Template:PublicationFields:Price

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Revision as of 12:36, 26 May 2009 by DESiegel60 (talk | contribs) (notes field for 2nd prices)
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  • Price - The original cover price of this publication. Enter a single price, preceded with a currency symbol. For books published in both the USA and Canada, only the USA price should be noted. The original price of a 40 year old book isn't relevant in a purchasing sense anymore - the information is used to differentiate print editions, or to construct statistics on book pricing, which is difficult to do if two prices are present. Additional prices can (and usually should) be entreed in the notes field.
Prices under a dollar are listed as e.g. $0.25, for 25¢. Odd pricing formats can be ignored -- for example, occasionally a price of 20¢ will be printed as 20c; this can be entered as $0.20.
For books priced in other currencies, use an appropriate symbol;
  • British currency should be indicated by a UK pound sign: "£", but if you can't generate one on your keyboard you can use an L: "L2.50" means two pounds fifty pence. Note that for Windows machines, the "Character Map" system accessory can be used to generate the pound sign as well as other characters or from the keyboard Windows users can hold down either ALT key, enter 0163 (zero 163) on the numeric keypad, and release the ALT key.
  • In the 1970s, many British books cost lest than a pound and so would be priced in pence alone, e.g. 25p. These should be regularized like dollars and cents, i.e. 25p should be entered as £0.25 and 95p as £0.95.
  • Older British books were priced in shillings, or shillings and pence, where 20 shillings equals one pound and 12 old pence equals one shilling. Shillings were indicated with a variety of suffixes, e.g. 3s, 3', 3", 3/ all mean 3 shillings. Any number after that is additional pence, usually 6 (half a shilling) but sometimes 3 or 9 (a quarter of a shilling or three-quarters of a shilling). A "-" indicates zero pence. The older the book, the more likely the pence prices are to reflect quarter shilling ranges than half-shillings. We always record the pence in ISFDB even if 0 (indicated by "-"), and use the "/" separator, i.e. 3/6 is used to mean three shillings and sixpence even if the book says 3s6 or 3'6; a price of three shillings exactly would be 3/- even if indicated on the book as 3s, 3" or 3' or even plain "Three shillings".
  • Even older British paperback books, and magazines, may have been priced in pennies alone, indicated by a "d" suffix. E.g. 6d is six old pence, or half a shilling, 9d is nine old pence or three-quarters of a shilling. These are entered the same way as other pre-decimal prices but using the '-' for zero shillings, i.e. -/6 and -/9 in these examples.
  • Note that between about 1968 and 1971, British books were usually printed with both pre-decimal and decimal prices. In these cases enter only the pre-decimal price, as the decimal price was not the currency used at the time of printing, but was printed in case the book remained for sale after the date of decimalization. For a couple of years afterward, the pre-decimal price might be shown in brackets after the decimal price for people still not used to decimal currency: these can be ignored or left in notes.
  • British books are often priced for several other commonwealth countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Malta, Gibraltar, South Africa, East Africa, Trinidad (W.I.), and countries with a significant English-speaking population such as Spain and the Republic of Ireland. These additional prices are usefully entered in notes. Some of these countries also have pre-decimal formats based on the British pound and post-decimal formats similar to Dollar prices, and some have changed yet again to € (Euro) prices. If in doubt, enter these in notes exactly as stated.
  • Enter Canadian dollars with a leading C, for example, C$3.95.
  • Enter Australian dollars with a leading A, for example, A$3.95.
  • Pick an appropriate code for other currencies but also add a note explaining the currency as these books will be uncommon enough in ISFDB that most viewers will not recognize the code. For example you could use Y4800 or ¥4800 but would would add a note that the book price was stated in Japanese Yen.
If there is any ambiguity about the price, add an explanation in the Notes field. Overprinted and changed prices should use the most recent price; if the price change is via a label, however, the price change should be ignored. For example, British distribution of some American magazines included a label giving a British price; these are not the British reprint editions of those magazines, but simply American magazines with a label affixed.