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Stickers with Crazy Letters The Eye of Piccaso Mentor MQ (MY) 771
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New American Library, which published Mentor Books, used letter prefixes to designate prices. "M" indicated 35¢ books, "Ms" and later "MD" indicated 50¢ books, "MP" books were 60¢, "MT" were 75¢, "MQ" were 95¢, and "MY" books were $1.25. These two scans were contributed by Richard Cohen, of Miami, FL. They depict Mentor MQ771, which obviously was suppose to be sold for 95¢, but a foil sticker was applied to the front of the book changing the designation to MY771, with a corresponding price of $1.25. The spine was left unchanged, so there are now two different book numbers on the same volume.
HOWEVER: Here's an email from bookseller Ron Webber that might explain this:
On your oddities page, Stickers with
Crazy Letters - the reason for the sticker with the MY $1.25 price is that
many books imported and sold in Canada had a publisher's sticker with a
higher price covering the US cover price because of the difference of the
value in the currencies, the Canadian dollar valued at various times as
much as 25% lower than the US dollar. Also, alternatively and most
often, the part of the print run destined for sale in Canada had the
higher Canadian price printed right on the cover (no US price at all). I
would guess that the sticker was used for titles when only a few copies
were exported to Canada so not warranting the extra expense of a different
cover printing. In more recent years it has become common for the cover to
be printed with both prices (which continues today even those both
currencies are about equal). In the 50 years I have been selling books I
have seen these variations thousands of times including the Mentor Picasso
title which I believe I have somewhere in my personal collection. I guess
that the Picasso book scans from Richard Cohen are from a well traveled
book which found its way from Canada to Florida! Hope this information is
at least a little bit helpful.
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