"My Battle" (Mein Kampf) scarcity?

[unruhjonny]

Hello;

I recently purchased a copy of "My Battle"
1st pressing, USA edition;
(book information)
My Battle, By Adolf Hitler;
Abridged and Translated E.T. S. Dugdale
Boston. New York. Houghton Mifflin Company 1933.
No. of pages: 297.
Description: x. 297 p. front. ports. 21 cm
Red cloth covered front & rear covers; yellow/gold(?) cloth spine w/ gold coloured text

Since I purchased it I've looked up infomation on Wikepedia & google, but can find no indication as to the print run, or possible scarcity of this book - nor any worth...
I bought it to add to my collection of "old country" stuff... so this is basicly a question of curiosity on my part.

I recently saw a 1st pressing UK edition go for alot of money on eBay (I'm not 100% certain if eBay followed suit by removing the auction and banning the seller after bidding was completed)...
I found two online listings for this book, with a huge spread in the asking price (both were more than I paid!).

My collection of items isn't limited to items such as my EK, and I would like to one day find a copy of the 1938(?) Time magazine declaring Hitler as the "man of the year"... (what a foreign concept!)

vielen dank!

[Dennis GT]

Try this site http://www.futurememories.com/timesnewsweek.html
For Time mag.

Dennis

[unruhjonny]

thank you very much for the tip - I'll phone them tomorrow.

well I just noticed this on wikipedia:

The first printing of the U.S. Dugdale edition, the Oct. 1933 with 7,603 copies, of which 290 were given away as complimentary gifts.

Compare that to a print run of 19,400 in the UK for 1933, and it's approaching 3:1 for the UK versus USA versions... I wonder how many of either of these were destryed during WWII - because I would guess a very large percentage were non-existant after 1945.

[Huntzman]

Interestingly enough I just got as gift from a friend a 1939 (C) copy of Mein Kampf by Reynal & Hitchcock (Pub. Houghton Mifflin Compay, Boston Ma. (twelfth Impression)

In going through my edition, I saw reference to yours which I think is what is referred to as the Dugdale Abridgement. Thats probably the reason it is only 297 pages. The edition I have is 1003 pages in total (Inclusive Volume I & II).

I'm curious to see what some of the book collectors have to say about these editions.

Andrew

[unruhjonny]

The more I look into this, the more that I'd really like to see some clarification as to what 1st vs later prints look like.

I found one online website that claimed to have a 1st print, but unlike mine, it had no gold(non-metalic) spine, and no gold print on the spine - plus it had printed (via impression) on the cover "My Battle" in gothic script, with a swastika below it, then Hitler's name...
mine has no such markings.
Today I found yet another acclaimed "1st print" that is like the one I just mentinoed, but it has a dust jacket, and the cloth cover is in another colour**.

I think the dust jacket is a clue here, because I have an understanding that the USA 1st pressings actually didn't have a dust jacket...

I would hae to speculate that since the book was (initially) not intended to convey any political idealogy, that a true first run would not have the insignia of the political party that Hilter was associated with...
I'd also have to guess that outside of greater Europe in 1933 the NSDAP insignia was not a political party many people would recognise... a couple years later that would have been a whole differnt story*, so after 1933 a swastika might have attracted more attention, and helped sales.

* = this pressing as I understand was ready in 1931 to be printed, but some slight changes were done that delayed it till 1933.

** = http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=290217007347

Does anyone know if there is a website with this information?

Is it possible that any annotations or the picture(s) could lead to deciphering the exact year of print? (I have not seen another web based pictrure of my copy.)

From breifly looking at mine:
-I saw only one picture - an informal picture of AH shaking someones hand.
-I saw a note suggesting accomplishments to date, and there is a single note that states when AH became chancellor.

[unruhjonny]

BUMP!!
















I mean come on, it's been a little over two years, I don't think a bump is a bad thing!