Book and Magazine Collector Mistakes & Errors
Book & Magazine Collector is a UK based publication which was first published in 1984. It features articles on first editions, rare books, authors, genres and classified ads. The thrust of the magazine is aimed at collectors and has been a valuable resource for many years.
Recently however, whilst improving the format and modernising the layout, the quality and reliability of the articles seems to have taken a dive.
There has been much amusement amongst serious collectors of first editions and specialized dealers of late, particularly over some of the crime fiction based articles.
Whilst some of us may find these howlers amusing there is a serious point. There are people who will take what it says as gospel and that is when the problems start.
In a recent Book and Magazine Collector article it was suggested that some books published by Collins Crime Club in black or blue cloth were first editions. Absolutely incorrect.
Another article showed pictures of reprints described as rare first editions!
Yet another showed a picture of four books described as ‘very valuable first editions’ one was a paperback and another a worthless small format cheap edition!
Book & Magazine Collector have always tried to include a price guide with their bibliographies. This is bound to be problematic, so plenty of latitude should be, and is, given.
Once again though, prices recently have been ridiculous in some cases. Some sometimes many times over or well under.
In a recent article by David Blake (also responsible for the Collins Crime Club article), Mary Fitt’s Murder Mars the Tour is valued at the beginning of the article at £1,000 to £1,500 yet at the end it seems to have dropped to £400-£600+
£600 plus what ? another £900 !
The rest of David Blake’s article was interesting and illustrated correctly this time, including images of the rarest Mary Fitt dust jackets.
Incidently, supplied by us and uncredited!
Anyone seeking further information or illustrations can find them on Google, just search Mary Fitt and hit the number one match (as always!)
There is some god news though, Richard Dalby continues to contribute, as he has done for years. His articles alone are worth the cover price and strongly recommended to all
Hopefully this will not be a theme we need to return to, though rest assured we will if needed
Victor R. Goldring said,
May 19, 2006 @ 2:37 pm
Dear Rod,
I found your comments on Murder Mars The Tour very interesting. Price is always a debatable point among booksellers and collectors and finding a book’s true worth may even be impossible. However this book sold for Pounds 500.00 when last available and is a very scarce title and I know of only one copy still available on the internet but it will not be traceable using Google search.
Regards
Victor
Rod said,
May 19, 2006 @ 4:23 pm
Hi Victor
thanks for the comment and input, greatly appreciated.
I have handled copies of this title in jacket so have a reasonable idea of the price which is why I used it as an example.
Prices are, as you suggest, often difficult to pin down, my point in is this case was the disparity within the same Book and Magazine Collector article.
It is a fantastic book with one of Hastain’s best jackets
Regards
Rod
Dave Blake said,
July 5, 2006 @ 11:53 pm
Dear Rod,
Have just come across your comments above and don’t faint,I agree, they are almost correct. The pricing gaffs, wrongly captioned illustrations (not all of them supplied by me) and other problems have been sent to their source-the staff at Book and Mag Collector (during April). The problem no doubt is that once into print it can be bad for sales to issue endless corrections? –who knows? All I do know is that the price guide was jigged around and differred from that submitted
With regard to the illustrations for the Crime Club & Fitt article around half are from my own collection, with the remainder coming from the mags database and various “other” sources. If I use a jacket illustration, as with my article on John Rhode , I always credit the source (Mark Sutcliffe etc). Many come from collector friends and if they have originated on your site I apologise( and will be more choosy who I get them from)
With regard to the Crime Club bindings—yes the colour for 99.9% was indeed Orange. In two cases, Wallaces “Devil Man” and Smith’s, “The Bowery Murder” these have existed in black and mauve bindings, (as well as one other by Alice Campbell. )and were to the best of my knowledge true first editions, correctly dated and not reprints, rebinds or foreign editions. However I take the point that it would have been of more use to all and sundry had I not included this in the piece as I have no way of backing up my argument as I (conveniently, i hear you say) no longer have access to them, the owner dying some six years ago. However the same two books are mentioned by Ralph Spurrier in his preface to the CCC checklist, although whether he means they are true variants or fall into the limbo of reprints I do not know.
Your website is a great resource for any collector and has to be a labour of love. Whatever you feel about the articles (I myself have grave reservations on at least two), there was never any intention to mislead or give false info
Regards Dave Blake, Cornwall.
Rod said,
July 6, 2006 @ 9:33 am
Hello David
thanks for taking the time to comment, much appreciated.
To take your points.
It was the editor that contacted me asking for pictures David, as he did again just recently, this time I declined to help - fear not they were not ’stolen’ from Classic Crime Fiction
With respect David, you mentioned this in the article and subsequently in a letter to the editor. Nobody is suggesting they do not exist in that colour, indeed I have handled both books, and others too, that fall into this format.
The point is, that they are not the true first editions. They all came out after the first.
Because print runs for these Collins Crime Club books were low they simply printed all the sheets in one go and did not bother to change them. This is something that many publishers did, there are cases of books being bound and sold using text blocks printed years before!
The books you mention were used for the reprint/cheap later edition.
Every time a book such as you mention turns up there is an example in the orange/red cloth. I have, for example, seen the Edgar Wallace Devil Man in orange cloth, 7/6 jacket still with the original wrap round band stating it to be the latest release and the book of the month!
Rest assured this is a fact David, there is no issue on cloth colour.
There are increasing errors in Book and Magazine Collector which is why I thought this post relevant. Many of these are clearly at the door of the magazine staff themselves. I sympathise with you that once you send something in you are at their mercy - something I would be reluctant to do myself. This was one of the reasons I decided against helping with their upcoming Anthony Gilbert and Colin Watson articles. If these contained errors/mishaps and they credited the site this time I could be left looking foolish.
The importance of accuracy is very important for the magazine, as they are regarded as a reference source.
You can regularly see them used as a reference source on ebay auctions for example.
Indeed ,earlier this year a reprint was put up for auction, claimed to be a first edition as per Book and Magazine Collector, it was indeed a reprint though B&MC had labelled a picture of a cheap reprint as a first!
Thanks again David
All the best
Rod
Rod said,
June 9, 2008 @ 5:34 pm
Sent to me via one of my other websites
How funny and in theory spam !
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