Hello. Thank you for reading my guide. If you have a few minutes, I’ll try to clear up some confusion and misconceptions regarding Harry Potter First Edition ….

Many Buyers and Sellers are not sure how to correctly determine when a Harry Potter book is a collectible edition. Some are confused by the phrase First Edition versus the phrase First Printing. To be collectible and possibly valuable, the book must be the First Printing of the First Edition. Later printings of the First Edition are less valuable.

Why do so many sellers describe their Harry Potter book as a First Edition? Because virtually all Harry Potter books say First Edition in them. This is very important, so please forgive me as I repeat myself: virtually all Harry Potter books say First Edition in them. I say virtually all,

because recently Scholastic, the US publisher of Harry Potter has corrected some very minor

typos that crept in the the gazillion books labeled First Editions and has

re-released a few titles labeling them Second Editions. In a nutshell: If a Harry Potter book is described as a First Edition, take it with a grain of salt because to be collectible a Harry Potter book must say First Edition and be a first printing …. Please read on ….

OK, so how do I tell if a Harry Potter book is a First Printing? All copies of Harry Potter books have a number line on the Copyright page that looks like “10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1″. You have a first printing if your number line goes down all the way to 1. If the line stops at a higher number you do not have a first printing even though the phrase First Edition is still present. If you wish to buy a collectible first printing be sure that the number line on the Copyright Page goes all the way down to 1. If you are selling a Harry Potter book as a first edition, please list the numbers you see on the Copyright page so the buyer will know what printing they are getting. Collectors are looking for a first printing though they may refer to it as a “First Edition”. See picture below:

You will also notice in the above picture a number line “07 08 09 10 11″
The number line refers to the year of printing, not the edition. The
first number “07″indicates this copy was printed in 2007.

Also … see the phase “Printed in the U.S.A. 12″ the 12 indicates the printing facility that printed the this copy of the book, not the edition. Several printing facilities have been found in Harry Potter books, none are more valuable than the other.