Gutter code

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Introduction

The gutter code was used by Doubleday, both for their trade and book club editions, from mid-1958 to mid-1987. Collectors have deciphered this code as 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, usually the last page of text. These publications, particularly the Book Club Edition (BCE) printings, do not contain implicit statements of edition or printing dates, so the gutter code is the only way to date them reliably if secondary sources such as book club announcement 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 usually 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. Occasionally when a book is printed early in the year, there may or may not be a leading zero to complete the two-digit sequence. In 1985, gutter codes consisting of two letters and two digits began to appear. It was also in 1985, that many of the "P" codes consisted of the letter and three digits, the first of which was a leading zero.

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 be pretty sure that this publication was printed in January 1977.

Please be aware that the gutter code translates into a manufacturing date which can be four to six weeks 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 also be useful in identifying a publisher's second or even later print run. For example, Asimov's Foundation's Edge was first printed with "M36" and shortly afterward 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. This may indicate that a second printing press was implemented with the codes starting with "A". The original press may have continued its numbering system. Because of this conflict, you may need to look at the copyright date to determine if the publication is coded using the first or second letter series.

Even though the printing week can be exactly determined, it must be remembered that a code with numbers 48-52 are not considered published (available to the public) until the following year, that is, the January following the December printing.

The only times that the one-letter-per-year sequence is broken are the letters "P" and "Q" which straddle the years from 1973 to 1975. This is another case where special attention must be paid to other clues (e.g. copyright year), or secondary sources in determining the actual printing month.

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 plant in Garden City, New York. After the sale of Doubleday to Bertelsmann, the gutter code system was discontinued (approximated mid-1987). The Garden City presses were shut down in 1988.

As a convenience, the Year column values are linked to the SFBC page for that year. Keep in mind that gutter codes appeared in all publications manufactured by Doubleday during this time period, including its trade editions and those editions for their various book clubs.

Code Year Example Title
## 1958 In its first year of use, the gutter code simply shows the week the book was printed. The earliest verified
gutter code is "22" implying that it was not used in the first 21 weeks of the year.

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)

# or A 1959 The number-only system continues for the first few weeks of 1959. Codes 2 and 4 have been verified and
the earliest known letter code is A13, implying the numeric gutter codes for 1959 could range up to 12.

4 The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction, Eighth Series (Doubleday 1959)
A23 Not in Solitude (Doubleday 1959)

B 1960 B46 Star of Stars (Doubleday 1960)
C 1961 C48 From the Ocean, from the Stars (Harcourt, Brace & World 1961)
D 1962 D29 Unwise Child (Doubleday 1962)
E 1963 E9 Anything You Can Do (Doubleday 1963)
F 1964 F18 All the Colors of Darkness (Doubleday 1964)
G 1965 19G The Star Fox (Doubleday 1965)
H 1966 24H Fantastic Voyage (Hougton Mifflin 1966)
I 1967 37I Element 79 (NAL 1967)
J 1968 25J The Werewolf Principle (Putnam 1968)
K 1969 20K Stand on Zanzibar (Doubleday 1969)
L or
A		 1970 08L Galactic Pot-Healer (reprint of a Berkley 1969)
A51 Year of the Cloud (Doubleday 1970)
M or
B		 1971 12M The Robot Novels (Doubleday 1971)
B11 Fun with Your New Head (Doubleday 1970)
N or
C		 1972 45N The 1972 Annual World's Best SF (DAW 1972)
C22 When Harlie Was One (Nelson Doubleday 1972)
O, P or
D		 1973 O25 The 1973 Annual World's Best SF (DAW 1973)
42P Hellstrom's Hive (Nelson Doubleday 1973)
D15 The Overlords of War (Doubleday 1973)
P, Q or
E		 1974 P22 Soul of the Robot (Doubleday 1974)
40Q The Deathworld Trilogy (Nelson Doubleday 1974)
E36 Ancient, My Enemy (Doubleday 1974)
Q, R or
F		 1975 Q30 The 1975 Annual World's Best SF (DAW 1975)
24R The Best of Cordwainer Smith (Nelson Doubleday 1975)
F7 The Hollow Lands (Harper & Row 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 S38 In the Ocean of Night (The Dial Press 1977)
H03 The Bicentennial Man: And Other Stories (Doubleday 1977)
T or
I		 1978 T19 Three Hainish Novels (Nelson Doubleday 1975)
I51 The Chronicles of Amber: Volume I (Nelson Doubleday 1972)
U or
J		 1979 U4 In Memory Yet Green (Doubleday 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)

Y or
N		 1983 Y11 The Third World Way: The Untold Story (Macmillan 1982)
N34 The 1983 Annual World's Best SF (DAW 1983)
Z or
O		 1984 Z35 The Wandering Unicorn (Taplinger 1984)
O30 The 1984 Annual World's Best SF (DAW 1984)
AA or P 1985 Most the "P" codes of this year had a leading "0" making the number part of the code three digits in length.

AA6 Slan (Nelson Doubleday 1985, later book club printing)
P035 The 1985 Annual World's Best SF (DAW 1985)

BB or Q 1986 BB27 Foundation and Earth(Doubleday 1986, trade edition)
Q31 The 1986 Annual World's Best SF (DAW 1986)
CC or R 1987 CC16 Daughter of the Empire (Doubleday 1986, trade printing)
R28 The 1987 Annual World's Best SF (DAW 1987, the last annual to contain a gutter code)

The last known gutter codes validated are "R35" and "CC36" printed in August and September 1987.

The numeric part of a gutter code

Here is chart showing the translation of week number to month of printing. 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

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