Tintin Forums

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone else has come across this? I have Explorers on the Moon (1965 Methuen): on the back the description says:

Although the boldly printed title correctly reads Explorers on the Moon, the above is obviously the back page description from The Shooting Star.

David

Take it back to the shop. That's what I did.

Yes I think I may have a problem taking it back although I didn't purchase it in 1965. I found it in a second hand bookshop. It's not a first edition, its a second printing unfortunately. It is a nice curiosity to have though.

As you say, it is a curiosity - but probably not worth anything extra; it's been discussed before, but the fact is that collectors tend to want perfect, or near to perfect, examples of books. Having one with a mistake in it usually leads to the value falling, rather than increasing. But it is unusual, and in this case it doesn't affect the enjoyment of the story, so an interesting thing to have.

My copy from 1965 has exactly the same error on the back.

I think it was bought for me as a child in around '67/'68.

I also have a copy from 1959 (bought on ebay) which has the correct description.

Update:
Actually I just realized stupidly that the books I am referring to are both Destination Moon, not Explorers; which goes to show the error was actually more widespread.

regards,
mat

My 1965 copy has it too.

Perhaps a large batch of these got misprinted. It's quite likely that one without a mistake is harder to come by.

Then maybe the description of explorers on the moon got printed on the back of the shooting star.

Hello all out there.

Earlier this year I bought a 1965 reprint/edition of "Destination Moon". Over the weekend as I was cataloguing the quality of the various books in my collection I noticed my copy has an interesting error on the back cover.

Being a 1965 copy, it has the synopsis of the story surrounded by images of characters and features of the Tintin series, rather than the later back covers showing the entire Tintin series front covers. Whereas the title of the book is "Destination Moon", the synopsis on the back cover is of "The Shooting Star"; in fact the headline reads "The Adventures of Tintin - DESTINATION MOON", but the copy following describes a synopsis of "The Shooting Star".

See image here.

Can anyone tell me of any history of this? Is this common among the books? Or might I own something a little bit rare and collectible?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

PS - Any replies in the vein of "Oh, no, quite common and completely worthless, but I might take it off your hands for 3 quid…" will be regarded with the highest suspicion...

Ta,

Niko

Moderator Note: Moved to thread on the same subject.

This rings a tiny bell in the back of my memory. Maybe someone (perhaps jock123) has posted about this before, but if so, I can't find it using the forum search facility.

I'm not sure that such an error would make it more valuable and collectible, though wouldn't guess it made it worthless either. But there are people in these forums who know much much more about collectible book values than I do!

Of course, as a Tintin reader, it'd be nice to think that the error was a Tintinesque clue, planted deliberately by Hergé in just three copies which, when brought together, led their sharp-eyed owners to the trail of some treasure or secret. However, it was probably just a cock-up at the printers.

Mine too... ;-)

Yes, but only tangentially... ;-)

I had the same problem, until I struck it lucky, and found this one, which was about a copy of Explorers with the same error, although we then found out that copies of both Moon books from 1965 seem to share the problem.


Well, it is probably worth more than £3, but you have to bear in mind that it might just be less valuable for being incorrect, and a pristine edition with a correct back-cover blurb might be more desirable.
I agree that the volume you have is a curiosity, Niko, but I couldn't say it made it valuable; as it stands, it may just be how all copies of the books printed in that batch came out, so it might not even be unusual.