Frequently Asked Questions

I purchased a 17th printing that the publisher had misbound. Wondering if this oddity had any value.

I think if you had a printing error of the first edition, and if the error was something that was established as a first run error, then I think you would have something. First state errors are very desirable - I'm thinking of things such as typos that were fixed very early in the first print run.

But one-off mistakes that happen randomly in the middle of a print run or in a later printing aren't generally something that collectors are looking for. As an example, I recently purchased (by mistake) a first edition of Franzen's Freedom that was bound upside down. In this case I know that this was a random error, and I would frankly rather have a normal one. But I also have the first printing of the British edition of Freedom that has the infamous mistake where an earlier draft of the book was used. That is a desirable error because it affected the first run of the first UK edition; and because it has a big story associated with it. This type of error is very desireable.

So unfortunately I don't think a one-off printing error on a later printing is that desirable. Think about it in terms of your own collecting instincts - It this something you would pay a lot of money for?



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