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$4.00
Appleton II, Victor
TOM SWIFT Jr. and His Flying Lab [tsjr1]
book-date: 1954
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GRADING:
Grosset&Dunlap
1961

Hardcover
Graham Kaye
$1
near-Fine

Grosset & Dunlap 1961 printing hardcover (copyright 1954. Cover and interior illustrations by Graham Kaye, 208 pages. Lists books through Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung inside, and on the (blue) back cover. Book condition is near-Fine: tight and square, age tanning is very mild and uniform, light bumping/wear at ends of spine and trace of wear to corners. No stamps, marks or writing - a clean copy.

A 1961 edition (with the blue spine) of the first book in the "Tom Swift, Jr." series that appeared under the "house" name of Victor Appleton II: Tom Swift and His Flying Lab (ghostwritten by William Dougherty.) This second series of Tom Swift books (written 1954-1971) featured the son of the hero of the first "Tom Swift" series (written 1910-1941.) There were 2 more follow-up series, but neither was very long-lived.

Here is what I cobbled-together from the best sites I could find online:
Early titles came with dustjackets (#1 to #17, from 1954-1961.) The second title for 1961, The Electronic Hydrolung (#18) came with a "printed cover," and was the only one of those which had the cover art wrap to the spine. There were "printed cover" reprints that year for the first 17 - with a blue spine (most people count the greenish wrap spine of #18 as a "blue spine" edition.) The next year, #19 came with a printed cover and a yellow spine (or gold or orange - whatever you want to call it), and all originals and reprints from 1962 onward had yellow spines. Which means that any book with a DJ is 45 to 51 years old, and if a printed-cover version has a blue spine, it was printed in 1961. There is no statement of "first printing" in any book, so I'm going by the assumption that a first edition is a book which lists only to itself where a list is presented on an inner page or back cover. (And that the probable print date for any edition is that of the highest book listed...)