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Helm Identification Guides: Poor reprint quality? (1 Viewer)

Vollmeise

Well-known member
Hello Birders,

maybe someone out there did some comparison of genuine and reprinted editions of the "Helm Identification Guides" and can share the experience.

Tho weeks ago I ordered a "new" version of Clement's "finches and sparrows", reprinted in 2013. As I own several older and newer books of the Helm ID series, for example "Buntings and Sparrows" (Byers, Olsson, Curson 1995) or "Robins and Chats" (Clement, Rose 2015), I had no doubt to receive anoher excellent printed book with outstanding color plates and just a pleasure to use it.

But - what I received was an unbounded cheek. It seemed they just used an (uncalibrated) color laser printer to print the text pages (uncoated plain paper) and color plates (coated paper). The printed text lacks sharpness and the quality of the plates' colors is - sorry - just lousy. The plate of Sirins for example shows the birds in much too vivid colors, all of that plate's birds show the same yellow-greenish look and are evenmore they are not printed sharp at all. These plates are just useles for identification due to poorest print quality.

The bookbinding itself and the print quality of the outer dust cover is great nevertheless and seems to be offset printed. So the "look and feel" and first impression of he book is good, as long as you don't open it.

Now I ordered one of the "original" editions from 1993 and hope not to be disappointed again.

Do other Birders have the same experience with reprinted books of the Helm ID Guide series?

Thx and Cheers,

Vollmeise
 
I can't speak specifically for Helm but I do collect books and sadly, the trend with reprints is to use inferior paper, cheaper inks and often a much poorer binding, especially the so called 'print on demand' titles.

My 2nd edition of of Warings moths of Britain is falling apart whilst the 1st ed is still solid.

Sad to say that it's just the way things are going, maximising profit by using inferior materials.


Andy
 
Hello Birders,

maybe someone out there did some comparison of genuine and reprinted editions of the "Helm Identification Guides" and can share the experience.

Tho weeks ago I ordered a "new" version of Clement's "finches and sparrows", reprinted in 2013. As I own several older and newer books of the Helm ID series, for example "Buntings and Sparrows" (Byers, Olsson, Curson 1995) or "Robins and Chats" (Clement, Rose 2015), I had no doubt to receive anoher excellent printed book with outstanding color plates and just a pleasure to use it.

But - what I received was an unbounded cheek. It seemed they just used an (uncalibrated) color laser printer to print the text pages (uncoated plain paper) and color plates (coated paper). The printed text lacks sharpness and the quality of the plates' colors is - sorry - just lousy. The plate of Sirins for example shows the birds in much too vivid colors, all of that plate's birds show the same yellow-greenish look and are evenmore they are not printed sharp at all. These plates are just useles for identification due to poorest print quality.

The bookbinding itself and the print quality of the outer dust cover is great nevertheless and seems to be offset printed. So the "look and feel" and first impression of he book is good, as long as you don't open it.

Now I ordered one of the "original" editions from 1993 and hope not to be disappointed again.

Do other Birders have the same experience with reprinted books of the Helm ID Guide series?

Thx and Cheers,

Vollmeise

That is truly a very bad thing, wonder whether Helm authorizes such lousy quality. One should think they have a reputation to lose.
 
Hello Birders,

maybe someone out there did some comparison of genuine and reprinted editions of the "Helm Identification Guides" and can share the experience.

Tho weeks ago I ordered a "new" version of Clement's "finches and sparrows", reprinted in 2013. As I own several older and newer books of the Helm ID series, for example "Buntings and Sparrows" (Byers, Olsson, Curson 1995) or "Robins and Chats" (Clement, Rose 2015), I had no doubt to receive anoher excellent printed book with outstanding color plates and just a pleasure to use it.

But - what I received was an unbounded cheek. It seemed they just used an (uncalibrated) color laser printer to print the text pages (uncoated plain paper) and color plates (coated paper). The printed text lacks sharpness and the quality of the plates' colors is - sorry - just lousy. The plate of Sirins for example shows the birds in much too vivid colors, all of that plate's birds show the same yellow-greenish look and are evenmore they are not printed sharp at all. These plates are just useles for identification due to poorest print quality.

The bookbinding itself and the print quality of the outer dust cover is great nevertheless and seems to be offset printed. So the "look and feel" and first impression of he book is good, as long as you don't open it.

Now I ordered one of the "original" editions from 1993 and hope not to be disappointed again.

Do other Birders have the same experience with reprinted books of the Helm ID Guide series?

Thx and Cheers,

Vollmeise

I haven't any experience of actual Helm reprints,but Bloomsbury also own Poyser and the 'print on demand' copies are on poorer paper with poor reproduction of the plates,particularly those in colour. The first 100 New Naturalists from Collins are also available 'print on demand' and are likewise nowhere near as good as the originals.However the Collins 'print on demand' dust-wrappers are excellent,but suffer from having 'print on demand' printed on them if you wanted to use them on the original book printings!
Tom Lawson.
 
I haven't any experience of actual Helm reprints,but Bloomsbury also own Poyser and the 'print on demand' copies are on poorer paper with poor reproduction of the plates,particularly those in colour. The first 100 New Naturalists from Collins are also available 'print on demand' and are likewise nowhere near as good as the originals.However the Collins 'print on demand' dust-wrappers are excellent,but suffer from having 'print on demand' printed on them if you wanted to use them on the original book printings!
Tom Lawson.

I actually collect NN's Tom,
books usually carry the PoD tag but I didn't realise the jackets did?

I often seen books from the 1950's or 60's, described as 1st ed but the jacket is usually a dead give away if it's a repro. Another thing that unscrupulous sellers will do, is put a 1st ed book in the jacket of a later edition for cosmetic reasons. They can usually be told apart but you have to know what to look for.



A
 
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So, in the meantime I received the used copy of Clement's "Finches and Sparrows", printed in 1993.

As expected, the original's print quality in general and especially the colour plates are sharp and free of colour cast, no reason for any kind of complaint.

I made some photos and attached them. Feel free to compare and form your own opinion. The reprinted book will be sent back. Maybe someone has some better experience with reprints from the helm series?

Cheers, Vollmeise
 

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The original's jacket design is superior too! Why change it to something dull and boring when there are some stunners in the family? ;)
 
They are very significant differences and the colours are pretty poor in the reprint. Have you written to the Publishers? This is likely to have been a decision taken in the Accountancy section rather than the Author's and for a company that wants to represent high quality scientific work I would think the 'right' people would be horrified
 
I've just had a similar experience, having purchased a "new" Poyser (Birds of the Strait of Gibraltar) that had no indication that it is print-on-demand. Text has reproduced badly, making it a strain to read, figures have the appearance of cheap photocopies (rendering graphs scrappy and pie charts virtually undecipherable), while photographs are just foggy ghosts of the original. Paper is poor quality, simply glued together crudely so that the binding edge is hard to read, then sheared off leaving a chainsaw-type cut pattern on the outer edge. The binding itself has no lettering. I am not a book collector, but even for routine reference work this is extremely poor value for money and will not last long. A very far cry indeed from the original T & A D Poyser series. I will be returning the book. I had a similar experience with Holyoak's "Nightjars and their Allies" (OUP) purchased from Amazon: very expensive indeed, poor quality, awful plates, and no indication that it was not a properly-produced book https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nightjars-their-Allies-Caprimulgiformes-Families/dp/0198549873
 
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