Posted by First Edition Identification Points – Very Hungry Caterpillar
The Very Hungry Caterpillar, A Seriously Rare Edition
A first edition of Eric Carle’s 1969 The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a very difficult book to find. Prior to 2013, in twenty years of collecting children’s picturebooks, I had never seen a first edition copy for sale. Sadly, I don’t have one in my book collection.
Within the collectible bookselling market this scarcity had propagated some myths about the first edition identification points for The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Without ‘proof’, many booksellers thought the first edition could be identified by the Cleveland imprint of World Publishing Company. Times-Mirror bought World in the 1960’s, and transitioned the publishing office from Cleveland to New York, so Carle’s classic was thought to have been published prior to the New York transition.
World Publishing became World Collins in 1974 upon its purchase by Collins Publishing, so many thought that the Cleveland imprint, with World Publishing – not World Collins – was sufficient to identify a first edition The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Several of these imposters are marketed as first editions. We now know better.
A true first edition The Very Hungry Caterpillar came up for sale on eBay in 2013. The book is without DJ, however sufficient photographs are posted in the listing to positively identify it as a first edition. The book, without DJ, is being offered for $15,000! This seems a bit optimistic, but one can afford to reach when one has the only copy of a rare and highly desirable first edition book.
[Disclaimer: The images posted here are courtesy of eBay seller kirthgersen. I have no affiliation with “kirthgersen” and would not profit in any way from the sale of this or any of their books.]
Collectibility
A first edition copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a highly desirable collectible children’s book. We’ve identified six factors which affect the collectibility and value of a contemporary children’s picturebook:
- Aesthetic Quality of the Illustrations and the Story
- Eminence of the Author
- Book’s Awards
- Pop Culture
- Copies Sold / High Printings
- Franchise Books
The Very Hungry Caterpillar hits it out of the park along all six factors. Great story and illustrations, the book has been translated into more than 50 languages and sold over 33 million copies.
While not his first book, the book launched Eric Carle’s career. Carle is successful enough to have chartered The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, the only full scale museum of its kind, located in Amherst, Massachusetts.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar has won a half dozen notable awards:
- New York Times Ten Best Picture Books of the Year citation, 1969.
- American Institute of Graphic Arts award, 1970.
- Best Children’s Books of England citation, 1970.
- Selection du Grand Prix des Treize, France, 1972.
- Brooklyn Museum Art Books for Children citation, 1973, 1976, 1977.
- Nakamori Reader’s Prize, Japan, 1975
Because of these credentials and its worldwide success in the market, in the 2012 list of the Top 100 Collectible Children’s Books, I selected The Very Hungry Caterpillar one of the Marquis 25 – one of the top twenty-five collectible children’s picturebooks of all time.
A first edition The Very Hungry Caterpillar is indeed a highly collectible book.
Scarcity
The scarcity of a collectible book has a major impact on its value, however alone does not drive value. The value results from the balance of supply and demand, where scarcity represents the supply of the first edition book and collectibility represents the demand. The market value of a book is determined by the relationship between scarcity and collectibility.
When valuing the 23,000 books for the Children’s Picturebook Price Guide, a 10-to-1 scale was used in the database to rank a book’s scarcity, with 10 being the most scarce, and 1 being the most common (click here for a definition of each ranking).
I would rate the scarcity of The Very Hungry Caterpillar a 10.
In support of this scarcity rating I would put forth that I’ve seen only one copy for sale in over twenty years of collecting first edition children’s books. There are potentially two others which could be first editions, however they don’t definitively list the first edition identification points; one of the books proclaims the Cleveland imprint as proof. In the past fifteen years, I’ve executed over thirty book searches weekly on the internet trying to find collectible first edition picturebooks, including The Very Hungry Caterpillar. For the latter, this has been a pursuit to no end. Until late last year.
Market Value
With only one copy on the market it is difficult to value a book. There are really no good comparables (aka ‘comps’ within the bookselling industry) – Carle has many other successful books, several of which are scarce, however nothing approaches the collectibility of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Few books do.
Published a half decade earlier, the first edition Where The Wild Things Are is comparable in collectibility to The Very Hungry Caterpillar. There are ten first edition Where The Wild Things Are in VG/VG or better condition on the market offered at $8,500-to-$20,000. Market prices ebb and flow with the current availability a book; today I value the first edition Where The Wild Things Are in the $12,000-to-$15,000 range.
With this in mind, and in consideration of its higher scarcity, I value a first edition The Very Hungry Caterpillar in Very Good condition with a Very Good dust jacket, to be in the same range, about $12,000-to-$15,000. It could be higher. The first edition Where The Wild Things Are has auction results and ‘collectibility history’ within the market which support its market valuation, while the The Very Hungry Caterpillar does not. Yet.
Key First Edition Identification Points
The first edition The Very Hungry Caterpillar first edition a has full number line on the copyright page, “1 2 3 4 5 73 72 71 70 69”. See photograph and ensuing commentary, below.
The book being offered on eBay does not have a dust jacket, so I can’t post photos of the DJ flaps. I have a very early library edition of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, published prior to the Collins acquisition of World (so pre-1974), but do not want to post the DJ flaps for fear of erroneous identification. There have been enough myths about the first edition identification points for The Very Hungry Caterpillar so I don’t want to propagate additional misinformation.
[Disclaimer: The images posted here are courtesy of eBay seller kirthgersen. I have no affiliation with “kirthgersen” and would not profit in any way from the sale of this or any of their books.]
First Edition Book
Copyright Page: A full number line, “1 2 3 4 5 73 72 71 70 69”.
Following this convention, the second printing of The Very Hungry Caterpillar would drop the “1” from the front of the number line and be “2 3 4 5 73 72 71 70 69” if it were re-printed in 1969, or “2 3 4 5 73 72 71 70” if it were printed in 1970.
Similarly, the third printing would drop the “1 2” from the front of the number line, and be “3 4 5 73 72 71 70 69” were it re-printed in 1969, and “3 4 5 73 72 71 70” if in 1970.
However no second printings or third printings have ever surfaced which follow this number line convention. I think this is what has caused confusion within the market. Had second or third or any printings been found which follow this number line convention, then it would have been easy to deduce the first edition identification points for The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
Title Page: The World Publishing Company / New York and Cleveland.
No date on the title page, and “World Publishing Company” as expected; World-Collins would indicate a post-1974 printing.
Book Back:Note the ‘A3450’ on the bottom right.