right of the two 'silver' ones (below):

The first picture (bottom left) admittedly looks very silver indeed, but the two pics along side it (below middle and below right) cause me to doubt myself!!

Exhibit 5:

My most recent purchase was this book below.

Looking at the sellers image (top picture left), I snapped it up straight away, thinking I'd finally found this elusive book...

Below it however, is a picture of the book I actually received.

The actual book definitely doens't look as silver as the seller picture above it does, although could this be down to what the foil is reflecting back (I took this picture in my bedroom, opposite a pine chest of drawers.

Below is perhaps a better picture. This shows 'all' of my supposed silver-spined books from left to right - exhibit 5 being on the far left, with exhibits 3 and 4 next to it, and next to them a definite gold-spine book (and just for good measure there's a copper foiled example too):

Bronze, silver and gold??

Are the three books to the left of the picture examples of the elusive silver spine?

Whilst thinking about this, it dawned on me that I could try and settle things a bit more definitively.

There's one final comparison that's possible to be made - comparing my purchases with an actual silver-spined book.

As mentioned earlier, I definitely know that my own personal Golden Gun with a silver spine, is the bona-fide article.

Here it is again below, with a gold-spined book next to it for comparison. Definitely silver.

Here's my line of books once more - this time with my gilt-gun-to-the boards Man With The Golden Gun at the end (far left of the line of book). Alongside it, some close-ups too of it and 'exhibit 5':

My line of books - at the very far left, the silver-spine Golden Gun with the gilt gun to the boards

So, the question is this? Do I have three silver-spined The Man With the Golden Guns (the 4th foil variant), or three 'pale gold' (on of the three normal variant) spined books?

Exhibit 5 certainly looks good to me. Exhibits 3 and 4 are also looking good.

Exhibits 1 and 2 - I've taken to be pale gold, and is not shown in the above line-up of books pictures.

To be honest, when I actually compare exhibits 3, 4 and 5 to my gilt-gun-to-boards copy, this time I'm actually a lot more convinced that the three so-called 'silver' spine books 'are' what I originally thought they were.

I'm well aware that silver is highly reflective, and it does tend to show a bit of the colour of the space around it. So maybe the tinges of 'gold' I thought I was seeing are just some surrounding colour of my immediate environment being reflected back.

What do you think?

I'd be interested to hear your views.

Depending on your point of view, I now have 'three' silver (?) spined books for sale if anyone wants one!!

(Caveat: Buyers to satisfy themselves that they are what they think they are!)

One thing I do know. These silver-spined examples. They're rare-as...!