Armed Services Editions

Oddities

The Armed Services Editions were of extremely cheap construction, and so, it is not uncommon to find errors that you wouldn't expect to see from other publishers.

The first set (numbers J-278 & 782 respectively) show how they attempted to insert a missing comma in the title without going to the trouble of reprinting the cover. Actually, the second cover is correct. Lardner put no comma in the title. By the way, these books illustrate the two binding procedures mentioned in the previous oddity. One was was wrapped then stapled, the other was stapled then wrapped.

This copy of The Border Legion, #1107, is reported by the collector to have been Zane Grey's personal copy. The Next image, the back cover of Cup of Gold, by John Steinbeck, #750, shows a mis-cut back cover (the corner had obviously been folded under before it was trimmed.

The next scan shows a copy of Thoreau's Walden with a couple Ice Cream Ration Stamps taped on. The next is a bit more serious, showing stamps from a U.S. Censor, the YMCA, and a Japanese Prisoner of War camp. (During the war, both Allied and Axis prisoner of war camps relied on the YMCA to provide detainees with supplies for music, sports and art, plus books and other forms of entertainment.)

Then we have a set of scans showing two copies of L-7, meant to illustrate the quality of ink used on the covers of these books. Left in the sun, it quickly faded.

Next is ASE E-123, Ghost Trails, by W.C. Tuttle, but they mistakenly used the back cover blurb for ASE D-93, Blazed Trail Stories, by Stewart Edward White.

The inside of the covers also contained copywriting or lists of other available ASE's. But this inside cover of J-283 was left blank. Obviously, it missed that portion of the printing process.

At the bottom, we see two copies of ASE S-30. The "cutting" job on the bottom book was so bad that the book's number and part of its title are missing. The thin white strip on the bottom edge is part of the cover for the accompanying book.

And finally, we see ASE 684, Prodigal Genius, by John J. O'Neil, though that name was misspelled. The later printings of this book eliminated the last "L," obviously by scraping off the letter in the printing process (and not very well, at that). In fact, his name really IS spelled with one "L," but the error is so prevalent that it's hard to look him up online using the proper spelling.

All of these "Oddity" scans are courtesy of Brian Anderson.

(Click an image to see the full scan)