Not sure if 1st edition Fleming's?

BunsenPPK

Hello fello AJB'ers (and fellow readers!) Not entirely sure if this should be posted here or in the collectable section, though I'm sure if I've done it wrong it will be moved over

Anyway. I currently have in my possession 3 James Bond novels by Fleming, they are Dr. No, Goldfinger and Thunderball. Now these were given to me by my grandmother as I had started an interest in 007, as so many 12 year olds do...this being 6 or so years ago. I've long been wondering about these novels, whether they are original or early editions as they are quite old. Perhaps some of you could shed some light on this for me. Below I will attach pictures of the book covers (artwork is fantastic), and the inside of the front cover.


























I am by no means trying to find if they are worth a large sum of money, they are worth far more to me than most people could offer, this is merely out of curiosity and interest.
Thank you,

Bunsen -{ -{ -{

EDIT: Also quickly, sorry about the pics being sideways, taken with an iPhone.

AlphaOmegaSin

These are Fleming first Edition Covers

BunsenPPK

That would've been a good start....Google-ing the covers 8-)
That being said, apparently one of them is...at least an early edition!
Thank you

Doesn't hurt to ask people that are a little more resourceful/knowledgeable than myself when it comes to this.

AlphaOmegaSin

No Problem Mate -{

BunsenPPK

AlphaOmegaSin wrote:

No Problem Mate -{

Can't decide if Dr No. or Goldfinger are my faves from these 3

Do I call you chap now ? )

AlphaOmegaSin

Call me what you want )

BunsenPPK

AlphaOmegaSin wrote:

Call me what you want )

I think Alpha will do haha

AlphaOmegaSin

Sounds good -{

BunsenPPK

AlphaOmegaSin wrote:

Sounds good -{

Thanks for your help, however simple it was to do so -{

Barbel

They're book club editions. Used to have a few myself.

JamesBondBlog

Barbel wrote:

They're book club editions. Used to have a few myself.

Yep. Many times they were printed the same year as the 1st Edition Cape versions. Not quite as valuable, but given that they're probably 50+ years old, they definitely have some value.

alantong

All three are the book club editions. Dr No always needs a second glance (as does FRWL) as the book club editions used almost the same artwork as the cape originals.

Suggest you hang on to them for sentimental reasons or as the start of a collection. These book club editions are not worth much - say $20 USD each in the condition they are in. On the other hand there are lots of people who buy these book club editions then put on fake cape dust jackets & resell on ebay. At some point I guess the ones that have not been messed around with will be worth more.

Out of the set of book club editions most are easy / cheap to find with the exception of DAF which is difficult to find with a good condition dust jacket. From Russia with Love is the other oddity in the series - the first set of Cape papers were apparently not good enough quality and were used for the book club edition. As such some copies of the FRWL book club edition are actually identical to the Cape printing inside. Some argue that they represent the true 1st edition of FRWL as they were printed first (although the cape editions were sold first).

BunsenPPK

Very interesting alantong thankyou, they of course will be kept as they are the only Bond novels I posses, and I like them very much
Dr No and Goldfinger are two of my favourite films, but lets not delve to deeply into that here :P

Bunsen.