Inside HBO's Game of Thrones: The Collector's Edition

[SelmyMore]

Just received it today - looks great. Except for one thing (and I started a discussion at Amazon's page): pages 81-94 are in French. Has anyone else had a chance to look through theirs? Wonder if this is a unique or widespread problem. I contacted Amazon, who offered to replace it, but I'm not gonna return it if I'm sitting on a potential gold mine.

[Ser Kennos of Kayce]

"Printer's 2nds," as these kind of defective copies are called in the book trade, are rarely a goldmine; mostly just one big annoyance--unless you read French, of course! I'll check the copy I just got in (the signed edition available from the HBO Store) and post here what I find. But only after I've checked through my copy thoroughly for this and any other printing/binding defects; I hate the hassle and expense of returning this kind of flawed merchandise, especially at this time of year when U.S. holiday package volume begins to escalate and shipping damage (and outright loss!) becomes more of a problem.

[Ser Kennos of Kayce]

Finally checked through my signed book plate copy and found zero defects of any kind, which was certainly a very big relief. Last week I also noticed Ty's heads-up (at GRRM's "Not a Blog" column) and quickly ordered a copy of the *unsigned* deluxe tray-cased editon; this during Amazon's 24-hour-only-reduced price sale for only $59.99--what a helluva bargain! That had to be way below wholesale, especially since this deluxe edition is now $174.99 at Amazon. (That copy just arrived, and it, too, had zero defects/flaws of any kind.)

Ive been a serious book collector for more than 4 decades and also have a background in publishing, printing, binding, typesetting, and the related graphic arts. I have to say this is a beautifully produced example of the collector's book-making art; I can highly recommend it for just its top-notch production qualities.

As noted in my previous post, your defective copy is commonly known in the book trade (especially among book printers and book binders) as a "Printer's 2nd" (a defective copy just like a Factory 2nd). I'd suggest you send your copy back to Amazon and get a replacement.

Unlike stamps or coins, these flawed copies have no collector's value because they've become all too common in large print-run editions produced via automated, high-speed printing and binding equipment. Usually less that 3% of the copies manufactured (of any given title) have binding and printing flaws; always check over the copies of all books bought for these kinds of defects--especially on fancy ($$$) gift/collector's editions like this one.

When the French language editions were being bound at the same time as the English editions, each volume's separate "book signatures" (unbound pages) obviously got co-mingled by mistake during the pre-binding, make-ready production stage, resulting in your "2nd." You can bet there are now some copies of the French edition with mis-bound English page signatures.