I am lucky enough to have kept very carefully a small collection of Beatrix Potter books from my childhood in the 1960s.
I am trying to collect all the books in the set but would like them to look the same so am only purchasing books from the 1960s with a dustjacket in good condition. It is quite hard but that makes the moment you find one all the more rewarding. I haven’t found any I want to buy at car boot sales yet but have been searching through ebay and abebooks. What makes the search even harder is the fact books from this period didn’t have an obvious date so many of the descriptions are very vague.
If the book has not been price clipped that obviously helps as pre decimal books date to before 1971.
However there is an easy way to date these books as they have a publisher’s code number.
This Mrs Tiggy-Winkle book was given to be my Grandad in 1966 and can by dated to the year of publication as 1965 by the last two numbers in the publisher’s code.
This is not totally fool proof though as I bought this book The Pie And The Patty Pan at Beatrix Potter’s house Hill Top, Sawrey in the Lake District in 1968 when we were on holiday.
There is no code or publisher’s name and I am not sure why. I would love to find out.
I hope this has been helpful to other collectors out there.
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