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Modern Combat Aircraft series - Ian Allen


Simon Cornes

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I am also a book-aholic and have a large chunk of this series. I have recently come across some copies of thse books on E-Bay where the publisher is shown as Littlehampton Book Services, and even paperback versions. I have never heard of this publisher - whom I assume took over Ian Allan's titles when they stopped publishing but can anyone tell me what actually happened and how these compare, quality wise, to the Ian Allan originals?

Many thanks

Simon

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Littlehampton Book Services is primarily a book distribution warehouse facility, Ian Allen Publishing as far as I know still publish books, however Midland Counties Publications whom Ian Allen took over did stop publishing books.

Ian Allen publishing still have an active website(2015) to order books.

I would think that if reprints are available they would be Ian Allen as opposed to LBS.

Any info from ebay I would be very wary of,as they are not unknown to get info wrong.

I have seen books advertised as softback, when indeed they are hardback,and vica-versa.

LBS has a website which will probably clarify anything you want to know.

Derek

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Thanks for that Derek. I may e-mail the eBay sellers to clarify but the ISBN is the same, but maybe they don't change if they are printed by another company. As you say, the seller may be wrong but there are at least 3 books presently on eBay described as being printed by LBS.

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I wonder if the seller might be getting the Ian Alllen series mixed up with the larger format Osprey Air Combat titles? As some of the latter are certainly available in soft back format.

Greg

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Don't forget that ebay sellers sometimes try to be helpful and get details about the book from places such as Neilsen Book Data, or Amazon, or the British Library - without realising that the info there is wrong or misleading...

It isn't often that this happens, but it can and does.

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I had a look again last night, my intention being to e-mail the seller to ask them but they seem to be a large company which sources its material from charity shops and they don't take e-mail enquiries - because they get so many! That speaks volumes. I was also searching on ABE books using the ISBN and it was the same whether Ian Allan or LBS which makes me think its probbaly Ian Allan but I am put off buying because I want the Ian Allan version but I can't clarify. Their loss!

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Hopefully this post may help clarify the situation re ISBNs etc.

ISBNs are unique in their allocation to a specific book and I believe publisher. Several years ago I requested a batch of ISBNs for some publications being made by Newark Air Museum. Following the application I was advised that NAM already had an allocation (some unused) dating back to the 1970s. These have steadily been used on various books / guidebooks, including the recently published edition on RAF Winthorpe.

A few years ago the original 10 digit set of numbers was converted to a 13 digit sequence, which was applied to the outstanding set of unallocated numbers.

I have also spoken with the Shop Manager at the museum this morning, who advised that Littlehampton Book Services is a distributor and not a publisher (i.e. they would not have an input re ISBN allocations.)

To complicate matters a little bit, currently she would expect that any Ian Allan books would be distributed by Grantham Book Services, or direct from the publisher themselves.

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Hopefully this post may help clarify the situation re ISBNs etc.

ISBNs are unique in their allocation to a specific book and I believe publisher. Several years ago I requested a batch of ISBNs for some publications being made by Newark Air Museum. Following the application I was advised that NAM already had an allocation (some unused) dating back to the 1970s. These have steadily been used on various books / guidebooks, including the recently published edition on RAF Winthorpe.

A few years ago the original 10 digit set of numbers was converted to a 13 digit sequence, which was applied to the outstanding set of unallocated numbers.

I have also spoken with the Shop Manager at the museum this morning, who advised that Littlehampton Book Services is a distributor and not a publisher (i.e. they would not have an input re ISBN allocations.)

To complicate matters a little bit, currently she would expect that any Ian Allan books would be distributed by Grantham Book Services, or direct from the publisher themselves.

That is very interesting and sort of puts my mind at rest.I know that the number of digits was incresaed a few years ago - probably 10 or more I suspect but, once allocated it sticks with that book.

It would seem that the persons placing the add on E-bay are rather vague when it comes to publishers. I am now looking at a copy of the volume on the UH/AH-1 being sold by 'Aviationbooks' in London and they have gone to the trouble of describing the size and weight but still show the publishers as Littlehampton Book Services. Maybe they lift that information from another site or ad and then perpetuate the error? Another one on e-Bay is for the F-105 and that is being sold by 'worldofbooks'. I was talking to a book dealer this weekend and mentioned this and he asked if 'worldofbooks' were one of the culprits. They are a company which buys books from charity shops in container loads and they are also the ones who say they won't reply to e-mails because they get so many but they can be a good source of cheaper volumes. The Thud book is listed at £5.84 with free post - they obviously want turnover without great profit. Because I wasn't sure about Litlehampton Book Services I bought it from someone else who said it was published by Ian Allen and it cost me £5.96 so I'm not complaining but it is certainly annoying when you are put off buying something due to duff info when in fact it would be a good deal!

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Ian Allan was the only publisher of the "Modern Combat Aircraft "series.

Littlehampton Book Services was the distributor.

There never was a softback reprint.

Don't bother with book descriptions on Ebay, abebooks, amazon etc. As you said "they lift that information from another site or ad and then perpetuate the error".

Ah and on the the subject of F-105 books, the Osprey one is far, far better:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Republic-F-105-Thunderchief-Osprey-combat/dp/0850455308/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421438888&sr=8-1&keywords=0850455308

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  • 3 weeks later...

I have Volumes 1 - 27 of these series (with 2 copies of the F-18 one), they are in general very good given they are ~30 years old.

For F-105 specifically, the Warbirdtech is my favourite, the Osprey Air Combat is good on operation usage, but there is no single completely awesome book to recommend out of the one's I've read.

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Well my quest is complete and I now have 13 volumes of 112 pages each to read! I have the full set and, as has been said, they are by no means perfect but as products of the 1970's and 80's they are very readable and not that expensive. 13 volume will be keeping me occupied for some time though I think. And not one is a paperback!

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