Stephen King Collecting Questions

[Merlin1958]

ok... help me out guys.... I need my memory refreshed.

on the UK first edition Gunslinger Paperbacks....

I appear to have two versions -
both by sphere, both with the same ISBN # and same copyright pages.
both are priced:
U.K. 6.99
Aust,$16,99
N.Z. $17.99

on the spine "The Dark Tower 1: The Gunslinger"
one is in dark purple
one is in light baby blue (and the spine picture is basically monotoned blue)
(and no... it does not look simply faded)

anyone know the difference?

If it's any help, I bought my UK early DT books from Greg (Shibus) and he was very well versed in the UK firsts. In fact, he educated me with regards to the PB's being the true firsts and I took him at his word (which I have always found to be very reliable). My first 3 UK DT's are Lt Blue, Tan & Dark Blue on the spine illustration all by Sphere. H&S did produce a HC W&G which I have, so its only the first three to my knowledge.

In any case, you may want to PM Shibus and ask him. I trust his judgement.

Hope that helps.

[Sir_Boomme]

here's a couple of lame pics of the two UK paperback spines

sorry they are fuzzy







you can't tell from my photo skills , but the top one's print is a maroon/purple color
again... this looks printed this way.... in a different ink color - not faded - and only the spine is different - the rest of the books look exactly the same.

[Brice]

Looks like a printing error to me.

[Lenny]

Without having the book in my hand and loop to examine the printing its hard to say. But it does look like the red ink was not layed down. Not sure how familiar you are with printing but each of the 4 colors are layed down individually by the press. There are four rollers and each roller has a plate. The plates each lay down a seperate color, one on top of each other. From what I can see it "appears" that the yellow, blue and black inkes were printed but the red was not. If you get a loop (magnifying glass) and look closely you can see little dots of each color. You will see four different colored dots on the book on the right. I'm betting you will only see 3 on the other.

Now with that being said red ink fades very easily in sunlight. So much so that it will fade out and leave the other colors behind. However it will not all disappear so there will still be some red dots if there was ever red ink laid down on the other colors.

Hope all that makes sense.

[Sir_Boomme]

Without having the book in my hand and loop to examine the printing its hard to say. But it does look like the red ink was not layed down. Not sure how familiar you are with printing but each of the 4 colors are layed down individually by the press. There are four rollers and each roller has a plate. The plates each lay down a seperate color, one on top of each other. From what I can see it "appears" that the yellow, blue and black inkes were printed but the red was not. If you get a loop (magnifying glass) and look closely you can see little dots of each color. You will see four different colored dots on the book on the right. I'm betting you will only see 3 on the other.

Now with that being said red ink fades very easily in sunlight. So much so that it will fade out and leave the other colors behind. However it will not all disappear so there will still be some red dots if there was ever red ink laid down on the other colors.

Hope all that makes sense.

it definitely does not "look" simply faded.... I kind of thought about it being a printing mistake, with the red ink not going on.... but aren't the jackets printed flat/ all at once.... the front cover,spine and back cover going on all at the same time?

the front and back covers have the red ink and look exctly right.

the red ink fading on an exposed spine makes the most sense... but if that is the case... it faded so evenly and completely that it looks printed that way.

[Brice]

Without having the book in my hand and loop to examine the printing its hard to say. But it does look like the red ink was not layed down. Not sure how familiar you are with printing but each of the 4 colors are layed down individually by the press. There are four rollers and each roller has a plate. The plates each lay down a seperate color, one on top of each other. From what I can see it "appears" that the yellow, blue and black inkes were printed but the red was not. If you get a loop (magnifying glass) and look closely you can see little dots of each color. You will see four different colored dots on the book on the right. I'm betting you will only see 3 on the other.

Now with that being said red ink fades very easily in sunlight. So much so that it will fade out and leave the other colors behind. However it will not all disappear so there will still be some red dots if there was ever red ink laid down on the other colors.

Hope all that makes sense.

it definitely does not "look" simply faded.... I kind of thought about it being a printing mistake, with the red ink not going on.... but aren't the jackets printed flat/ all at once.... the front cover,spine and back cover going on all at the same time?

the front and back covers have the red ink and look exctly right.

the red ink fading on an exposed spine makes the most sense... but if that is the case... it faded so evenly and completely that it looks printed that way.

Direct sunlight for a long time could do that.

[Lenny]

Yeah on a book cover like that it all starts out as one big sheet with multiple covers on it. Once it is printed the covers are cut out. So if the rest of the book looks ok then I would say the spine is just faded.

Now I have seen this happen before where the printing plate was bad and part of a color was missing. For example, the title of a book is printed in purple. There are two plates used, a blue one and a red one. Both plates used in the press would look exaclty same, one to lay down the blue ink first and then one to lay down the red ink on top, thus making purple. Well if the red plate was missing one letter of the title on the spine then it would come out looking like this - The Stand. The "S" would appear blue while the rest of the title was purple. Now the printer runs hundred copies testing and refining the colors. Then those samples are sent to art department to be graded against the original art work and retested again to make sure the printing press is reproducing the colors exactly right and so on and so on until every one is happy with what will eventually make to market. So the chances that you have a book that just the spine was missing the red off the plate is very unlikely.

So all that just to say that if the front and back looked like the spine then I would say it was a printing error but since just the spine looks that way I would say it is just faded.

[Ari_Racing]

I remember reading somewhere that one of these books was published one day before the other:

Desperation
The regulators.

Is it true? If so, which one was published first?

[jhanic]

As far as I remember, they were placed on the shelves the same day.

John

[disel24]

aye they were. some even came shrinkwrapped together with a goodie. For a while it was an excerpt from the as of yet unreleased DTIV or later on, a book light

[jhanic]

I think the booklight came first, then, when those sold out, the Wizard and Glass booklet was provided to buyers who bought both books at the same time.

John

[Sam]

The book light came first. The set that I got for Christmas that year had the W&G excerpt though, so the booklights apparently went quick.

[Randall Flagg]

U.S. Trade editions-Tuesday September 24, 1996
Per Peter Schneider, Hill House Publishing:

Viking pleaded with King to consider publishing the two books separately, but the author was adamant that they should be published on the same day. Giving in, Viking then decided that their sister publisher, Dutton, would publish The Regulators and Viking would publish Desperation. At the time, I was the Marketing Director of Dutton. Given my experience with The Stand limited, Marvin Brown, the President of Penguin (Viking and Dutton's parent company) decided that Dutton would also do the limited edition and that I would coordinate the project. (The limited edition rights of Desperation were sold to Donald M. Grant, Publishers.)

The Regulators S/L was offered for sale October 8, 1996

[Fsmdr]

I have 2 copies of Dead Zone 1st. I just realized that they are not similar. Even though internally, the first edition identifier is identical ( DJ price, copyright page, etc), The lettering on the cover is of a different color and stranger still, the copy with the redder lettering is noticeably thicker than the other. Is one of the them not a 1st or is this a production discrepancies?. Very curious.

[lophophoras]

The book light came first. The set that I got for Christmas that year had the W&G excerpt though, so the booklights apparently went quick.

I read somewhere that they stopped selling the set with the booklights because they weren't safe. They had to be pulled from the shelves because supposedly they were overheating and catching fire.

[Randall Flagg]

I have 2 copies of Dead Zone 1st. I just realized that they are not similar. Even though internally, the first edition identifier is identical ( DJ price, copyright page, etc), The lettering on the cover is of a different color and stranger still, the copy with the redder lettering is noticeably thicker than the other. Is one of the them not a 1st or is this a production discrepancies?. Very curious.

Identifying characteristics:
"First published in 1979 by the Viking
Press" on CP

Trim size: 6.25 x 9.5 x 1.45"
DJ Price $11.95

[jhanic]

The book light came first. The set that I got for Christmas that year had the W&G excerpt though, so the booklights apparently went quick.

I read somewhere that they stopped selling the set with the booklights because they weren't safe. They had to be pulled from the shelves because supposedly they were overheating and catching fire.

I hadn't heard that. I heard there were about 200,000 copies of the set with the booklight issued and, indeed, they did sell out quickly. Thus the W&G booklet.

John

[Hutch]

One of them is most likely a BCE (probably the thinner one) ...if both have priced DJs, the BCE has a 1st state dj married to it.

Check the quarter cloth on the spine to make sure it's not paper made to look like cloth and check the publishers address on the copyright page.

I have 2 copies of Dead Zone 1st. I just realized that they are not similar. Even though internally, the first edition identifier is identical ( DJ price, copyright page, etc), The lettering on the cover is of a different color and stranger still, the copy with the redder lettering is noticeably thicker than the other. Is one of the them not a 1st or is this a production discrepancies?. Very curious.

Identifying characteristics:
"First published in 1979 by the Viking
Press" on CP

Trim size: 6.25 x 9.5 x 1.45"
DJ Price $11.95

[Fsmdr]

The quarter cloth bound seems identical to both books and on both book, the address on the copyright page is:

625 Madison Ave
New York, NY 10022

Both has the : First Published in 197 by The Viking Press.

Does the Dead Zone have any gutter code?.

[Randall Flagg]

No gutter code. I postulate that both are likely 1st Editions. They are >30 years old. Spine cock, expansion and contraction of the page blocks (signatures) could easily account for a minute (~1/8th"), but distinctively noticeable difference in thickness.
I have two copies and one is 1 and 9/16" (1.56", 4 CM) thick and the other 1 and 11/16" (1.685", 4.3 CM) thick.
Both are within "spec".
Don't worry about it.
You could however compress the books and both would be closer to the 1.45" thickness.

[Randall Flagg]

Notice the two books pictured have each aged a bit differently.
The camera is actually better than the eye (every minute flaw is exaggerated). The one book has the bottom board slightly fading, and it shows as a bit brownish. To the naked eye the color difference is hardly noticeable, but with a flash and high resolution picture, easily discernible.
Thickness also is different, but once again, (IMO) within tolerance.

[Fsmdr]

Thanks for the clarification, Dave and Jerome.

Isn't that interesting?. My boards are also slightly faded on the edge like yours. The color of the lettering might also be caused by fading...although nothing else look faded on the cover to me.

Well, I am glad both of my copies are 1st. One of them is a signed copy I just purchased from Betts.

[wizardsrainbow]

Thanks for the clarification, Dave and Jerome.

Isn't that interesting?. My boards are also slightly faded on the edge like yours. The color of the lettering might also be caused by fading...although nothing else look faded on the cover to me.

Well, I am glad both of my copies are 1st. One of them is a signed copy I just purchased from Betts.

Whew!

[biomieg]

I'm sure there are some OCD list-compilers dwelling The Corner, so I was wondering... does anyone have an up-to-date list of King publications from 2006-2010? Basically, I'd like to have this information to complement my copy of Justin Brooks's Bibliography.

I know there are two addenda to this volume (I don't have them) but these don't go further than 2006, do they?

I'm especially interested in an overview of fiction and poetry, the non-fiction stuff can wait until Justin updates his Bibliography

[Randall Flagg]

I'm sure there are some OCD list-compilers dwelling The Corner, so I was wondering... does anyone have an up-to-date list of King publications from 2006-2010? Basically, I'd like to have this information to complement my copy of Justin Brooks's Bibliography.

Perhaps you could compile the list and contribute it to the forum.