Observer's Book Of Aircraft – Ninth Edition

Happy new year to you as well, be aware that the early editions have sold for around £200

According to my collection of these little tomes, the one listed as the Eighth (1960) Edition January 1960 is then followed by the Tenth Edition January 1961
I hadn’t any reason to look for the ninth edition until I saw your post, and also haven’t yet trawled through the rest to see if there are similar occurrences . I sadly miss the annual issue of these little books, starting from the five bob copies of the series, and have them to the bitter end , from a ‘New Edition’ dated 1949, from first impression dated 1942.
Can I ask your reason behind the question? I don’t think there’s any gap as such in the years.

And like a similar post on the subject of books, am also facing the question of what to do with them (and others) when I pop the proverbial clogs.

Belated Happy New Year to all, by the way, on my first post this year, and for some time.;)

What year is that?

……the early editions have sold for around £200

Please tell me where. I’ll put mine up for sale. 🙂

PS, sorry no 9th edition.

The earliest I have is 1956 and the list of previous issues puts the first edition as 1952 not 1949. The latter might be something else?

From the attached one can also notice that the early issues were published more than once a year under the title ‘revised edition’.

I miss the 9th edition too, so was there one??

Happy new year to you as well, be aware that the early editions have sold for around £200

Blimey, I have the 1st and 2nd eds here (and probably the 9th somewhere)

These were fantastic little books and I was always fascinated by the photos and descriptions of the aircraft, but particularly interested in the silloutes and how they might have been created. I often wondered why they where black with white detail, until it was explained to me that it was a far better way of learning aircraft shapes – simple and effective eh.
They where also great books for tracing development of certain aircraft, and seeing how much (or little) we knew about Eastern Block types.

Anyone got gen of who was behind these books and any history?

Edit; looks from above there is no 9th!

I’ve got the set also and there is no 9th edition. Never noticed that before.

I have them from 1949 ( NEW EDITION) to endex with the 40th in 92/93.
The November 52 edition being the “first edition”, which I remember paging through as a small child.
In the early years there were many revised “impressions” settling down to only annual editions with the fifth (1957) edition in Jan 57.
I discovered some time ago that my number of copies did not tie up with the number of editions , being one short. This was traced, as others have also found, to the 1960 Edition ( the last showing full publishing history) being the eighth. The 1961 edition is however,for some reason, the 10th and from then on the series runs unbroken up to the 40th.
I dimly recall stories of Frederick Warne retrospectively reassigning “revised impressions” to be “editions” in order to get the records straight with years and numbers. I did wonder though if it was merely an oversight.The third possibility was that there was, in fact, a mysterious “Ninth edition” which somebody might have.
All this was resurrrected in my mind by the passing of Bill Green.

I have a 1943 copy of the Observer’s book of AIRPLANES should I order my Rolls Royce? :rolleyes:

Some more info here..
http://www.observersbooks.com/sales.htm

I’ve got the 7th edition (1959), tenth edition (1961) and the 16th edition (1967). Cover sleeves are a bit tatty, and I think mine were used by the last ROC bunker in Aberdeen. Two of them are stamped ROC 29 Group. Can’t really remember how I came to have them, a jumble sale to raise funds for my local ATC unit if IIRC.