First editions with price cut off

[Riceballtrp]

I have two first edition books, “Christine” (1/1) and “The Dead Zone” (1/2) which meet all the criteria for firsts. However, the prices have been cut off the dust jackets. Why does this happen and how does this affect the value? I don’t plan on selling, just compiling my library notes and details to be as accurate as possible.

[TheCollector]

I have two first edition books, “Christine” (1/1) and “The Dead Zone” (1/2) which meet all the criteria for firsts. However, the prices have been cut off the dust jackets. Why does this happen and how does this affect the value? I don’t plan on selling, just compiling my library notes and details to be as accurate as possible.

So one of two reasons:

1) Back when these books were published, someone wanted to give this book as a gift, but as you're not supposed to let folks know how much a gift costs they snipped off that corner with a pair of scissors.
2) At some point the original trade edition DJ that went with the book was damaged and someone replaced it with a nicer copy, but it was a BCE (Book Club edition) dustjacket (these never have a price). In an attempt to fool a future buyer they snipped the corner off so you couldn't tell it was a BCE.

Unfortunatly for most dustjackets from this era this is the only way to tell if you have a book club DJ or not, as such the buyer has to assume the worst (in terms of value) that they have a trade edition book block with a BCE DJ. Thus reducing the value overall, as a large percentage of the value is tied to the DJ.

[Riceballtrp]

Thank you for the insight. That’s good information