The MESSAGE IN THE HOLLOW OAK- GOOD, COLL

This is a classic piece of vintage Americana: Nancy Drew #12: The Message in the Hollow Oak, written under the house pseudonym Carolyn Keene.  

Edition & Printing Identification

This book is a War-Era reprint printed in late 1943.

• The Cover & Binding (Format 3): The medium blue cloth with the orange silhouette of Nancy looking through her magnifying glass was used from 1932 to 1945. However, notice the thickness of the book—it is notably thinner than the chunky 1.25-inch texts of the 1930s. This is due to WWII wartime paper rationing, which forced publishers to use thinner, lighter-weight paper stock.

• The Endpapers: It features the iconic Orange Silhouette endpapers (used from 1932 to 1945), showing silhouettes of Nancy in various sleuthing poses.

• The Christmas 1943 Inscription & Stamps: A wonderful piece of provenance! The handwritten inscription reads "Patty and Marion, Christmas 1943". Right below it, the original owner pasted three 1943 Christmas Seals (the annual fundraising stamps issued by the National Tuberculosis Association). The artwork on those exact stamps—a child looking up at Santa's sleigh—was designed by artist Rudolf Leschnik specifically for the 1943 campaign.

• The Frontispiece: The illustration facing the title page is printed on plain paper (integral to the text layout) rather than on glossy, coated paper. Grosset & Dunlap phased out glossy frontispieces for titles 1 through 17 right around mid-1943 to conserve materials for the war effort.