I have a history of new york version that I plan to keep (I am a fan of old St Nicholas stories), but I can't seem to figure out it's year. It is signed by the owner with a date inside that I assume is pretty close, but that is all I have. I am kind of thinking it used to have a dust jacket due to some markings on the inside front and back covers, but I am not sure. Does anyone have a better guess? I created a link to the photos from my Google drive (seemed to be the easiest way to share them), would love to hear anyone's opinion on them. TIA https://photos.app.goo.gl/dQ5MFJixupLA6iNL8
Welcome tozzie. A lot of members will not click on a link from an unknown member. See if you can post your pictures using the instructions in support and testing.
Yours is one of a multivolume series of Knickerbocker's History of New York. With just a quick look I saw publication dates going back to 1835; the whole set was published in a number of different editions in the 19th century alone, including the 1880s. My guess is that yours was indeed published in 1885, as the written date suggests. I did not see any examples with a dust jacket. I doubt if it ever had one, due to the appearance of the cover, but I certainly could be wrong about that. Value looks to be fairly minimal, in case you were wondering. Somewhere in the neighborhood of $5-15 U.S.
OK, that explains a lot. It seemed like it would be too old for a dust jacket, but I wasn't sure. I also couldn't find anywhere in the book where they were talking about St. Nick delivering toys, which is what I really wanted, so I thought it might be in a later volume (though I couldn't tell from this that there were more, or how many. Lastly, Irving's name was on it, so you knew it couldn't be close to the original age. Thanks for the help. I'll have to see if I can find any matching versions so I can get the rest of the St Nick story.
