I have a question! When you talk about Book Club Editions, do most of those editions refer to the editions that you can still buy from The Stephen King Library? Or are some of those still pretty old books, from some kind of "Book Club" from back then? For example... When I got back into collecting King awhile back, I found a nice hardback of Christine on Half Price Books.com. It was really cheap, like 99 cents for the book, and it didn't claim to be any special edition, only claimed NOT to be a library copy. It looked old and overall nice, same cover and everything from the 1st hardback, but when I received it it was a BCE and much smaller then the normal hardbacks. Bummer for me, but since I like collecting anything I can I didn't fuss about it. I did finally order a Christine 1st edition hardback yesterday though, since it was driving me nuts only having the BCE.
It just seems odd because some of these books that are the BCE seem pretty old, not like something you would order offline as "new" today. I understand the SK Library book club thing has been going on for years though so obviously this could be from years ago, a book someone just decided to sell.
One big reason for this question, is I noticed on Ebay yesterday while looking for older editions of The Shining, a few of the hardbacks said something about "1990" in the description... I'm thinking those in particular are BCE of The Shining, printed in 1990 from the SK Book Club...? Is that where all of these BCE came from, or were some of them printed way back when, from a different "book club"? Sorry for the short story I wrote, lol, I just don't like the idea of buying hardbacks off Ebay with the old style dust jackets, that where printed years later in 1990. Especially when they claim them to be "early" editions, and talk about them being in "Mint" shape for an "early" edition. I'd much rather buy a real earlier printing with that same jacket, even if it were in worse shape, and even if it was not a true rare 1st edition, then a BCE printed in 1990.
I spent quite a bit of money on Ebay yesterday, like an idiot, buying some of these... Not realizing I could have gotten them from the SK Library for 15 bucks a pop. 2 were legit 1st editions but 3 weren't. Live and learn.