With these editions, it appears that the value, predictably, goes up when the title is no longer available at BN.com. Jules Verne, Seven Novels: 6th printing.Complete Edgar Allan Poe: 16th printing.Complete Sherlock Holmes: 13th printing.(I think out of 100s of listings, I found two that mentioned what print run it was).īased on unwrapped books at my local store, these are the titles in later printings: In researching the current listings for most of the titles, book vendor descriptions tend not to include the number of printing. This may be of less importance for these particular editions, however.Ī few titles are already in early to later printings (4th to 16th), although that appears to have less of an impact on the value for most collectors of these titles. And no guesses as to how many were printed (sorry).
There are no numbers on first runs for any of the titles, that I’ve found so far. The copyright page on the volumes I was able to view, all state that they were printed and bound in China, which might go a long way to answering that question. Many people have questioned how these books can be priced so cheaply if they are indeed bound in leather with standard to high quality paper stock. In my estimation, it is a far cry from Book of the Month Club stock. Of the few books that I’ve been able to actually open (not being one to just remove the shrink-wrap from un-purchased copies), there has been little to no information regarding printing or paper used (not surprising), so I can’t tell you with any authority if the paper quality is lesser.Īnecdotally (and as a papermaker and book binder), I can tell you that the thinner paper does not feel or look of lesser quality. And I’m guessing it is thinner to compensate for the fact that it is a heftier book. This doesn’t, however, mean that the paper quality is lesser. In some instances, such as Stephen King’s trilogy, the paper weight is much thinner. I think this primarily refers to the weight of the paper. I found several forum comments stating that the quality differs from title to title. Mostly, I found people exclaiming how beautiful the book covers are, and how they covet various titles in the collection. Unfortunately there is simply not much in the way of information on these editions. Clearly marketed to collectors over readers – or at the very least, people who want pretty books lining their shelves – I’ve wondered what their collectibility, in reality, is.Īs soon as I got home, I jumped on the Internet and began researching, looking for ANY information on these collections (of which, I’ve focussed on 2 subsets: the Leather Bound Classics and Children’s Hardcover Classics). These prettily bound Leather editions with printed covers and gilt edges (donned in shrink-wrap) have always intrigued me. I was in the Barnes & Noble the other day and was pulled, for the umpteenth time, to the Barnes & Noble Leather Bound Editions display.