#Coin collecting books at barnes and noble series

For books published before about 2005, several volumes were re-released several times with different covers but using the same ISBN number (if you check the original series page with more details about this collection, I have all the different covers there). It works the other way as well – The Arabian Nights was released in 2009 with one set of illustrations, then again in 2016 with different illustrations, but the cover design is almost identical (if you look closely, you can see that some tiny Arabic symbols on the corner of the front cover were replaced with decorative elements for the later edition). The Signature Editions collection were produced as hardbacks between 2011-2012, and then re-released using almost the same cover designs a few years later but with flexibound covers instead. Yes, the books in this series are often re-released with the same internal content and a different binding – many of the titles from the Illustrated Children’s Classicscollection, for example, have the same content as the now out-of-print Rainbow Classicscollection, but have different cover design. Please don’t judge me…) Are some of the books the same just with different covers? I am a big Alice fan if you’d like to see my collection. (I made an exception for that very pretty 2018 Alice omnibus though. And although they look gorgeous, I personally am not a huge fan of the massive omnibus editions because they are really quite unwieldy to read when they get above 600 pages or so. The illustrations are often scanned from reprints, not originals, so they are not as sharp as they could be. And some of the volumes have also had really disappointing errors in the text that are often fixed up in later printings, but that’s not much use if you have an earlier edition (where I am aware of these issues, I have noted the details below). The translations used for foreign language classics are older ones that are in the public domain, and there are often newer ones available that are easier to read (if translation is important to you, I recommend the Penguin Classics, which additionally also have great notes). Internally, I’d classify them as on par with a decent book club edition – they are hybrid bound, with most having sewn signatures glued into the spine, which means they will lay flat, but the glue doesn’t last for a long time. The proof is in the bookshelf, and I have a large number of B&N collectible classics in my own shelves, holding their own against my much more expensive Folio Society and Easton Press books.īut I do have a few caveats. They are all relatively durable hardbacks except for the Flexibound Editions (and even these are way more durable than your average paperback). Most of the books have decorative head and tail bands, gilt or stained page edges, bound-in silk ribbon bookmarks, and decorative hubs on the spine. They are definitely very decorative shelf candy with their gorgeous cover designs and bright colored covers, and I personally think that anything that makes people more likely to pick up and read a classic novel is a great thing. Do they compare in quality to publishers selling fine press leatherbound editions? Of course not. The Flexibound Editions, on the other hand, are pretty much completely faux leather. So yes, most B&N book covers are comprised of about 20% real leather. Basically bonded leather is to leather what chipboard is to wood. In some cases, a second coating of polyurethane can be added and embossed to create a texture closer to real leather. This is basically a mix of both real leather (leftover scraps and fibres from processing genuine leather) and fake leather (typically a polyurethane binder), rolled together using an adhesive glue and bonded onto a paper backing. The majority of the books in the collectible classics series are covered in ‘bonded’ leather. Visit this page on the Barnes & Noble website to see everything they currently have available in the series. In 2005, they released a highly decorative edition of The Complete Works of Lewis Carrolland its popularity sparked the beginning of the ‘Collectible Classics’ as the series is better known today. The contents were mostly omnibus editions (with several titles by the same author in a single book) and the bindings were very traditional, with dark (bonded) leather covers featuring plain gold text and simple foiled borders, along with raised bands on the spine, gilt page edges, decorative endpapers, and a sewn-in ribbon bookmark. Barnes and Noble brought out their original series of collectible ‘exclusive’ leather-bound classic editions in 1992.