Below are pairs of covers displaying slight variations in colour or text. There are probably heaps of examples of this in people's collections, and these were the obvious ones I found in my own:
1) We start with two different versions of the "GoldenEye" movie tie-in paperback/softback written by John Gardner and published by Coronet in 1995. In this case the earlier book on the left attributes Michael France and Jeffrey Caine credit with "screenplay by". Then on the later book on the right the screenplay credit has been attributed to Jeffrey Caine and Bruce Feirstein, and Michael France's credit has changed to "story by". Also, see (13) below for another similar Coronet movie tie-in cover variation.
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2) The "Octopussy" variation from the Still Life Series by Pan is most probably a printing error with one brown and one green. The green colour on the copy on the right wraps around the entire book suggesting that the brown ink used on this 1976 edition differed from the 1973 edition on the left and over time has gradually changed colour. In this case fading caused by sunlight is unlikely as the entire cover is affected and not just the spine, however I'm now aware of some collectors having editions of this book half brown and half green so who knows !
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3) The "Nobody Lives For Ever" variation from Sniper Series by Coronet is deliberate with the light blue/teal cover from the UK and the red Coronet-General cover from Canada.
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4) The "James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me" movie tie-in covers differ in the colour of "The Spy Who Loved Me" text. Both books were printed by Panther. The cover on the left with the red text is from the UK while the cover on the right with the brown text is from Canada.
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5) The "Licence Renewed" variation from the Masterspy Series by Coronet-General Books differs in both colour (light brown and dark brown) and also the gold text on the cover on the left compared to the yellow text on the right. Both of these Coronet - General Books covers are from Canada.
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6) The "Octopussy" variation from the Black Signet Series differs in the colour of much of the text on the cover. For a start the cover on the left shows the text "James Bond" in red and "Octopussy" in white. The cover on the right shows the text "James Bond" in white and "Octopussy" in orange.
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7) The "No Deals, Mr. Bond" variation from the Three Images Series differs in the text at the top of the covers. Also the cover on the right, published by Charter, has a facsimile of Ian Fleming's signature which is absent from the cover on the left, published by Berkley.
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8) Below are two different versions of the "Casino Royale" movie tie-in paperback/softback from 2006 published by Penguin. John F, a regular visitor to the website, pointed it out to me in March 2013. The difference is most obvious with the head of the silhouette of the woman. As you can see on the cover on the left the head is fully shown (the Australian printing) while on the cover on the right the head is cropped (the international printing). Thanks heaps John for letting me know.
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9) The "Icebreaker" variations from the Silhouette Series published by Berkley Books differ in the colour of the text that reads "James Bond". The cover on the left with the gold text is the **th edition from 198? while the cover on the right is the 5th printing from 1986. The red colour variation between the two books is probably caused due to fading.
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10) These two variations of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" published by Signet in the 1960's differ in three ways. The first is in the gold stars; the cover on the left has text in its gold star while the cover on the right does not. The second is the "007" displayed in the top left hand corner of the cover on the right which is absent on the cover on the left. Finally, the Signet logo also changes position from top left to top right on the covers.
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11) These two variations of the UK "Dr No" movie tie-in published by Pan Books in 1962 were pointed out to me by Tim at Tikit and Alan T. The cover on the left was published by Great Pan with the older logo in the top right corner while the cover on the right (9th printing) was published by Pan with the newer logo. For those completists there are actually two versions of the "Dr No" Great Pan movie tie-ins with different book codes: X335 (6th printing) and G335 (7th printing). For more information have a look at the excellent Collecting Fleming website.
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12) These two variations of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" published by Pan Books in 1964 and 1965 respectively differ in the colour of the title text. The cover on the left was published by Pan Books with blue/purple text (3rd printing) while the cover on the right was published by Pan with light green text (5th printing). The blue/purple text apparently appeared on most 1st to 3rd printings of this cover while 4th to 6th printings have green text. And if you're fortunate enough to have a 1st printing of this paperback congratulations because it's worth much more than you'd expect. For more information about this colour variation have a look at the excellent Collecting Fleming website.
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13) This variation is similar to (1) "Goldeneye" at the top of this page. "The World Is Not Enough" was written by Raymond Benson and published by Coronet in 1999. The earlier book on the left attributes Neil Purvis and Robert Wade with screenplay credit. On the later book on the right Bruce Feirstein has also been credited with screenplay credit.
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14) Both of these covers were published by Coronet - General Books in Canada in 1983. The "Icebreaker" cover on the left is almost identical to the same title published by Coronet in the UK. These covers are part of the Masterspy Series. Like the UK edition the cover on the left also features the title in a metallic silver like text. However the cover on the right has the title in light blue instead. I wasn't aware this variation existed until Ian S., a frequent visitor to this website, pointed it out to me. Thanks Ian. Further variations of this cover can also be found below on this page.
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15) Here's two cover variations of "From Russia With Love" published by Coronet in 1996. Both covers were illustrated by David Scutt. Similar to The Three Faces Of Dr No the colour of the text of the author's name differs; in this case the cover on the left has embossed grey text while the cover on the right has non-embossed metallic silver like text. This is also the same on the spine (sans any embossing). These covers are part of the James Bond 007 Series. I'm yet to find other covers in this series with metallic silver like text but who knows ?! John F., a visitor to this site, pointed out these variations in an email back in 2012, and it's taken 10 years but I finally managed to find the metallic silver copy. Thanks John.
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Below are four different versions of "Icebreaker" from Coronet. The first row are UK versions while the second row are Coronet-General from Canada. The story of the two UK covers belongs to John Cox and Dan Gale at The Book Bond. The mistake versions with white "fangs" (right column) are the most difficult to find.
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Movie tie-in variations are common on this page, probably related to the pre-release hype and then popularity of the Bond film at the time. Following are three different versions of "Doctor No" from Signet released at the time of Bond's first adventure on the big screen. The differences are related to the diagonal text in the top left corner of the cover. Two have red/pink text while the third (apart from the word "NOW") is black. Of the two with only red/pink text the word "NOW" is in a thin font on one, and a thicker font on the other. Thanks to Brad F for pointing out the existence of these variations and helping me acquire them.
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Below are six different versions of "Casino Royale" from Penguin. Top left is the UK edition, the other five are US editions. The bottom three covers are movie tie-in versions, the cover featuring text explaining "Now a major motion picture" in a circle is relatively easy to find, while the other two are very uncommon. There are also two prototype covers similar to these which you might be interested in seeing on the Prototypes page of this website. And just as a bit of trivia there is a hardback omnibus titled "The Bond Files Volume 1 - Three James Bond Novels By Ian Fleming" that features the same cover image, however as it's a hardback it's not included on this site. Penguin certainly liked this cover image !
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