A Pocket Guide to the Identification of First Editions

The reference guide "A Pocket Guide to the Identification of First Editions" is an excellent pocket guide for the book buyer, the book collector, and the book seller who is interested in knowing the number lines and the lettering systems used by different publishers both past and present in order to identify true first editions of books. It is small enough to take with you just about anywhere you go, which is real handy whenever you are scouting for books or just in the hunt for first edition books that are true first editions. However, a word of caution is necessary here. This is just what it says it is - a guide. If you want to actually know what makes certain first edition books valuable, or just more about the world of book selling and collecting, then this guide by itself will fail to meet your needs. There are many good books available that go into the actual details of what you should be looking for when determining the value and the grade of books. But, as a reference guide to the actual numbering and/or lettering systems used by publishers (and there are quite a few different systems used), this is an excellent resource.

Please ignore any bad reviews for this indispensable guide. I've been collecting books for 30 years, and I refer to this guide at least once a month. Look at the "Key to the Listings" section to understand the necessary abbreviations, and make sure you have an actual copy of the book in hand, and you can easily get the answers to whether you have a first edition. For those complaining that it doesn't have every publisher in the world, just chill. There are tens of thousands of publishers in the world, and it would take an army of researchers to include very publisher. This handy guide covers all of the most important U.S. publishers of the 19th and 20th century. It's a brilliant work of bibliographical research. Thank you Bill McBride!

A bit pricey, but an indensible aid to book collecdtors. I've been using an earlier edition for years and bought this one for a friend of mine that also collects books.

As a long time book owner, collector, and now online book dealer, first editions have been somewhat of a mystery to me. While sometimes they are easy to identify, many times they are not, so I am using this book as a reference and hoping to enhance my knowledge in this area. I have not owned it very long at this point, but it has already come in handy at a couple of auctions with helping me determine whether or not a book was truly a first edition. A small book, with a lot of information, I highly recommend it!

The introduction gives a solid background on first editions in general. The bulk of the booklet -- and it is a booklet to carry with you -- is a 100-page list of about 3600 publishers, large and small, famous and obscure. For each publisher, the typical first edition clues are given. Indispensable and affordable.For the details of well-known true firsts, itemized title by title, see the author's other book, Points of Issue.

My volunteer friends and I at the public library have disagreed on how to tell a book is a first edition. We have hundreds of books donated every month, cleaned up, and resold on eBay and in a shop at the library. This book is a gold-mine of much-needed information and a way to say "I told you so" without saying it out loud.

This is NOT a book!! It is a fold of about 25 half-size pages stapled in the center with a cover of card stock printed in black. The information was totally ho-hum. Common sense and an IQ of more than 20 will give you the same information with a quick look at the front of any book. Then there's the cost!!!!! $15.95 plus $3.49 shipping. The book would have easily fit into a #10 business envelope and shipped for forty cents. Needless to say I returned it ASAP.

This book had 8 pages of info on identifying rare first editions and 132 pages of publisher lists. Most of the identifying info I had already found easily online. It was not worth $25.00 for this tiny book.