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It’s not fake unless someone literally printed it out on some modern acid paper or whatever then tried to age them and pass it off. It sucks to have an unautho

It’s not fake unless someone literally printed it out on some modern acid paper or whatever then tried to age them and pass it off. It sucks to have an unauthorized print you thought was a first edition but it’s not a counterfeit. I’ve been on the hunt for a first edition Origin of Species for a few years now and keep getting something that’s almost but not quite the right one. Its madening That’s why bibliography reference are so important in old/rare book hunting. You often gotta know down to the spelling mistake found on the third page in the first 200 copies or something equally random because unscrupulous publishers were legion in those days. They’d also sometimes run a secret shift to print a bunch of extra copies for graymarket sale which looked exactly like the first edition but with cheaper paper or cover material - these are the most infuriating

ggm 4y ago
Pirate copy. A contemporary pirated book, with a fictitious first publication date on the colophon.
- akiselev 4y ago
  Ouch that really sucks, I'm sorry Doesn't help you now but in case anyone else is thinking of getting into book collecting, a great start is A New Introduction to Bibliography by Philip Gaskell. It goes over centuries of the techniques and technologies used by printers which helps a lot with spotting fakes. It goes over fonts, paper, pigments, and so on. Lots of other little things to look for like paper weight and smell (the breakdown of lignin which smells faintly of vanilla) A $20 WiFi microscope off Amazon that works with iOS and a cheap LED light source works wonders. I have a collection of cheap old books no one wants from a bunch of publishers across the time period I work most with as a control. Note though that nothing stops someone from printing on old stock - printing presses are very simple tech that's easy to utilize for high value forgeries. That's where it can get really dicey and you have to start doing destructive chemical analysis on the pigments.

ggm 4y ago

Pirate copy. A contemporary pirated book, with a fictitious first publication date on the colophon.

akiselev 4y ago
Ouch that really sucks, I'm sorry Doesn't help you now but in case anyone else is thinking of getting into book collecting, a great start is A New Introduction to Bibliography by Philip Gaskell. It goes over centuries of the techniques and technologies used by printers which helps a lot with spotting fakes. It goes over fonts, paper, pigments, and so on. Lots of other little things to look for like paper weight and smell (the breakdown of lignin which smells faintly of vanilla) A $20 WiFi microscope off Amazon that works with iOS and a cheap LED light source works wonders. I have a collection of cheap old books no one wants from a bunch of publishers across the time period I work most with as a control. Note though that nothing stops someone from printing on old stock - printing presses are very simple tech that's easy to utilize for high value forgeries. That's where it can get really dicey and you have to start doing destructive chemical analysis on the pigments.