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1987 box set cover error

23 May, 2016
2016-5-23 1:40:25 AM UTC

I have a box set of "The lord of the rings" from 1987 with dust covers, all in great condition. There is a flaw with the cover of the first book. The other two books all have a design on the front, and when you open it up you find your self on page 1. But with the first book if you have the design showing and you open the book up you find yourself at the map, which is in the very back, and then when you turn the page again you find yourself on the last page and its upside down.

I have two questions referring to this.
1) has anyone ever had this experience with the cover on backwards and upside down?
2) would this box set interest anyone? I am open to offers for these. I can send pictures if needed and all dust jackets, bindings and maps are in great-amazing. Condition.

[email protected]

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Stu

23 May, 2016 (edited)
2016-5-23 7:26:29 AM UTC

Bill Watkins wrote:
I have a box set of "The lord of the rings" from 1987 with dust covers, all in great condition. There is a flaw with the cover of the first book. The other two books all have a design on the front, and when you open it up you find your self on page 1. But with the first book if you have the design showing and you open the book up you find yourself at the map, which is in the very back, and then when you turn the page again you find yourself on the last page and its upside down.

I have two questions referring to this.
1) has anyone ever had this experience with the cover on backwards and upside down?
2) would this box set interest anyone? I am open to offers for these. I can send pictures if needed and all dust jackets, bindings and maps are in great-amazing. Condition.

[email protected]

Which edition (publisher) are you referring to? I'm guessing the Houghton Mifflin Edition (as the 1987 Unwin Hyman edition doesn't have any logo on the front board) ? Presumably the wording in the spine is upside-down on ~~two~~ [Edit: One] of the volumes also? Just sounds like a binding error to me -- these happen from time to time, and are generally considered to be defective and worth much less than a correctly assembled equivalent. There are exceptions, such as when an error denotes a first state of a book, but the general rule is definitely that defective books are not desirable.

You can always stick it on eBay and see if anyone wants it, though!

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23 May, 2016
2016-5-23 5:36:43 PM UTC

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23 May, 2016
2016-5-23 5:38:40 PM UTC

The words are upside down and read from last page to first the whole way through the book but only on the first book. The other two are normal.

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Stu

24 May, 2016
2016-5-24 12:34:55 AM UTC

Bill Watkins wrote:
The words are upside down and read from last page to first the whole way through the book but only on the first book. The other two are normal.

This happens when the entire page block gets inserted into the boards the wrong way up at the bindery. I've seen it a few times on various books. It may have been a single block assembled incorrectly or one of a batch. Like I say, usually (almost always) it detracts from the value, because collectors don't generally want a faulty book when there are (almost always) plenty of the same impression that aren't faulty.

I know some stamps have value because they are faulty, but I think even that only applies in a very limited number of cases, and I haven't heard of the same philosophy being applied to books.

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Trotter

24 May, 2016
2016-5-24 6:01:24 AM UTC

My Dad is a big stamp collector and he loves to collect varieties and errors in stamps, as an example the 1918 Inverted Flying Jenny is probably the most collectable error, and he does not own one.

The normal copy is worth a few cents, but the error is about $1million US.

As for books, Stu is correct they normally have no value with printing errors, you may want to look to see if you can replace the copy that you have with a fine copy without error.

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1987 box set cover error

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