Books

[juve_901582]

Found a couple of old books.  First edition Ernest Hemingway, The Torrents of Spring and Samuel Clemens’ The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.  What are these worth to book collectors?

[katzrul15]

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@juve_901582 wrote:

Found a couple of old books.  First edition Ernest Hemingway, The Torrents of Spring and Samuel Clemens’ The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.  What are these worth to book collectors?

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Depends on the condition - just because they are first editions, does not a cha-ching make.

Use Terapeak to research solds and look on Abe's, etc.

[juve_901582]

Thanks for the tip.  I’ll do that 

[coolections]

Type Ernest Hemingway Torrents of Spring then go to sold items here on Ebay.

Type Samuel Clemens adventures of Tom Sawyer then go to sold items here on Ebay.

Make sure yours is "exactly" like the ones you see including dates. Note the condition of "theirs" compared to the condition of "yours".

[natoman777]

I have been selling books on eBay for several years.  You can simply type out the title, date and publisher and see what comes up in sold sales.  Often time you might think you have a first edition and it might be a reprint the same year or something like that.  The other's here are correct as well.

[maxine*j]

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@juve_901582 wrote:

Found a couple of old books.  First edition Ernest Hemingway, The Torrents of Spring and Samuel Clemens’ The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.  What are these worth to book collectors?

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First, determine that they are first edition, first prints.  I would be amazed if they are.

I know frfom memory that here were only 1,250 copies of the 1st/1st Torrents of Spring.  Go on-line to look for the first edition points (sometimes called first issue points) for this very valuable book.

A first edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is far more valuable.  Again, do the research on the first edition points for this book.

Frankly, I doubt very much that you have a 1st of either book.   But if you do, put them both in the hands of a good auction house, where they belong.

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[maxine*j]

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@coolections wrote:

Type Ernest Hemingway Torrents of Spring then go to sold items here on Ebay.

Type Samuel Clemens adventures of Tom Sawyer then go to sold items here on Ebay.

Make sure yours is "exactly" like the ones you see including dates. Note the condition of "theirs" compared to the condition of "yours".

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And note that many will be misidentified / misrepresented as first editions.  True firsts of either one of these titles should not be sold on eBay, no matter the condition, by someone unfamiliar with the book market.

In my opinion, OP must establish, clearly, what editions he has before going any further. 

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[katzrul15]

@maxine*j  - the OP did not say First Edition, First issue/First printing...........those are so very rare from the 1800's........there are multiple versions of "first editions" of both of these books.   Also, there is the First American edition vs the London edition of Tom Sawyer.  The American edition used to be much more valuable than the London version released 6 months or so earlier.  

I too doubt the OP has found the ones that are listed for thousands of dollars and concur that if they have, they need to proceed with caution to not try and sell something like that on here.

Abe Books is a great place to search older books and as mentioned above, make certain everything matches to know which release, which version, which "printing", etc.

Edited:

On Tom Sawyer

The first edition of this American classic came out in London first. It was published by Chatto and Windus and came out in June 1876. The American edition, published by the American Publishing Company, came out in December 1876. Between these two official editions, a pirated edition from Canada was published in July 1876. The case of the English edition is covered in red cloth instead of the blue cloth of the American edition and is considered rarer and more valuable.

[maxine*j]

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@katzrul15 wrote:

@maxine*j  - the OP did not say First Edition, First issue/First printing...........

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But OP asked about value to collectors.  To book collectors, "first" always means first edition, first printing.  Not first edition, later printing.  Not first edition, this or that.  Not first, thus.

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[katzrul15]

tom sawyer first edition: Search Result | eBay

[coolections]

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@maxine*j wrote:

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And note that many will be misidentified / misrepresented as first editions. 

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@maxine*j  Thus the reason I mentioned to make sure they are exactly like the ones in the results. It is easy to see if you have the same one as other sellers.

[1786davycrockett]

It would be extremely helpful if you provided GOOD photos of each book, including front cover, spine, title page, copyright page, front inside right cover, rear cover, etc., plus any dust covers.

We might be able to assist you further, simply by examining some of those photos.

Good luck!

[chapeau-noir]

Even just the imprint page, find out of it's a first/first (first ed/first printing), then go from there.

It's good to keep in mind that ABE books can have aspirational pricing, but it's still a good source.

[maxine*j]

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@coolections wrote:

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@maxine*j wrote:

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And note that many will be misidentified / misrepresented as first editions. 

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@maxine*j  Thus the reason I mentioned to make sure they are exactly like the ones in the results. It is easy to see if you have the same one as other sellers.

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True, but many, many sellers misidentify or misrepresent what they're selling, innocently or intentionally, so I never use eBay as a primary source for identification of anything.   It can be a good starting place.  If I'm stumped and I find something on eBay that looks like what I have, I then verify from other sources.

With books, in particular, you'd be amazed how many people confuse a copyright date with a publication date, or cannot read a number line or identify a book club edition or recognize a facsimile signature.  Et cetera.

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[maxine*j]

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

Even just the imprint page, find out of it's a first/first (first ed/first printing), then go from there...

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And going from there includes keeping in mind that one may be looking at a facsimile edition of a book, or a book club edition of a book.

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