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First edition with no price?

Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 10:25 am
by Lelue
I have a promo copy of Christine that I bought years ago at Walmart. Up until today it was shrink wrapped. Today I was going through all my first editions and I wanted to see if this one was. It has all the identifiers of a firts edition/First print except a price on the inside of the dust jacket. It is not a book club edition and it does have a barcode on the back. What do I have? :?:

Re: First edition with no price?

Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 10:29 am
by jhanic
If it's a UK publication, it's an export edition. If it's a US publication, it is a book club edition. They're the only ones that don't have a price on the dust jacket.

John

Re: First edition with no price?

Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 11:31 am
by Lelue
I have book club editions and I know how to identify those. Book club books also have no UPC codes. These books do. These books have NO book club indicators at all, no white square with 5 numbers, no book club edition written inside dust cover fold, no bookclub indentations on the cardboard cover..nothing...they have ALL indications of NON bookclub first editions except the price. I have never belonged to a book club and the ones I have were given to me, but they had been read before..until today, mine were still wrapped in plastic because I purchased them myself from Walmart where I was a manager for 21 years. When ever I saw promos come in I got them. So Im still confused. :lol:

Re: First edition with no price?

Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 4:30 pm
by jhanic
The Book Club edition of King and Straub's Black House is identical with the trade edition except for the lack of the price on the dust jacket and gold lettering on the spine of the book versus the silver in the trade. Both have UPC numbers, a number line on the copyright page, etc.

What you describe are the earlier book club editions. Things have changed greatly since then.

John

Re: First edition with no price?

Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 8:43 pm
by Lelue
I don't belong to a book club and I bought this book at walmart. Does walmart sell bookclub books?

Re: First edition with no price?

Posted: Fri May 25, 2012 6:48 am
by TheCollector
Lelue wrote:I don't belong to a book club and I bought this book at walmart. Does walmart sell bookclub books?
My guess is that they got some deal on overstocks of the book club edition and sold them.

Since you worked at Walmart at the time I doubt anyone is going to have more information than you do on this particular batch. And what that means, is that even if it were some special Walmart edition (I'm not saying it is, but IF that was the case)...without some proof of that it would be regarded as a book club edition on the 2ndarary market due to the lack of price on the dustjacket.

Re: First edition with no price?

Posted: Fri May 25, 2012 9:34 am
by ELazansky
There are some book club editions that have UPC codes on them - my copy of the Dragonriders of Pern from the SFBC has a UPC Code. But the telling factor is no price on the DJ. It has to be a BCE.