Identifying facsimile Christmas carol

I have come into possession of a copy of A Christmas Carol of unknown
lineage. I'm attempting to determine its authenticity. What are the
Hallmarks of the Japanese reprint from 1977. And as a non-expert, how
do I determine if the coloring is by hand or print.

Many Thanks

StanMann

on 21 Dec 2005 07:47:42 -0800, stanmann stated:

I have come into possession of a copy of A Christmas Carol of unknown
lineage. I'm attempting to determine its authenticity. What are the
Hallmarks of the Japanese reprint from 1977. And as a non-expert, how
do I determine if the coloring is by hand or print.

No idea about the book specifically, but if you look at the color
with a magnifying glass, it should break out into individual dots
of the four colors mixed to make the final color. That's for
printed colors, unless they're just simple one- or two-color blocks.
Hand coloring (what, watercolor?) won't have the dots.



-Allison

StanMann wrote:

I have come into possession of a copy of A Christmas Carol of unknown
lineage. I'm attempting to determine its authenticity. What are the
Hallmarks of the Japanese reprint from 1977. And as a non-expert, how
do I determine if the coloring is by hand or print.

The Japanese reprint is one of the stupidest publications I have ever
seen. It has nothing inside it to identify it as a facsimile, and -
apart from the fact that the prints are not hand-coloured (something
easily determined under a magnifying glass) - the main thing that
distinguishes it from an original is the fact that it is obviously not
162 years old. It was issued in a box, with a slim accompanying volume
in Japanese that identifies it as a facsimile and gives information
about the text, but obviously anyone unscrupulous can discard those and
attempt to pass it off as the real thing. I have tracked several eBay
auctions where precisely this was done.

As for its features, it is based on what is now generally known as the
first edition, first printing, second state (i.e., with all the
revisions Dickens requested after seeing the pre-publication trial
edition) .

One other feature that will help you identify it is the endpapers. The
original has very pale yellow endpapers; the endpapers of the facsimile
edition are bright lemon yellow.

For further details of the original , see my recent auction of a copy
of the 1843 edition on eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=6586293290

John
http://rarebooksinjapan.org

John R. Yamamoto-Wilson wrote:
StanMann wrote:

I have come into possession of a copy of A Christmas Carol of unknown
lineage. I'm attempting to determine its authenticity. What are the
Hallmarks of the Japanese reprint from 1977. And as a non-expert, how
do I determine if the coloring is by hand or print.
As for its features, it is based on what is now generally known as the
first edition, first printing, second state (i.e., with all the
revisions Dickens requested after seeing the pre-publication trial
edition) .

One other feature that will help you identify it is the endpapers. The
original has very pale yellow endpapers; the endpapers of the facsimile
edition are bright lemon yellow.



Thank you, The end papers in my copy(clearly a facsimile) are a mild
cream color. The illustrations are easily identified as print once I
knew exactly what to look for.

StanMann

StanMann wrote:

The end papers in my copy(clearly a facsimile) are a mild
cream color. The illustrations are easily identified as print once I
knew exactly what to look for.

There are several facsimile editions floating about. In most cases the
publishers had the common sense to include something identifying that
them as facsimiles, but there are one or two that do not. The endpapers
do not sound like those of the Japanese facsimile, but I guess it
doesn't matter much either way - you won't be retiring on it, but at
least you can curl by the fire with it, pour a glass of mead (or
whatever) and *imagine*!

John
http://rarebooksinjapan.org