You first must determine what edition you have as most prices quoted are for first editions only. You must determine what condition the book is in as mint, fine, good, poor or junk. A book is very hard to value without seeing it as one persons mint might be another persons poor. There is a guidebook available through this website to help with pricing books.
A book right from the store bought new is mint. A book that has been read but still is in like new condition is fine. A book that has been read and has a worn cover or inside pages is good. A book that has tears or writing in (except on the nameplate) is poor. Any book which is missing pages or covers is junk.
In golden books copyright dates to not help to determine edition. The copyright usually means the copyright of the story not the book. The oldest books have printings listed in front such as: First printing, Nov.1942 with other printings also listed. The next books the A determined the first edition. It can be found inside the back cover near the spines lower right corner. An A is first, B is second and so on. There was a time on the .39 books were no edition was noted. We call that an unstated first edtion. The 24 page books will have a listing of letters like A B C D E F G H or C D E F G H I J K on the title page. The letter on the left hand side determines the edition. These 24 page books can also have and A by the Roman numeral year with all other editions not marked. The golden books of the last few years only have the first edition marked with an A or first printing on the title page.
The older books were numbered from 1-600 and Disney from D1-D40. Many numbers had more than one title so it is difficult to determine how many were printed. The five digit numbers such as 354-22 have no meaning that I know of for listing. We do know that a 354-09 was printed before a 354-11. The newest books have a number on the back cover but again we don’t know of any sequence.
Golden books sold for 25 cents for twenty years, then the price changed to 29, 39, 49,59,69,89. These prices were on the covers so it can help you determine how old the book is. A few books had a 99 cent price on them.
I shop the discount stores and bookstores. They can be found in resale shops. They can be found in antique malls . Used bookstores area treasure to search in. You can search on the web by using bibliofind or Amazon through this website. You can search Ebay also through this website.
Little Golden Book Collector
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