Quote Originally Posted by webstar1000 View Post
Fill us in!
Alright, alright. I had planned to make a post telling the whole story including lots of photos, but the photos are at home and I suppose I can tell the story now and share the photos later, so here we are:

I found an ad on Kijiji here in Ontario for a large lot, someones entire collection. Specifically the bookshelf worth of books you saw above. Now I noticed the Grant edition of The Gunslinger as well as The Drawing of the Three and immediately contacted him. I did ask him point blank if it was a first edition first printing, and he someone reluctantly said that yes it was and that "They're all original, I bought them and read them once" - his general tone was of a casual collector, someone who loved King but who didn't seem to have knowledge of the "collector" oriented details - such as first vs second editions.

So that being said, I knew I was shooting in the dark. A quick check on Stephen King Collector and I found out the production run was the same for the 1st and 2nd from Grant (10'000 each). I figured, what the hell, it's a coin toss right? Not to mention the fact that I've only ever seen one Grant copy of the Gunslinger before, and it's the one I bought, completely ripped and taped up and signed (by the owner, not king) so I thought it would be an upgrade regardless.

Here's the catch, the guy was three hours away. So that's a six hour round trip and a 50/50 chance that it's a 1st 1st... I didn't *really* want to ask him to check the fine print for fear of him getting curious why I was being so nosy about that ONE book in his collection and hopping on eBay to find out. So I said screw it, talked the girlfriend into a Sunday road trip, and drove out to no-where Ontario.

Not a bad drive, all highway and only one tank of gas. Get there and he lives down a dirt road that looks like it should end in a creepy mansion or a murder shack, turns out there are a few homes of mostly retiree's. Guy was friendly older man, arms covered in tattoos, and the first thing he says when I get there "I forgot to mention, I lent out my copy of Gunslinger a while back".

My heart sank.

But then he lead me into the room with the book shelf, and there it was, just like in the photo. He continued "So this one is a little different than the other one I had, this is an ex-library book, I totally forgot to mention it when you asked".

Talk about a roller coaster of emotions. One moment he has it, then it's gone, then he has it again but it's a library book. Sadness, happiness, finally followed by...apathy? I didn't really know how to feel. Mostly I was confused, I couldn't really tell if he was trying to fleece me or just generally an old guy who didn't really know what he had and who had forgotten. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and had a look.

Now here's where I would plug all the photos in, and maybe I'll edit them in tonight when I get home. It was wrapped in a Brodart-esque mylar dust jacket, as you would expect from a library book, that was almost white from micro scratches and plastic fade. It was really hard to tell how the dust jacket looked underneath but it seemed to be holding up alright. There was some residue on the end pages from where the sign-in/sign-out sheet should have been, but it was removed. There was also a number stamped on the top right corner of the end page. Lastly there was the name of the library stamped on the top and bottom of the pages. The library plastic jacket was also taped to the boards.

We had a conversation about money at that point. I explained that I had asked him on the phone because I was a collector and wanted it for my own collection, and the fact that it was a library book definitely changed things. I changed my offer on the whole collection based on what I knew, and he countered with a bit more. I stuck to my guns and reiterated that I had driven a long way for these. He agreed to my new offer.

However! The Grant edition of The Drawing of the Three was in fact a first edition, in excellent shape, and not a library book. I packed up the whole collection (55 books, give or take) and he handed me a bunch of other odds and ends he had picked up over the years, THOSE turned out to be pretty interesting but I'll share more when I have photos. Nothing super rare, but lots of little additions to the collection that I didn't already own.