Dating A Bible

Factual Questions
1

My SIL asked me to ask y’all if you’d help us “date” a very old Bible we found that has no printing information.

Here’s what we have (and all of this is on the title page)

Self-Pronouncing Edition

The Holy Bible

Containing The Old And New Testaments

Translated Out Of The Original Tongues With The Former Translation Compared And Revised

Conformable To The Edition Of 1611, Commonly Known As The Authorized Or King James Version

All Proper Names Are Divided Into Syllables

Accented And Marked With The Vowel Sounds

Showing How They Should Be Pronounced

[The publisher listed is] THE WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY

Cleveland, Ohio New York City
I googled the publisher, but couldn’t find anything concrete other than someone named Bruce Rogers was responsible for an edition of a Bible of which only 975 were printed.

I will do some further research when time permits, but I was hoping that someone knowledgable might steer me somewhere, as we do not have an antique book store in this city.

Thanks

Q

2

There might be a factual answer for this, so I’m moving it to GQ from Cafe Society.

3

It might be worth searching the Library of Congress Catalog: http://catalog.loc.gov/

I am sure they have lots of bibles, so it might take a bit of time to find the right one.

Or if LOC doesn’t have it, maybe WorldCat http://www.worldcat.org/

4

Records of the World Publishing Company indicate that it was incorporated in the early/mid-20th century, so the Bible you have is probably from the 1930’s or later. The 975-copy Bruce Rogers World Bible edition was printed in 1949.

5

I googled some of the text that you quoted and found a few copies of apparently the exact same version of the bible. I found two that were being offered by antique book dealers with no date given. I found one entry in google books that, while not the bible itself, refers to that edition of the bible. In this book, on one page it describes the first two pages of the bible, which quote the same text you posted, and it quotes a third page which is a marriage record from 1933.

I also found a bible of the same type for sale on ebay. A page in the bible says that it was presented to someone in 1953, and since there is no other date on the bible anywhere it is assumed to have been printed somewhere close to then.

From this it appears that your version of the bible appears to have been printed for many years, so precisely dating this may be difficult.

I hope you find this information helpful.

6

WorldCat says “1950s” as well: Catalog record.

ETA: Their 1960s edition has a copyright date on the maps.

7

This might be a good spot to make two comments.

Contrary to what many people, reading that a Gutenburg bible sold for a million dollars or so, think, old bibles, even very old bibles, usually have little or no monetary value. There were just too many of them printed and they tended to be saved.

To a book collector or book dealer, a bible published in the 1930s is not “a very old bible.” One published in 1733 might be so described, but I personally would expect even an earlier date for such a bible.

8

1949 The Bruce Rogers World Bible was published in an edition limited to 975 copies.

9

She won’t put out on the first date, but once she starts in with the Song of Solomon you’re golden.

10

I have a copy of an old Bible published by The Commercial Bookbinding CO Cleveland. It says the text conformable to that of the edition of 1611 commonly known as the authorized version.

The front and back pages have come unbound from the cover and it appears that the paper was recycled. The story of The Gingerbread Man is printed on the paper in the front and back of the book.

Any ideas or thoughts on this?

11

If you read upthread, you would realise that any bible published in the USA could not be old enough to have any interest to collectors.

Unless it belonged to someone important like Washington or Lincoln.

12

Run run run, as fast as you can, you can’t catch me, I’m Jesus, man.

13

Right. I have a New Testament printed in 1732 and it’s only the beautiful illustrations that give it its value, not the date. I suppose it may be different in the US but here in England even 16th or 17th century bibles are far too common to have much worth unless they have something other than the date to commend them, eg excellent condition, illustrations or ownership by someone well-known

14

Even if the age won’t have any interest among collectors, it might still have interest to the person who owns the book. If I found an old Bible in my grandmother’s attic, I might want to know whether it originally belonged to her, or to her parents or grandparents.

15

I would suggest asking it out for coffee first, in a public place. If things go well there, then follow up with a real dinner date.

16

At least I wasn’t the only person who had that thought on reading the thread title.

17

Not true. Some have value due to the publication house/ publisher

18

Hi Crissy, and welcome.

I hope you can give us some examples to back up your statement.

19

Its not the Bruce Rogers 935 copies printed version.

here’s the title page of that. https://www.swansfinebooks.com/pages/books/CNJL314/bible-bruce-rogers-william-targ-designer/the-holy-bible-with-the-making-of-the-bruce-rogers-world-bible-containing-the-old-and-new-testaments

20

World Syndicate Publishing edition with the (almost ?) exactly same title text.

However I see that it lists a Cleveland office, as well as New York, so it should be referring to Alfred Cahen’s company that would become "World Publishing " in 1935… Not the NYC only World Syndicate Publishing before Alfred Cahen had bought it. So this just dates your version to 1928 or after, due to that being when Cahen gave World Syndicate Publishing a Cleveland office.

Alfred Cahen was a very large printer of the KJV… the largest in fact, there were many many of them printed… No reason to think it was a bible worth storing … like a special edition put aside… they would print them to fill orders, so it would be printed soon before it was distributed to the end user…