THE IVORY HAMMER - THE YEAR AT SOTHEBY'S: 219TH SEASON 1962-1963 includes the 1st appearance of the IAN FLEMING James Bond short story "THE PROPERTY OF A LADY", published by Holt Rinehart Winston, copyright 1963, stated First Edition (states "First Edition" on copyright page - published January 1964 per copyright page), illustrated endpapers, red cloth boards, gold gilt lettering to spine.  NOTE THIS IS A LARGE HEAVY GLOSSY PAPERSTOCK COFFEE-TABLE STYLE BOOK.  THIS WAS THE FIRST POST-AUCTION RESULTS ILLUSTRATED CATALOG PUBLISHED IN HARDCOVER WITH DUST JACKET (Sotheby's would go on to publish several more of these books for subsequent auction seasons).  FOR THIS FIRST BOOK, SOTHEBY'S COMMISSIONED AN ORIGINAL JAMES BOND SHORT STORY (SET AT A SOTHEBY'S AUCTION) BY IAN FLEMING.  THIS JAMES BOND STORY WAS LATER COLLECTED IN BOOK FORM IN THE U.S. EDITION (AND PB EDITIONS) OF OCTOPUSSY & THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS.  NOTE - THIS STORY WAS LATER USED AS THE BASIS FOR THE OPENING ACTION SEQUENCE IN THE MOVIE OCTOPUSSY.

   Book has no creased page corners, no former ownership markings or used bookstore stamps inside, no markings or erasures to the endpapers, almost no dust soiling/age darkening to outer page edges (slight foxing to top outer page edge), no spine tears, no wear to board edges, board corners or spine tips, no soiling or staining or scotch tape marks to the boards, no dust handling/soiling to boards, no wear or oxidizing to gold gilt lettering, no bumped board corners, tiny bit of fading to bottom spine tip/corners.

    Dust Jacket has no chipping or tearing or creasing, slight wear to top spine tip with 'v' losses to top spine tip corners, almost no wear to front flap crease (just a hint flap crease corners), hint of edge wear along top edge, no color rubbing to left/right of spine and no color rubbing to panels, almost no peeling of glossy covering at edges (common defect with this DJ), almost no dust rubbing to panels, no other soiling or staining, no spine sun darkening (common defect with this light colored DJ), foxing spots along top edge. 

    Overall a FINE-/N-FINE book in FINE- condition dust jacket (price clipped) of an Ian Fleming James Bond 1st printing hardcover book. I have a number of other U.S. and U.K. Ian Fleming James Bond 1st printing hardcover appearances up for auction on ebay - just click on the 'see other items' link to the right of the picture.

      NOTE - MEDIA MAIL ROUTINELY TAKES 3-4 WEEKS (REGARDLESS OF WHAT EBAY MAY SAY - THEY DON'T CONTROL THE POST OFFICE).  For U.S. buyers, both priority mail (3-5 days) and media mail (3-4 weeks) shipping options will be listed in the ebay invoice (or if the book is a paperback or small magazine both 1st class mail (5-7 days) and media mail shipping options will be listed in the ebay invoice) - SIMPLY CLICK ON THE BLUE 'OTHER SHIPPING OPTIONS' LINK IN THE INVOICE TO SEE BOTH SHIPPING OPTIONS/COST.

     DELIVERY CONFIRMATION IS NOT TRACKING (despite what ebay and paypal want to call it - again they don't control the U.S. post office).  Delivery confirmation is merely what it says it is - it confirms delivery to prevent fraudulent chargebacks of claimed unreceived items (which is why I don't charge for delivery confirmation in the shipping costs).  Also, since I print shipping labels from home (as opposed to purchasing shipping at the post office), the delivery confirmation number IS NOT SCANNED BY THE POST OFFICE AT THIS END.  Therefore, in most cases, the first time that the Post Office will show anything when you check the delivery confirmation number is when the package hits your local post office/sorting center (basically the day before its delivered to you).   Occasionally (about 25% of the time) a package will get scanned at the Federal Way, WA transfer station, but in the vast majority of the cases the delivery confirmation won't show anything until basically the day before you get the package.

     I  DO COMBINE SHIPPING COSTS FOR MULTIPLE  ITEMS WON (if you would like estimates of what combined shipping costs might be for a certain group of auctions, please e-mail me before the auctions close but a very rough estimate is $.50-$1.00 per additional book for media mail, $1.00-$2.00 per additional book for priority mail, and $6.00-$7.00 per additional book for international mail). 

       As for returns -All items are used (not new) books and therefore are sold as-is, which is why I try to provide a fairly detailed description of the item itself (i.e. what it is and what it is not) as well its specific condition, noting any significant defects (for collectible items).  Book grades are provided in the posting, however book grading standards/categories very widely from seller to seller, so please do not rely solely on the grade that I have given a book or ebay's provided "condition" box description, without considering the specific condition/defects described for that particular book.  I do, on occasion, miss a significant defect in an item or simply make a cut/paste error in the description (i.e. an error in the description from using a prior posting as the "shell" for this book's description), and for collectible items, if that happens, on a case-by-case basis I do issue a full refund (including the cost of return shipping) depending upon the collectible significance of the undisclosed defect.