JAWS 1st Edition: What to look for and what to avoid when buying

Determined, you log onto your EBAY account and see the following three advertisements:

Peter Benchley / Jaws 1st Edition 1974

Jaws by Peter Benchley First Edition Hardcover with Dust Jacket 1974

JAWS 1ST EDITION By Peter Benchley - Hardcover *Excellent Condition*

At first glance, it would seem that finding that 1st edition Jaws you always wanted for your collection is not going to be so difficult, after all. But not so fast. In fact, all three of the books described above are not 1st editions. Neither are the three below.

Pirated copies, later printings, book clubs, ex-libs… all made up to look just like a copy of Jaws as it was originally intended when it was published by Doubleday & Company, Inc. in 1974. Throw in a healthy dose of misinformation online and you have a big problem for Jaws fans looking to round out their collections with a fine copy of a true 1st edition. So what is the discerning collector to do? The purpose of this post is to answer that question by shedding some light on book collecting in general, as well as providing specific tips for collecting copies of Jaws.

First and foremost, in the mid-seventies Doubleday indicated all of their 1st editions by actually saying so on the copyright page (i.e., the page behind the title page). A 1st edition Jaws, then, must look like this on its copyright page (minus the superimposed highlighting, of course)…

If it doesn’t, it’s a later printing of the 1st edition or perhaps a book club edition. More on those later. Some buyers and sellers get all excited about what’s in the book’s gutter.

Excited maybe but for the wrong reasons. Yes, O44 is the gutter code for a 1st edition of Jaws. But what it signifies to Doubleday insiders is October 1973, not First Edition. For marketing reasons, Doubleday delayed the release of Jaws until February of the next year. Hence the 1974 on the copyright page. The rest of the pages remained as they were before the original launch date. Hence the O44. Other than for that, you may as well ignore the gutter code. The dustjacket, on the other hand, is another story.

The dustjacket for Jaws – and a dustjacket is the pictorial paper cover that folds over and around the book itself – is the gift that keeps on giving for collectors. This is because many later printings of Jaws (i.e., not first editions) have dustjackets that are exactly like the dustjacket of a 1st edition, with the same price, pictures and wording. You can actually switch out your tattered dustjacket from your 1st edition for a more attractive, later example that you find at the thrift store for a buck. Booksellers call this “marrying.”

Former library copies (aka ex-libs) are a dime a dozen at a thrift store or library sale. No one wants them, even if they say First Edition on the copyright page because of the scars they carry from all that rough handling. And Jaws certainly saw its fair share of that. But it’s exactly because of that rough handling that you may want to take a second look at the ex-lib copy of Jaws you find at the next library sale. As it happens, dust jackets are sometimes well preserved beneath dustjacket protectors that are customarily deployed by your local librarian before they send a book out into circulation. So, yes, it’s worth a second look, but don’t hold your breath. Unfortunately, most librarians use tape – industrial grade in too many cases – to attach the dustjacket to the book itself or to the protector in some way and in so doing render it worthless to collectors.

A fine 1st edition of Jaws must have a near flawless dustjacket. This means very little edgewear, which for a nearly all black dustjacket like the one on Jaws is tough to find. The tiniest chips and tears and even wrinkles seem bigger and badder when the dustjacket is black. The dustjacket of a fine 1st edition also has its price – $6.95 on the upper right hand corner of the front flap for Jaws. A price-clipped dustjacket may have come from a far less valuable book club edition. Notice the lack of a price on the book club edition below.

Unscrupuous booksellers have been known to clip the dustjackets like the one above so as to disguise the fact that it came from a book club. But book club editions of Jaws, though made to look almost exactly like editions directly from the publisher, are like pirated copies in that they are made from cheaper materials. An experienced book person can usually tell a book is a book club edition just by holding it.

The book itself of a fine 1st edition should be near flawless, too. Even better if it is signed by the author, flatsigned, that is, directly onto a page of the book as opposed to signed on a bookplate or laid in card of some sort. And even better than that if it is signed by the author with the sketch of the shark that Peter Benchley often included when he signed books.

Of course, the value of a fine 1st edition of Jaws is what someone is willing to spend. In the 1990s – and with a little luck - you could have gotten one for less than a hundred dollars. Signed copies with sketches were going for as little as $200 to $300. Like other collectibles, the trend since then for collectible copies of Jaws has been up up and away. Today, a fine 1st will run you at least $500, while some sellers are asking as high as $5,000 for signed copies. The signed copy above, however, is definitely not for sale 😁. Hope that helps!

Words by John Strat

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