This ten book series of various reprints (Gem Series) were published with both green and brown suede covers. Three different gold gilt patterns have been seen on the bottom right of the front cover. Interestingly upon inspection one of the three gold patterns is really the same as another minus a little chunk. The books are 6.5 x 4.5.

If you look closely at the two Paradise Lost books, at first glance the gold gilt patterns on the bottom right might look totally different. But in actuality the green book is just missing a bit of the design on the bottom. Most likely there was a problem in the Altemus printing room and at some point the machine no longer punched out that little bit of missing decoration. I think It is fair to say then that the brown book is older than the green book.

Also shown below is the other format seen in this series. All of the books originally came with labeled boxes.

Here is a new picture for the Mother Stories Series (http://henryaltemus.com/series/series132.htm).
This is an example of the second format which differs from the first format in that the picture on the dust jacket and later books is pictorial and not line drawn.
The book covers usually have the same picture as the dust jacket and are paste-ons. Some of the books with this dust jacket are matched with the books that have the earlier line drawn non-applique pictures.

The earlier book cover is also shown here.

The books of Format 2 are all from 1922 or later. Starting in 1922 Altemus placed on the bottom of the copyright page on most of its books “printed in the United States of America”. Format 2’s books have this line. See the example with and without below.

Q: Hello, I bought this book (Representative Men) for my Father and we are trying to find out the date it was published and if it has any significant value. Attached are the photos of the cover, and inside pages. From some research I have found it is part of the Vademecum Series, but I cannot seem to find a photo on this site of a cover that looks similar. I would appreciate any information that you can give me, thank you,

A: Actually your book is part of the Beauxarts Series (See: http://henryaltemus.com/series/series47.htm). It was published in 1897. Each year that the Beauxarts Series was published (1897-1902) it had a different cover format. During this year the cover format has been seen in a number of colors.
This publisher’s series of titles consists of the reprints of fiction, classics, poetry, essays, etc.

Because your book is a reprint of a not very collectible title, it only has nominal value.

Today I am adding a new book cover to this series. All seven of the Dore Masterpieces were published in full Morocco covers. Here is a nice example.

There are four different formats for the books of this series. The emblematic and the half vellum are the most common. Rarely does a day go by without a new one of these being offered for sale. They are generally priced quite high despite the fact that they are very common. There are thirteen for sale on Ebay today with the range being $25 to $625 and the average being about $150. All of the Ebay books have the English cloth emblematic front cover.

On ABE there are forty of these books listed with a price range from $20 to $778 with the average being around the $200 mark. I cannot figure out which formats these books belong to.

Being such that the half vellum and the English cloth are very common, it is hard to imagine that these prices are justified.

On the other hand the Full Morocco books and the Presentation editions are very scarce. Also books in the original boxes are quite uncommon. The dust jacketed half vellum books are scarce but found from time to time.

The key with these books is the full page Dore illustrations. They are quite elegant and I suspect that some people try to sell the prints individually. I am not sure how successful a venture that is.

Below are examples of each format.

English cloth-Emblematic design

Half Vellum

Full Morocco

Presentation Edition

Q: Hi! Thank you for your website and provided information. You have done an awsome job setting this up. I bought this book (The Fairy Tale Book) a while back in Long Island NY in an old bookshop. Unfortunately, it is not dated. What can you tell me about it? Thanks for any information.

A: This book was first published by Altemus in 1917 and reprinted for a number of years thereafter.

http://henryaltemus.com/images/NS_54.jpg

Every now and then one comes up for sale. Depending on condition, I have seen prices vary from “no sale” to about $35.