Booksleuth's Series Book Collection: SERIES BOOK TREASURES ARE STILL OUT THERE

Sunday, February 14, 2010

SERIES BOOK TREASURES ARE STILL OUT THERE

Many of our favorite children's mystery series books involve searching for a treasure, whether it is valuable stamps, gold, lockets or weathervanes, our heroes are usually involved in the search of some item that will make them rich or, more likely, help out someone in need.
Now for most of series book collectors, we never have the chance to do such searching and probably that is why we enjoy reading about Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, the Bobbsey Twins or the Happy Hollisters doing so. But many of us are treasure seekers, and our treasure is series books to complete our collection or enhance it.
Over my many years of searching out series books, I have had many successes and many more failures, but much of the joy is the searching and when you succeed you feel a great thrill.
Most of my searches involve old book stores, but these days I am more likely to find a series book at an antique mall. In this column I will devote some time to some of my best or most unique treasure finds.
Let me start with the most recent one, which happened about a year ago.
I CAN'T BELIEVE WHAT I AM SEEING?
In my home city of Oklahoma City, we have a fair amount of book stores, less than a mere 10 years ago, but there still are a few left.
I walked into one about a year ago and upfront was a push cart containing a lot of Rover Boys books. On the side of the cart was a sign that simply said: "$2 each". Before I even began looking at these books, I asked the store clerk if this was a true price, not a mistake. It was not a mistake!
There must have been at least 70 Rover Boys, many early and many later editions, and only about 20 with dust jackets. I went through the dust jacketed books and they were all in very good condition. I didn't hesitate a second to take those books to the front desk and I went through the others, looking for the earliest editions and noting their condition.
I am no expert on the Rover Boys and I have about 15 of them right now, some with dust jackets, but in all honesty, I have never read one. I have so many more books of interest and I just never got around to enjoying one of them. So my interest in these books was not to complete a collection, but rather offer them to other collectors for resale on eBay. I estimate I spent about $100 on these books and probably have made about $300 in profit. Some of these books went for $10, a few went for $50 each, but most somewhere in the middle. Had these books at the bookstore been Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Tom Swift, or Don Sturdy, I would have gone through them and added them to my collection as either an upgrade in condition or to complete my collection.
I did a little study of the history of the Rover Boys and discovered that they were actually written by Edward Stratemeyer, founder of a syndicate that was responsible for the creation of Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, the Bobbsey Twins, Tom Swift and many more series. Most of those series were written by hired writers who worked from storylines and characters created by Stratemeyer. But the Rover Boys were strictly the product of his imagination. Created in the early part of the 20th Century, they were very popular and highly read by America's youth of the time.
This collection of books I bought was from the estate of a man who was very active in the field during his lifetime and who was an expert in Horatio Alger's books. I don't know how this gentleman, from Ohio, had his books transported to Oklahoma for resale.
While not a fan of the Rover Boys, I enjoyed going through the books and checking their condition. While doing so, I found a small, yellow pennant that read: "BATAVIA OLD HOME WEEK, SEPT. 19-24, 1921". I did a little research on the internet and could not determine if this was a college or high school. I also found some correspondence from the original owner. But my greatest thrill was the discovery of a inscription on the title page of THE ROVER BOYS WINNING A FORTUNE. It read: "Harriet Stratemeyer Adams daughter of Edward Stratemeyer". Now if you know anything about my interests in series books you will know I corresponded with Harriet Adams as a child in the 1960s. Elsewhere on this blog you will see copies of my correspondence and her autographs. But to find a book inscribed by her, and using her maiden and married name, is very thrilling. This book (see photos) is apparently a first edition and one I will keep in my collection till I die.

Getting back to the subject of this column, these kind of treasures can still be found out there if you hunt long enough and hard enough. I never dreamed of this kind of find. In the future I will add to this column with a few more stores of similar finds.

1 comment:

keelineFebruary 15, 2010 at 8:29 AM
The Rover Boys series (1899-1926) was popular in its day and for probably a decade after Edward wrote the last volume. While Tom Swift sold about 6.5 million copies by 1934, the Rover Boys sold around 5 million. Tom Swift is still comparatively challenging to find but the Rover Boys are often easier. The difference comes to demand.

Tom Swift is often sought by Baby Boomers who grew up with the Tom Swift Jr. books and the two series are fairly closely tied together. Hence, it is not unusual to read about Tom Jr. using his father's giant magnet or great searchlight during one of his adventures.

Technically the Rover Boys had two series as well. After 20 volumes of the Rover Boys, Edward started the "Second Rover Boys" about four of the children of the original three Rovers. There were 10 of these and most collectors see the 30 volumes as a single series. (The Motor Boys also had a "Second" series but the same characters were used).

The Rover Boys began as boarding school stories with the usual pranks and sports and comparatively little actual education as you might see in Tom Brown's Schooldays or the large body of such works in US and UK juveniles.

Since they are still fairly plentiful, I usually hold off on making eBay bids on Rover Boys books unless they fall into one of a few categories:

* early publishers -- i.e. actually published by Mershon, Stitt, or Chatterton-Peck
* G&D green cloth editions with dust jacket for volumes 1-21 (or 22) where the jacket illustration resembles the book cover design.
* G&D brown cloth editions with jacket for the others

Hence, I don't do much with the orange or red cloth books and the later full-color jackets. It is quite possible that the last couple have these since G&D went to full-color jackets in 1924 for Tom Swift. I also haven't gone for the Whitman editions.

I think it is often a disappointment to collectors to pay a premium for a jacket when a series uses the same image on all of the titles. Cupples & Leon did this a lot on its books and G&D did so for series like the Bobbsey Twins and the Rover Boys. This might also limit the demand for these books.

The Harriet Adams signature is obviously a prize. I have a few examples of her signature. One is on a scrap of notebook paper (99c on eBay), another is on the Syndicate letterhead, and a third is in a late Nancy Drew book.

More than likely your signature was obtained during the period when Harriet was in contact with the Horatio Alger Society and even attended one or two of their annual conventions.

I have a fourth Harriet Adams signature that is similar to yours on an 1888 booklet with the text for a comic operetta called Love's Maze. Edward wrote the text while his brother Louis wrote the music which is not part of this booklet. Hence the item is the libretto of this operetta. Some music by Louis is part of the Stratemeyer Syndicate Records Collection at NYPL but I have not looked at it since I can't read music and evaluate its merits.

The signature in Love's Maze by Harriet mentions her relationship to Edward and Louis and was presented to an HAS member, Wallace Palmer, a man with some interesting connections to Edward Stratemeyer.

James Keeline
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DEDICATION

In September 1996, I spent a week's vacation touring from Oklahoma City through Kansas to Kansas City, then across Missouri to St. Louis, and then south from St. Louis to New Madrid, Mo., my hometown and still the home of my parents.

Along with visiting my brothers in both major cities, I stopped at as many antique malls and bookstores as possible. It was at one such store near Boonville, MO, that I found a box of Happy Hollister books, half with dust jackets. They were in great shape and per book my cost was less than about $2 a book. I bought them, knowing that I could sell the dustjacketed ones for quite a bit more and recoup my investment. And perhaps, sentimentally, I hated to see them just sit on the floor of this concrete-floored antique mall.

Upon arriving in New Madrid a few days later, I put aside collecting to spend time with my parents. At some point my mother Zoe' asked me to accompany her to the local library to visit with her "girlfriends," the two local librarians. She was always proud of me and wanted to share that pride with these two fine ladies. Like any man, I hesitated, not wanting to be a part of such "silly" ventures. But I went along, knowing this would make her happy.

At the library I reminisced about the joy I had as a kid there, especially checking out the Happy Hollister books they kept. These books and my fondness in reading them started this hobby. I was surprised to learn the library still had volumes from the series, but they were in bad shape. The head librarian mentioned that recently a childhood friend of mine, who also read and enjoyed the series, had offered to cover the cost of purchasing new copies. I then offered the non-dustjacketed Hollister books I had bought to her and said if she collected the money, give it to my mother. They were pleased to have the new books. I enjoyed the rest of my visit with my parents and returned to Oklahoma City a few days later.

Within a few weeks my dear mother passed away in her sleep.
At her wake I asked the librarian to keep the money for the books and place a dedication in the books to my mother. They will serve as a reminder of her, and this dedication will, too. =

I owe my love of mystery books to her and she always encouraged me to read. Ironically, my mother had the mindset that would not have understood the internet, much less used it. Yet, now she has her "place" on the World Wide Web.

IN THE BEGINNING.....

SERIES BOOKS I COLLECT AND RECOMMEND

As related on another section of this blog, my interest in children's mystery series books began with The Happy Hollisters, because it was the only series at my local public library. I then went on to acquire and read Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew picture cover books. At sometime I sold those books and concentrated on buying the early Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books with dust jackets. My collection now consists of mostly white spine Nancy Drews and I have the orange spine Hardy Boys dust jackets.

Although I grew up with the 1960s Hardy Boys blue and Nancy Drew yellow spine picture cover books, I have no special affection for those books. I enjoy the early books because I just like the era they represent. Along with the above mentioned series I collected and read Trixie Belden, Power Boys and the Bobbsey Twins.

During my high school years I put aside children's mystery series books, but returned to collect those books sometime in college. The spark that relit my fire was oddly enough one of The Outdoor Girls books written under the name of Laura Lee Hope. While working part-time at the library of the Missouri State Historial Society, I came across one of the volumes of that series and during breaks, I would read several chapters a day. Why this book was even there was a true mystery to me. But I enjoyed the simple storylines, the slight mystery and adventure these girls enjoyed, and most of all the depiction, although very unrealistic, of the lifestyle of the years 1910-1930. A few years later I would happen upon seven or eight dustjacketed volumes of the series at an Oklahoma City antique store, and the urge to buy was impossible to resist.

Through the decade of the 1980s I would add one series after another to my list of interest including, in no particular order:
Mercer Boys, Ken Holt, Rick Brant, Tom Quest,
Walton Boys, Don Sturdy, Ted Scott

In particular, I fell in love with the stories of Capwell Wyckoff, author of the Mercer Boys, and the Mystery Hunters, and numerous unrelated book.
In the 1990s, I added the following series:
Penny Parker, Judy Bolton, X Bar X Boys, Dana Girls, Hal Keen Brains Benton, Biff Brewster, Andy Lane, Kay Tracey

I especially fell in love with the stories of Mildred Wirt Benson, the first "Carolyn Keene" and prolific author of dozens of other books. Most especially I enjoy her Penny Parker series.
Many times I would add a series just because I came across nice copies, with dustjackets. Such was the case with the X Bar X Boys. The best piece of luck I ever had was finding 12-14 Ken Holt books, with djs, at an antique fair at a local mall. Each book cost about $2.50. I rank Ken Holt among my most favorite series books. The sign of a favorite series is when I look forward to reading the next few chapters, and finish the book quickly. If a book is not as exciting, I may takes weeks to finish. Series that rank among my favorites include, as mentioned, Ken Holt, Penny Parker, Tom Quest, Rick Brant, Mercer Boys, Biff Brewster, and Brains Benton.