guest wrote: ↑September 12, 2022, 11:29 pm basically the same thing happened in 2016 when skip gillham passed away. no new books published so if you find a used one snap it up pronto
The biggest difference is that due to the mentioned distributor print run, the Freshwater Press titles are far more abundant and therefore caution should be exercised when making a purchase decision. That being said, the rarest Freshwater Press titles are likely the early namesakes follow-up titles Greenwood published in roughly five year intervals following the 1970 publication of the first book of the series. These would be The New Namesakes of the Lakes, Namesakes of the 80's, and Namesakes of the 80's Vol. 2. Of these, The New Namesakes of the Lakes appears to be the most uncommon. An original 1970 Namesakes of the Lakes in excellent condition can also be difficult but not impossible to find but bear in mind the book was reprinted on at least two separate occasions, once in 1980 and again in 1985, so it is important to establish the correct edition while purchasing a copy as the later editions are normally in much better condition but not worth as much as they are not a first edition. In my original post yesterday I forgot to add it may be possible that three volumes of Great Lakes Ships We Remember have also been reprinted as part of the deal with the distributor as these titles appear to be widely available as new copies. It is also possible that the original production runs of those books were in excess of what was actually sold at the time they reached the market. The titles would be Great Lakes Ships We Remember (Revised), Great Lakes Ships We Remember II, and Great Lakes Ships We Remember III. As I said, I'm unsure as to whether or not these titles were part of the Freshwater Press/Distributor deal as I cannot recall whether the owner of the latter mentioned these titles during our conversation about this some ten years ago.
I do agree, however, that any Skip Gillham title should be purchased if it is desired to add to a collection as there will likely never be another run on these titles. In addition, many of his later titles were produced in early short-run digital formats of somewhat lower quality and have not held up very well over the years unless they have been properly stored and maintained.