GUEST: I brought the first five first-edition Stephen King books that were published.
APPRAISER: I was so happy to see Stephen King, always one of my favorites. And we do see occasionally on the ROADSHOW, not, not an extensive group like this, in nice, nice condition. We put them here in order. What's your interest in King?
GUEST: Well, I have them all.
APPRAISER: You have them all?
GUEST: I was in college. I was a member of a book club.
APPRAISER: Right.
GUEST: I-- I'm in college, I have no money.
APPRAISER: Right.
GUEST: They send you a book a month, you read it, you like it, you buy it. If you don't read it, you send it back. One month, I let it go by. It happened to be ‘Salem's Lot, so I had to buy it. I read it, really liked it. So then I decided, well, I want to get non-book club editions of the books.
APPRAISER: Good.
GUEST: So then I start hunting them down.
APPRAISER: So it was a book club edition that you, started you with ‘Salem's Lot. And then did you realize that a book club edition is a reprint soon after?
GUEST: Right, yeah.
APPRAISER: Which are generally not as collectible because they're not the very first editions. They were reprinted and massly distributed to the members of the book club. Stephen King is known through film, through his books, obviously. He's become really kind of a household name. He's tremendously prolific. His first book, surprisingly, Carrie, 1974, is a thin book, compared to his The Stand, and later on, his writing really took off in many ways. But Carrie has, I think-- for me, anyway, being his first-- and for collectors, the first book...
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: ...by a prominent author like King is often desirable. And they're often printed in smaller runs because they weren't a big name. Stephen King prints a book now, he's going to have hundreds of thousands.
GUEST: Oh, there's tons of them, yeah.
APPRAISER: Tons of them. And he is still writing. But the first book is always the first book. This happens to be in particularly nice condition.
GUEST: Well, this is pre-internet days. I got on the mailing list of different booksellers around the country, and there's a guy in Pittsburgh who had this book for sale. For me, at the time, you know, college kid...
APPRAISER: Yeah.
GUEST: I didn't have the money for it. It was $300. Right. And so I wrote to him, I said, "Yeah, I like the book, don't have $300." And he wrote back and said, "Well, I'll send you the book. Send me a couple of bucks every month." So that's what I did.
APPRAISER: Wow.
GUEST: It was early '80s. What's special about this copy, not only is it in super-fine condition, it is also signed by Stephen King. It was published in 1974. Here it's inscribed in '79, five years. It happens to be the year the story Carrie actually takes place. So that's kind of a plus-minus, or a minus-plus, I would say. It's an early signature; he doesn't sign a lot, so, any inscribed King book is, is hotly collected. It is a first edition. The nice thing about these books, some publishers say it, some don't. Doubleday happens to be one that often gives you the "first edition," which is a good sign. There's many other indications about the book, but one kind of secret one here that we look into is to check the state of the text inside the book. And there's a little code in here, P6-- that's the indication of the first printing of the text. It's another confirmation that what you've got is absolutely right. At auction, I would safely say this is a $2,000-to-$3,000 book. In that condition, I could see it well exceeding that. $3,000, you know, would not be... $4,000 would be the kind of range I would expect. The whole group, I mean, these other books are worth money. The Stand is another, very popular. The Shining, very popular. The Shining is another book by itself-- it's not inscribed, but a fine copy-- that is worth high hundreds, maybe $1,000. The Stand worth more in that condition. Yes. It's, it's a very desirable book. I'm only seeing a portion. I imagine you've got a lot, many more volumes back home?
GUEST: I have limited editions.
APPRAISER: Yeah?
GUEST: I have regular editions. I was hunting down magazines with his short stories. I'm one of the few guys that have a men's magazine just for the article.
APPRAISER: This is a fabulous collection. Altogether, just what you've brought, you're looking at about, auction estimate, $6,000 to $8,000, just here.
GUEST: That's unbelievable.
