That $60 'rare' gardening manual from 1972 was just a reprint sold on Amazon for $12

Found this beat-up book at a garage sale in Phoenix that claimed to be a first edition, but the copyright page showed it was a 2018 print-on-demand. Has anyone else gotten fooled by those fake vintage reprints with worn-looking covers?

2 comments

2 Comments

craig.avery12d ago

Oh I got burned by one of those "distressed" covers from a certain Etsy shop. Looked totally legit in the listing photos but the pages had that weird new book smell. Lined the binding was way too clean for something supposedly from the 60s. Checked the ISBN later and it was just a modern reprint all along.

pat_perry12d ago

ISBN numbers on old books are tricky because they weren't even a thing until the 1970s. So if the book claimed to be from the 60s and had an ISBN, that's a dead giveaway right there. The Etsy shops are getting crafty with the artificial distressing, some of them even use sandpaper and tea stains. Next time check the copyright page for the printer's key, that number line tells you the actual printing year.