Gutter code

The gutter code was used by Doubleday, both for their trade and book club editions, from 1958 to 1988. The gutter code is an indicator of when the publication was manufactured. The codes are stamped in the gutter of one of the last printed pages in a publication. These publications, particularly the Book Club Edition (BCE) printings, do not state the printing date nor printing meaning the gutter code is the only way to date them reliably if secondary sources such as book club fliers are not available.

Please note that "gutter code" is an informal name used by book collectors. Doubleday and the Science Fiction Book Club (SFBC) have never formally acknowledged their existence.

The gutter code is a letter followed by two digits. The letter indicates the year and the two digits are the week of the year. Sometimes the components are reversed and you will see two digits followed by the letter.

Here is an example of the gutter code found in The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories published by Doubleday. In this case the gutter code H 03 translates to either January 1966 or January 1977. As the copyright is 1976 we can narrow this down to that this publication was printed in January 1977.

Please be aware that the gutter code translates into a manufacturing date which can be one, or sometimes two months before a publication is made available to the public. Thus the gutter codes are at best, a useful guide to help date a publication. If possible, consult Locus' list of forthcoming books, and/or the book club's monthly fliers to better establish a publication's release date.

The gutter code can be useful for identifying when a publisher does a second print run. For example, Asimov's Foundation's Edge was first printed with "M36" and shortly afterwards with "M39". Both print runs were in September 1982 and presumably the "M36" copies may have more value for collectors as it's the earlier printing.

Sometimes the Book Club edition is the first edition and the gutter code will be useful in establishing that the book club edition was printed earlier than the retail/trade edition. As noted earlier, it should be emphasized though that the gutter code was the printing date and that the story is publicized or "released" a few weeks or months later. Thus a gutter code a few weeks before the retail/trade release offers only a hint, and does not prove that the book club edition was released first.

The letter part of a gutter code

Here is a table to translate from the gutter code's letter to year. In 1970 Doubleday reset the letter code back to "A" but continued to use both the old and new lettering system throughout the 1970s. Thus you will also need to look at the copyright date to determine if the publication is coded using the first or second letter series. The Example Title column lists examples of known/verified gutter codes and also shows the stated publisher plus original copyright date. Note that while a publication may state a publisher it's believed that all of these were manufactured in Doubleday's plants. As a convenience, the Year column values are linked to the SFBC page for that year though gutter codes appeared in all publications manufactured by Doubleday including their trade editions and editions for other book clubs.

Code	Year	Example Title
##	1958	(The gutter code has no letter and just shows the week the publication was printed) 22 The Black Cloud (Harper & Brothers 1957) 23 A Touch of Strange (Doubleday 1958) 27 No Place on Earth (Doubleday 1958) 31 Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn (Doubleday 1958)
#	1959	(For the first few weeks of 1959 Doubleday used numeric gutter codes much like they did in 1958. Codes 2 and 4 have been verified and the earliest known "A" code is A13 implying the numeric gutter codes could range up to 12.) 4 The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction, Eighth Series (Doubleday 1959)
A	1959	A-13 Triad
B	1960	B-46 Star of Stars (Doubleday 1960)
C	1961	C48 From the Ocean, from the Stars (Harcourt, Brace & World 1961)
D	1962
E	1963
F	1964	F18 All the Colors of Darkness (Doubleday 1964)
G	1965
H	1966
I	1967	37I Element 79 (NAL 1967)
J	1968	J19 Where Eagles Dare (Doubleday 1967) (Not specfict)
K	1969
L or A	1970	In the first few weeks of 1970 the numeric part of the gutter code had a leading zero to make them two digits. In most years weeks 1 to 9 were expressed as a single digit. 08L Galactic Pot-Healer (reprint of a Berkley 1969) A51 Year of the Cloud (Doubleday 1970)
M or B	1971	B11 Fun with Your New Head (Doubleday 1968)
N or C	1972	45N The 1972 Annual World's Best SF (DAW 1972)
O or D	1973	O25 The 1973 Annual World's Best SF (DAW 1973) D15 The Overlords of War (Doubleday 1973)
P or E	1974	P22 Soul of the Robot (Doubleday 1974) E33 The 1974 Annual World's Best SF (DAW 1974) E36 Ancient, My Enemy (Doubleday 1974)
Q or F	1975	Q30 The 1975 Annual World's Best SF (DAW 1975)
R or G	1976	R26 The 1976 Annual World's Best SF (DAW 1976) G24 The Dragon and the George (Doubleday 1976)
S or H	1977	H03 The Bicentennial Man: And Other Stories (Doubleday 1976) H32 The 1977 Annual World's Best SF (DAW 1977)
T or I	1978	I43 The Masters of Solitude (Doubleday 1978) I28 The 1978 Annual World's Best SF (DAW 1978) I51 The Chronicles of Amber: Volume I (Nelson Doubleday 1972)
U or J	1979	J13 Leviathan's Deep (Doubleday 1979)
V or K	1980	V10 The Man Who Loved the Midnight Lady (Doubleday 1980) K31 Fireflood and Other Stories (Houghton Mifflin 1979)
W or L	1981	W43 The Martian Chronicles (1981 Doubleday trade reprint). L29 The 1981 Annual World's Best SF (DAW 1981)
X or M	1982	X codes have been confirmed for reprints but it's not been verified that they were in 1982. M33 The 1982 Annual World's Best SF (DAW 1982) M36 Foundation's Edge (1982) M39 Foundation's Edge (1982)
Y or N	1983	Y codes have been confirmed for reprints but it's not been verified that they were in 1983. N32 Fevre Dream (Poseidon Press 1982) N34 The 1983 Annual World's Best SF (DAW 1983)
O	1984	Z codes would seem logical but no publications using these codes have been spotted. O30 The 1984 Annual World's Best SF (DAW 1984)
P	1985	P035 The 1985 Annual World's Best SF (DAW 1985)
Q	1986	Q31 The 1986 Annual World's Best SF (DAW 1986)
R	1987	R28 The 1987 Annual World's Best SF (DAW 1987)
S	1988

The 1988 and 1989 issues of the Annual World's Best SF series do not have gutter codes.

The numeric part of a gutter code

Here is the translation the week number to a month. As many weeks span from the end of one month to the beginning of the next the translation is not exact.

Week	Month
1 to 5	January
6 to 9	February
10 to 13	March
14 to 17	April
18 to 22	May
23 to 26	June
27 to 30	July
31 to 35	August
36 to 39	September
40 to 44	October
45 to 48	November
49 to 52	December

The boundary between July and August varies from year to year. If it's not a leap year then July runs from week 27 to 30 and August is 31 to 35. If it's a leap year then July runs from week 27 to 31 and August is 32 to 35. Thus if you have a publication with a week code of 31 then it's an early August printing for non-leap years and a late July printing for leap years (letter codes B, F, J, N/C, R--/G, K, O, and S are leap years).

Sources/references

• SW - AbeBooks book seller who has been very helpful with filling in the details of the gutter code sytsem.
• The on line article Collecting the Science Fiction Book Club by Timothy Doyle which is excellent.