Hi all, hereby the result of my research on the 1st edition of C&S rulebook. This research has been performed by checking the books i have in my collection, i didn't search in the net other info than those i derived from the observation of what i have in my hands.

The study is based on my 3 copies of my collection!

Here we go!

First outcomes from the comparison of the 3 volumes:

FRONT COVERS: no main differences

BACK COVERS: artwork of book #1 different from the other two

SPINES: spine of book #1 is blank, spine of book #3 is smaller than the other 2 books

Interior details of book #2

Result of the comparison of interior details:

TITLE PAGE: book 1 has no ref to S.C.A. (line below main title), the other two books are identical

COPYRIGHT PAGE: no differences among the 3 books

CATALOGUE: book 1 has a different list, with less titles compared than the other two books


Conclusions
I'd classify the following printing sequence:
book #1 -> first printing (main reason is the smaller catalogue and no credits to S.C.A.)
book #2 -> second printing (main reason is the same size of the first print)
book #3 -> third printing

Any thought? Any input from "external" sources?

Thanks and ciaooo

Thanks for these very interesting thoughts. I think that you are probably right about the 1st print. I am less certain about  a separate print 2 & 3 based on size alone. Back in the very early days of the hobby the print runs were done on small presses with less strict quality control than later (and often larger) print runs. As a comparison, I have a few 1st prints of Runequest (here there is, as far as I am aware, only one 1st edition and printing) and they all vary a little bit in height. The booklets in early D&D sets vary a bit too.

In the bookselling world, variations within printings are dealt with by using terms like states and issues (e.g. if a printer notices a typo or poor layout while doing a print run (or, I guess, changes paper stock slightly) and makes a correction, then that is referred to as a different state within the 1st print. The important point is that it makes no difference to the date of the printing. In many cases, two different states will be bundled together when delivered by the printer, so it might be impossible to tell for certain if one was at the start, middle or end of a printing.

To be sure, in the rare book world, collectors anguish over these details too. So I am not saying it makes no difference. But it may be that the second print of C&S has two states (using that terminology) and it may be impossible to say which came (ever so) slightly earlier. Or even if that distinction is important. We might even adjust the way in which we think about some early D&D sets/books accordingly.  :)