Most Jonathan Capes have silver spine lettering. Some have gold lettering. Some have lettering that was supposed to be gold, but is actually silver.
Take a look at this James Bond first edition (below). It's being offered for sale [not by me on this occasion], for a staggering £1,500.
A good question to ask might by 'why?'
It’s not because it’s in super-duper fine condition.
Nor is the seller (I don't think) hoping to target unsuspecting rich buyers who don’t know better.
It’s not even a signed Fleming (impossible, he was dead), or an actor-signed book.
Oh, and nor is it a rare The Man With the Golden Gun With The Golden Gun embossed in gilt on the front board (one of these is more like £10,000).
So why is this book such a lot of money when a standard copy is much less?
Well, the answer comes when you actually take the jacket off.
Here (left) we have what looks like a standard second state (no golden gun to boards) example.
But it's not standard.
Most collectors will know that The Man With The Golden Gun already comes with three different variations of ‘gold’ on the spine – one in very yellow gold, one in more white gold (but still gold), and the other a bronze/copper colour.
But what’s special about this example is that this book features spine lettering that is actually in ‘silver’.
The seller claims this particular book should be "considered scarcer than any other first edition of The Man with the Golden Gun, including the first state binding with the golden gun embossed to the front board."
That’s some claim.
So what of the facts behind this?
Well, it's certainly very rare. How rare though, is a moot question.
Ian Fleming bibliographer, Jon Gilbert, doesn’t actually speculate on numbers of silver spine books himself, noting merely that ‘occasionally a copy can be found in silver Nuvap’ (Nuvap being the name of the foil, that came in gold, white gold and bronze too).
He does however note that "occasionally" silver lettering to the spine also appears on first state books (see my copy here, which also has the silver spine).
The likelihood is that if you have a Man With The Golden Gun with silver lettering to the spine, you are VERY lucky indeed.
There really doesn't seem to be that many about.
So, what’s with the silver?
Cape books that are supposed to have gold spine lettering but instead have silver lettering seem to have entered into some sort of variant lore now, and are considered very rare.
And examples of spines showing silver (rather than gold) lettering do not just apply to The Man With The Golden Gun.
They are also to be found with Goldfinger and Thunderball (see below)
Goldfinger in gold (bottom book); Goldfinger in silver (top). Also Thunderball (above)
For Goldfinger: Gilbert similarly says the spine lettering is in "gilt (or very occasionally in silver)" – so we get a ‘very occasionally’ rather than an occasionally here.
For Thunderball: Gilbert goes into a bit more detail, saying the silver lettering to the spine is specifically a ‘first issue, Binding B (1961-2). He adds: “Retail experience suggests the binding lettered in silver is by far the more elusive of the two variants.”
So, we have - of sorts - a pecking order of rarity:
'Occasionally' (The Man With The Golden Gun)
'Very occasionally' (Goldfinger)
‘Far the more elusive’ (Thunderball)
This sounds like Thunderball wins on the rarity stakes!
(However, it's probably most likely that Gilbert wasn't really aware of any such pecking order when he was choosing his words!)
It should also be noted, that of the three, Thunderball is the only one named as a specific variant, whereas the other two are not - so maybe he was referencing the elusiveness of this binding.
Whatever the case, any three of these books with silver spines should be considered very good finds.
But...remember, some books are supposed to be silver:
Most of the Cape hardbacks were designed to have silver-stamped spines.
Besides the occasional use of red on the spine (Casino Royale and partly on From Russia With Love), overall, gold lettering to the spine was not actually the norm.
Gold gilt is the default foil for just Live and Let Die, Goldfinger, Thunderball, For Your Eyes Only and The Man With The Golden Gun.
Silver-lettered spines were the default for Moonraker, Diamonds Are Forever, From Russia With Love (‘Ian Fleming’ lettering), Dr No, The Spy Who Loved Me, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, You Only Live Twice and Octopussy & The Living Daylights.
We don’t really know why silver was chosen for some books, and why gold was chosen for others.
Maybe by the time Moonraker came out (left), its very text-heavy spine induced the same cost concerns later shown with the gold on first state Man With The Golden Gun books, and so silver was chosen - which then became the norm?
Gold tells you why
But, the fact only a few books were gold by default probably does explain why there are ‘occasions’ when silver ones slipped through.
Silver would have been on-hand (and in stock), in greater quantities if/when the gold ran out.
We can probably speculate that stocks of gilt (left) were far more likely to run out, because it was more expensive.
It would have run out because over-ordering would probably not have happened with gilt, and so when the gold did indeed run out, silver would have been needed to complete the book.
This also (probably) explains the fact that when silver foil was the default spine lettering, we never see an ‘occasional’ one in gold [a regular production book that is - see later].
I’ve personally never seen any gold-spine variants of any standard books that have silver as their default spine choice.
As Gilbert notes for the existence of silver-spined Thunderball books: “The silver foil was likely used when the gilt was exhausted.”
A silver Live and Let Die/For Your Eyes Only?
If there are examples of Goldfinger, Thunderball and The Man With The Golden Gun in silver, then if we follow our theory through, theoretically, there should be the possibility that examples exist where Live and Let Die and The Spy Who Loved Me were produced with a silver (rather than gilt) spine.
But I’ve never seen any, and I suspect there aren’t actually any examples.
Maybe it’s because the print run was sufficiently small for Live and Let Die (9,900) for enough gold to have been ordered. Goldfinger’s first impression print run was 24,000, while Thunderball’s was 50,000.
It’s far more likely gold foil would have been in shorter supply for Goldfinger (which definitely ‘did’ need gold foil for the ‘gold coin eyes’ on the front board).
The same goes for for Thunderball – where the spine text is quite large, and chunky, and therefore quite foil-intensive too. It’s almost Moonraker chunky.
Final thoughts...
There's a few oddities that break the rule (there’s always some!).
For one particular book – On Her Majesty’s Secret Service – the foil of the spine lettering was actually changed – from silver to gold – towards as the end of its hardback print run.
Eighth-11th impression copies (which were bound between 1973-1983) come with gilt (gold) lettering on the spine – quite big lettering too, which would have been pretty costly (see left).
I think it looks pretty nice as well.
Why was this done?
I can’t find any answers – either to confirm whether it was for design or cost reasons. There was a change in the binder however, so this may have influenced matters.
Another exception from the rule:
When I said that you never see silver (default) spined books appear in gold, I was right - up to a point.
The picture (left), shows an advance binding of You Only Live Twice.
A standard You Only Live Twice book has silver lettering to the spine, with gilt Japanese characters running down the front board.
As you can see, this advance binding actually has no gilt on the front, but it does have gilt on the spine (instead of silver).
The advance binding was not commercially available, but was bound specifically for the Boots Book Lovers Library. Apparently it’s one of only 750 copies.
It seems that on this occasion, Cape defaulted to gilt for the spine for this limited run, rather than the silver that was used for the main first impression print run.
What does all this mean?
I think we can sum things up quiet succinctly.
While Cape spines stamped with silver lettering are the norm for the James Bond first editions, curios do exist where silver does - in limited examples - become gold.
So, get to know your spine foils.
A book with a spine that should be gilt, but presents in silver, is very much a book with a silver lining (and could be worth its weight in gold - well, almost...)
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