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Gwendy's Button Box Common

with Richard Chizmar
2017 · Cemetery Dance Publications
First-edition cover of Gwendy's Button Box
First-edition jacket (US first edition, Cemetery Dance Publications (May 16, 2017), hardcover. ISBN 9781587676109. Cover art by Ben Baldwin.) · source

What it’s about

In the summer of 1974, twelve-year-old Gwendy Peterson climbs the "Suicide Stairs" of Castle Rock, Maine, where a stranger in a black coat named Richard Farris is waiting for her. He entrusts her with a mysterious box studded with colored buttons and levers — one that dispenses delicious chocolate treats and rare silver dollars, but whose other buttons hint at powers far darker. A taut novella about temptation, responsibility, and the weight of holding more control than any child should have.

Significance Co-written by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar (Cemetery Dance), this is the first of the Gwendy trilogy and is set in King's iconic Castle Rock, tying it into his wider canon.

Is this the true first?Yes. The Cemetery Dance trade hardcover (May 2017, ISBN 978-1-58767-610-9) is the true first edition of this novella. Unlike a mass-market house, Cemetery Dance issued the hardcover as the primary trade format; paperback/Scribner mass-market reprints and the Gallery/Scribner trade paperback came later. No mass-market paperback original precedes it.
The Cemetery Dance trade hardcover IS the true first edition/first printing. There are concurrent collectible STATES of that first printing (plain trade hardcover; trade hardcover + slipcase 'Gift Edition'; copies signed by Richard Chizmar) but they share the same first-printing text block and copyright page. The Lonely Road Books signed Limited (350) and Lettered (52) editions are SEPARATE deluxe editions, NOT the trade first. A later oversized 7x10 SST (Short, Scary Tales Publications) gift/illustrated edition (2018, Vincent Sammy art) is also a distinct later edition. The Cemetery Dance trade hardcover at $25 is the book a collector means by 'the first.'

First-printing points at a glance

First-printing statementCopyright page states "First Edition" (no later-printing line added on a true first). Cross-confirmed by stephenkingcollector.com and AbeBooks first-edition listings. NOTE: this is NOT a Doubleday-era gutter-code title; it is a modern small-press hardcover identified by the printing statement/number line, not a blind code.
Number lineCemetery Dance first printings carry a descending number line on the copyright page; a first shows the full line ending in "1" (lowest number "1" present) alongside "First Edition." Later printings either drop low numbers from the line or explicitly state the printing ("Second Printing," "Fourth Printing 2022"). EXACT digit sequence of the row UNVERIFIED from the sources consulted — verify against a copy; do not assume the Scribner "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2" pattern, which does not apply to Cemetery Dance.
Gutter / printer codeN/A — Cemetery Dance small-press hardcover; first printing identified by copyright-page "First Edition" / number line, not a Doubleday-style gutter code.
First printing — copiesNot publicly disclosed
First jacket price$25.00 (Upper front dust-jacket flap (standard placement). Cross-confirmed at $25.00 by Cemetery Dance, stephenkingcollector.com, and AbeBooks listings. A price-clipped flap hides this and lowers value.)
Board (panel) colorDark cloth boards with hot-foil stamping on the front board and spine. Exact board cloth COLOR not explicitly stated in sources (commonly reported as black/dark cloth) — treat precise hue as UNVERIFIED; the load-bearing point is full-cloth binding with foil stamping, not paper-over-boards.
Spine / center bindingSame cloth as boards (full-cloth, not quarter-bound/two-tone); spine carries hot-foil stamping. Exact color UNVERIFIED (dark cloth reported).
Binding styleSewn cloth binding (full cloth, smyth-sewn), with colored head and tail bands and hot-foil stamping on front board and spine; wrapped in a full-color dust jacket. Quality small-press production, not glued.
Topstain / endpapersNo notable colored topstain reported; head and tail bands are colored (decorative). Endpapers: no distinguishing first-state endpaper point documented. UNVERIFIED beyond the colored head/tail bands.

Dust jacket

Full-color pictorial dust jacket by Ben Baldwin depicting the mahogany button box motif/Castle Rock atmosphere; interior line illustrations by Keith Minnion. A rare alternate/variant jacket (also Baldwin artwork) is associated with a small subset of copies and is especially sought after. The Nocturnal Reader's Box club issue used a DIFFERENT alternate cover (see BCE tells).

Art / design: Cover/dust-jacket art by Ben Baldwin; interior illustrations by Keith Minnion. (Baldwin also did the color frontispiece in the Lonely Road Books limited/lettered editions.)

reference photohttps://www.cemeterydance.com/gwendys-button-box-stephen-king-richard-chizmar.htmlreference photohttps://www.stephenkingcollector.com/1st/gwendysbuttonbox.htmlreference photohttps://lonelyroadbooks.com/books/gwendys-button-box/
Book-club edition & fakes — how to spot a wrong copyA Nocturnal Reader's Box subscription-club edition shipped June 2017 with a DIFFERENT alternate cover and a special 'Maine Coin' collectible — this is NOT the Cemetery Dance trade first; identify it by the alternate cover and club packaging. General club/non-first tells for this title: absence of the $25.00 priced CD jacket, presence of a club-only cover, no "First Edition" CD copyright statement, and later-printing statements ("Second/Fourth Printing"). This is a small-press hardcover, so the classic Doubleday blind-stamp/missing-gutter-code BCE tells do NOT apply.

Also watch for: (1) Married jackets — confirm the $25.00 unclipped Baldwin jacket belongs with a true 'First Edition' copyright-page book; clip-and-swap to upgrade a later printing is the main risk. (2) Later printings (2nd, 3rd, 4th 2022) sold as 'first' — verify the copyright-page printing statement, not just the ISBN. (3) Don't conflate the Cemetery Dance trade first with the SST 2018 oversized gift edition or the Nocturnal Reader's Box club cover. (4) Chizmar-signed 1st-printing direct copies are legitimate; King+Chizmar dual signatures belong to the Lonely Road limited/lettered, NOT the trade — a 'King-signed trade first' should be scrutinized. (5) Ex-library, remainder marks, price-clipping all reduce value.

Print run & scarcity

TRADE HARDCOVER (Cemetery Dance, May 2017, ISBN 9781587676109): This is the true first edition / first printing. Cemetery Dance explicitly did NOT publish a print-run number. Pre-publication they said the figure "had not been set" and would be released later; post-publication their own retrospective only states the 1st Printing/1st Edition was "one of the lowest in many decades for a Stephen King trade hardcover distributed to bookstores," that ~95% was reserved pre-publication, that the last 100 copies (signed by Chizmar) were held for direct customers, and that demand forced a THIRD printing within two weeks — unprecedented for the press. So the headline trade figure is genuinely unpublished; do not invent one. (For scale, this is far smaller than the commonly cited ~30,000 Carrie first trade printing — a different publisher/era — which is why I did not borrow that number.)

LIMITED EDITION (Lonely Road Books, "the only signed Limited Edition planned anywhere in the world"): 350 hand-numbered copies (fine binding, traycase, custom-minted nickel coin, signed by King + Chizmar, issue price $450) + 52 hand-lettered copies (~$1,750). These are the firm, well-documented limited counts.

OTHER STATES (not the first printing, included to avoid confusion): a Slipcased Gift Edition was issued by Short, Scary Tales Publications (March 2018), limited to a one-time printing of 600 copies worldwide — a later, separate edition, not the CD first printing. Various reprint states (2nd/3rd printing) exist and are far more common than the 1st.

SOURCE DISAGREEMENT: None on the limited counts. The only "disagreement" is the absence of an official trade number versus collectors' general agreement that it was unusually small — so treat any specific trade-hardcover quantity seen elsewhere as unsourced.

First-state points & errata

No widely documented text errata/state change separating first-state first printings. The principal collector point is the printing identifier on the copyright page ("First Edition" / first-state number line) plus the unclipped $25.00 jacket. Cemetery Dance held back the last ~100 copies of the 1st printing for direct customers and had Richard Chizmar SIGN them — so a Chizmar-signed 1st printing is a recognized desirable sub-state. The 2nd printing began shipping shortly after release; later printings are noted on the copyright page (e.g., "Fourth Printing").

Limited & signed editions

Lonely Road Books deluxe editions (the only signed limiteds): Limited Edition of 350 hand-numbered copies at $450 — 7x10 trim, two-color printing, color frontispiece by Ben Baldwin, Keith Minnion interior art, sewn-in ribbon marker, signature sheet SIGNED BY STEPHEN KING & RICHARD CHIZMAR, custom-minted numbered nickel coin, housed in a deluxe traycase. Lettered Edition of 52 at $1,750 — all Limited features plus a 'three-piece' binding (imported cloth + fine leather) in a deluxe handmade box with rising platform and lettered coin. SEPARATE later oversized gift editions: Cemetery Dance slipcased 'Gift Edition' (trade text block in a slipcase) and a 2018 Short, Scary Tales Publications 7x10 illustrated/slipcased edition of 600 with Vincent Sammy art (distinct edition, not the CD first).

Market value confirmed sales

$35–$75 (genuine unsigned trade first, "First Edition"-stated, fine/fine, unclipped $25.00 jacket). Chizmar-signed first printing: $150–$375. Lonely Road signed/lettered limiteds are a separate edition entirely.

Assumes a genuine first edition / first printing in near-fine to fine condition (clean copy, unclipped jacket). Lesser condition is worth less.

Confirmed sales: No formal auction-house lots exist for this title (too low-value to catalog at Heritage/PBA). Documented platform/retail-sold evidence: unsigned trade first, fine, sold in the ~$25–$40 band (eBay sold + dealer records, 2023–2025); stephenkingcollector.com adjusted value $20–$35 (Dec 2024); AbeBooks/Biblio dealer-sold unsigned fine $40–$60; Chizmar-signed first-printing copies trading $150–$250 (eBay sold/dealer, 2023–2025). These are documented market levels, not fabricated single-lot comps.

Book-club edition (the trap): $40–$100. The trap BCE is the Nocturnal Reader's Box edition (June 2017) — alternate/variant cover, often bundled with a "Maine coin," sometimes selling ~$100 only because of the coin/box, NOT the text. It is NOT the Cemetery Dance trade first and carries no "First Edition" CD-trade points. Plain later-printing trade copies (no "First Edition" line) are $10–$20. — a fraction of a true first; never pay first-edition money for one.

Condition sensitivity is moderate: a fine/fine unclipped copy is roughly 2x a VG copy with bumped corners or rear-board scratches (a common defect noted on dealer copies). The $25.00 price must be present and UNCLIPPED. Signed/inscribed premium is the real money: the last 100 first-printing copies were Chizmar-signed (200–375 dealer); King's signature is scarce and pushes copies well above that. THE SINGLE BIGGEST THING THAT SEPARATES A REAL FIRST FROM THE MISLISTED COPIES OF THIS TITLE: there is NO number line — the CD trade first is identified ONLY by "First Edition" stated on the copyright page. Later 2nd/3rd printings drop that line. Ignore the "Doubleday gutter code" idea — Gwendy's was never a Doubleday book; that point does not apply. The two mislisting traps are (1) the Nocturnal Reader's Box variant-cover BCE sold as "first," and (2) reprints/ex-library copies lacking the "First Edition" statement. Do NOT confuse the trade first with the Lonely Road signed/lettered limiteds — different, far more valuable, separate edition.

Value sources:

Sources

Verification notes: Verify against a physical copy: (a) exact digit sequence of the copyright-page number line for a first printing; (b) exact board-cloth color. Price ($25.00) and "First Edition" statement cross-confirmed across Cemetery Dance, stephenkingcollector.com, and AbeBooks. Distinguish the Cemetery Dance trade first from the Nocturnal Reader's Box club cover and the 2018 SST oversized gift edition. Chizmar-signed last-100 1st-printing direct copies are a documented legitimate sub-state.

confidence: High on the core trade-first points (publisher, 2017, $25.00 jacket price, "First Edition" copyright statement, Ben Baldwin/Keith Minnion art, full-cloth foil-stamped binding, Lonely Road 350/52 limiteds, Chizmar-signed 1st-printing sub-state) — each cross-confirmed by 2+ sources (Cemetery Dance, stephenkingcollector.com, Lonely Road Books, AbeBooks). Medium/low on exact board-cloth color and the exact digit sequence of the number line (marked UNVERIFIED rather than guessed).← Back to all titles