The Enid Blyton Society

Hi everyone,

I really enjoyed Smuggler Ben on reading it for the first time recently in our readathon — a fine example of how Enid could pack plenty of excitement and atmosphere into even a quite short story. I was a bit disappointed, though, to discover that the Collins edition I have (published with The Secret of Cliff Castle as "Mystery Stories") is somewhat abridged. Not hugely, but I liked the story enough that I'd love to have an early edition without bits cut out.

Now I've just found this second edition (1945) on eBay, from when it was still being published as by Mary Pollock: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Smuggler-Ben- ... SwY3BZDexG" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What do you experts and genuine collectors think — how common or rare are these early editions, and is this a reasonable starting price, especially considering that the dust jacket is in fairly poor condition (though the book itself looks quite good)? I'd be very grateful for any good advice.

I'd personally say that was a good price - depends if it goes up before the end of bidding though! Not sure how much it 'should' be - but I'd maybe go to about £20.

Yes, I was thinking £20 at the most myself. Well, maybe £25 as an absolute maximum, but no more. I don't want it terribly desperately, after all.

Looking at the photos, I see the dust jacket blurb gives away what the four children stumble across while exploring the caves — I'm glad my copy that I've just read did no such thing, as I had no idea what the mystery would be, which added a lot to the excitement of the story!

It is a very good price, Courtenay. The only other copy of the same exact edition with dj online is priced at £95. So it will give you idea of how rare the book (with dj) is and how expensive it could go.

I used to contemplate either to collect the true first of all 6 Mary Pollock books which have the pictorial board with no dj or the second edition of Mary Pollock which have the dust jackets and the front plain board with the usual logo of "building" at the bottom right. This logo indicates that of George Newnes books published under Tower House series. I also collect other authors' books published under Tower House series. So I was torn between those two.

At the time that I wanted to collect Mary Pollock, the true first, most of the titles, were easier to find than the second editions with djs. In the end, I chose to collect true first.

You cannot take prices on the internet, particularly eBay, as a reliable guide as to the scarcity of a book as a vast majority of sellers haven't got a clue what they are doing. Just looking at one example:-

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VINTAGE-ORIGI ... Sw5VFWIA5d" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Over £700 if you include postage for 15 tatty books, none of which could be called scarce by any stretch of the imagination. That is a rough average of £46 per book and most of those books probably wouldn't even sell in a charity shop.

I get emails asking the value of 'vintage' Blyton books which are more often than not laminated Deans from the 1980s! Buyers who are prepared to pay ridiculous prices for books are giving the wrong idea to ignorant sellers and in the process inflating prices so that ordinary collectors who don't have deep pockets can no longer afford to buy anything.

Tony Summerfield wrote:You cannot take prices on the internet, particularly eBay, as a reliable guide as to the scarcity of a book as a vast majority of sellers haven't got a clue what they are doing. Just looking at one example:-

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VINTAGE-ORIGI ... Sw5VFWIA5d" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Over £700 if you include postage for 15 tatty books, none of which could be called scarce by any stretch of the imagination. That is a rough average of £46 per book and most of those books probably wouldn't even sell in a charity shop.

That's quite an old example, Tony - that seller has been trying to sell those for around two years - although to begin with they were priced at almost £900 and he's been forced to reduce them! Its maybe not the best example of people selling books online...there aren't many that bad!

I do agree you can't really go by online prices though - its a whole new universe. I tend to undercut prices I see on eBay when I'm selling my books...but I've noticed that when I put books up to more ridiculous prices - such as £90 for a second edition of 'The Magic Faraway Tree' with no wrapper, or £30 for a 1951 Famous Five with wrapper, they sell very well. Sometimes the same book when priced at £10 doesn't sell, but as soon as I put the price up, it sells! Crazy world.

I would say though that this edition of Smuggler Ben in a dust jacket is pretty rare. I have certainly not seen one for sale on eBay before - at least not recently - and I could see some sellers offering it for a lot more than £20 - whether its worth it or not. To be honest I'd say it was worth around £45 - but I wouldn't pay more than £20 or £25 at a pinch, as Courtney has suggested already.

Both arguments are true.

Well, there's been one initial bid on it so far — I've bid my maximum of £25.00 and I'm now the highest, but I definitely won't take it higher than that. I agree, £45 might be reasonable, but I don't want it that badly, especially if there's at least one other person who does want it. I don't want to start a bidding war and push it up to something exorbitant.

Funny that infamous job lot still hasn't sold, even for the generously reduced price... I wonder why??

Aaah, just missed out... I bid £25 as my maximum and was just pipped at the last minute by someone who got it for £26. Obviously one who wanted it more than I did, though. I definitely wasn't going to go above £25 and wasn't at all interested in getting into a bidding war, so good on whoever got it.

Bad luck Courtenay, especially with how little over your bid it went for . I don't mind too much if something goes a fair bit over what I bid but being out by only a pound or so rankles badly .

Presumably someone else in the last few minutes (a couple of hours earlier I was still the highest bidder) just made a few more bids until it went over my maximum of £25, hence why it went for £26. As I said, I'm not really sore about it — I didn't want the book that badly, or else I'd have bid higher than £25. If I'd gone in just before the ending time as well and been up against the other bidder, we could have been alternately pushing the price higher and higher until it went for some silly amount. So I'm happy to let it go to the other person in this case.

Courtenay, if you still want the exact same edition but without the dj, there's one in online market. The price is £20. The seller misspells EB's name hence the book is hard to find online if search using EB's name. I will let you know if you want it.

Thanks, Sixret. I'm not really interested at the moment, though — I'd prefer one with the dust jacket if I'm going to be spending any amount of money on it. I think I'll leave it for now, but thank you for the offer.

Its usually a dealer, in my experience. They usually wait until the very last minute - sometimes the last ten seconds, to place a higher bid.

Often, if you had bid again, they would have beaten it, and would probably have taken the book up to around £50 or more in the end. You can't win with these people. They seem to have an unending supply of money.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. But, well, let them have it. I'm not a serious collector, just a fan!