I have what I presume to be the ubiquitous original format of the SFTM - a perfect-bound paperback with a red cover, inside a black binder. I know this has been reprinted over the years, but I am guessing always as a perfect-bound paperback. Does anyone know of any edition with a sewn binding? Same question more or less for the Concordance and the Medical Reference Manual. Thanks!
Some info about the Technical Manual's publication history can be found at fanlore.org. They have a page on the Concordance, too.
Not as far as I know, although some public libraries used to rebind popular paperbacks. The "Medical Reference Manual" was intended to come in the same black cover as the first edition of the "Technical Manual". When mine arrived by mail, it was shrink-wrapped with a loose sheet of the "cover". That's also how they appeared in shops, meaning you couldn't usually riffle the contents. I ended up buying a second "Tech Manual", pulled out the trade paperback book and its loose front cover insert from the binder and replaced them with the MRM, then sold the spare TM insert at a second hand bookstore.
I have not only the first Ballantine edition of the Medical Reference, but also a fan-published edition that came out five months earlier. It has a white cover, with a blank spine; the Ballantine edition added a number of pages, and rearranged some of the pages in the original.
Funny you should bring this up; I was just thinking last night of doing this very thing! Unfortunately, a rebinding of a perfect bound book is going to be only moderately successful, as you’re still dealing with half-sheets held in by glue, as opposed to full sheets folded in half.
Yep. And I must have seen that edition somewhere. When I ordered mine, I expected to see a white cover. I was working as manager of my Dad's bread shop in 1980 and ended up ringing the Australian distributor, Gordon & Gotch, who agreed to sell me one, using Dad's commercial address. The invoice came early. I freaked out: they were sending me ten copies! Managed to get the order reduced in time.