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What year did my Copy of CARRIE come out? Details inside!

Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2012 6:15 pm
by spooner9ball
I just acquired a copy of Carrie. It has the look of a first edition, but it is not. Although it is a cloth cover, the price is noted as C 10.95, and the code on the last page is W16.

Just wondering which year you think this might have been printed??

Thanks, and excited to be part of the boards!!

Shaun.

Re: What year did my Copy of CARRIE come out? Details inside!

Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2012 11:07 pm
by Mr. Rabbit Trick
Your Carrie is from the 16th week of 1981.

Re: What year did my Copy of CARRIE come out? Details inside!

Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2012 6:53 am
by TheCollector
Mr. Rabbit Trick wrote:Your Carrie is from the 16th week of 1981.
Our good buddy The Rabbit is correct. Based on some info sluthed together by another member we have what we believe to be an accurate decryption of the early doubleday codes.

The letter represents the year the book was printed (see chart below) and the number represents the week.

Q - 1975
R - 1976
S - 1977
T - 1978
U - 1979
V - 1980
W -1981
X - 1982
Y - 1983
Z - 1984

Re: What year did my Copy of CARRIE come out? Details inside!

Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2012 6:56 pm
by spooner9ball
Wow, this is an incredible post!! I am in the presence of GIANTS!!

So, how does this book relates in terms of scarcity and edition/ printing numbers, etc?

This will never leave my collection, so now I am just looking to log some of the more Specific info.

I would think that by 1981, they had pounded out a fair few of these!!

I am not sure that value is much of a concern to me; it is free of markings and as a book it appears unread, but the dust cover has some wear along most of the edges.

If anyone is interested, I spent $60 on this copy.

Re: What year did my Copy of CARRIE come out? Details inside!

Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2012 11:20 pm
by Mr. Rabbit Trick
$60 is about the correct value.

Re: What year did my Copy of CARRIE come out? Details inside!

Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2012 7:03 am
by TheCollector
Since the 1st edition is the main one collectors are interested in, I don't think anyone's tried to establish the print run of the later editions - by now it's probably impossible to say for sure.

My guess though would be that for the entire year of 1981 they probably printed 75,000 - 150,000 copies of Carrie were reprinted (I'm basing this on 1st edition print runs of King in the early 80's running in the low hundred thousands) but I couldn't say how many were printed with your specific batch.

Re: What year did my Copy of CARRIE come out? Details inside!

Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2012 10:43 pm
by spooner9ball
Cool. Person was asking $90. I went in at $60 thinking $75 was the right number, but they did not counter.

Like I said, straight to the shelf with this one!!

Thanks for all the help.

Next up, I have to find out more info about a Whispers I have with a King piece in it. I see Whispers on sale sites all the time, but never the one I have, with a painted demon on the front cover. I'll poke around the site here for more info!

Re: What year did my Copy of CARRIE come out? Details inside!

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 4:41 am
by jhanic
That's probably Whispers #17/18. It has two King stories: Before the Play (a prequel to The Shining) and It Grows on You. It came out in December 1982. Depending on condition, it should go about $100 or so.

John