ISBN Numbers for unpublished Casefiles?

[Bigfootman]

http://www.bookdepository.com/search/advanced?searchAuthor=Maurice Dixon,Jr.
Look at the site and you will see Casefiles #129-134 listed (except for #130), and click on them and you will see their ISBN Numbers, which are:
#129: 9780671007423
#131: 9780671007447
#132: 9780671007454
#133: 9780671007461
#134: 9780671007478
Not sure if these are the real IBSN numbers or not.

[MacGyver]

Interesting- these are probably planned titles that never went any further than the planning, I would think. Like the never-to-be #128 "Explosive Force" (too bad- the title sounds pretty cool.)

[Bigfootman]

Interesting- these are probably planned titles that never went any further than the planning, I would think. Like the never-to-be #128 "Explosive Force" (too bad- the title sounds pretty cool.)

#128 and 129 both had finnished (but unpublished) manuscripts, and #130 got published as a digest. How far #131-134 got before the series ended or if any of those got published as digests is still a mystery. #128 was about babysitting.   

[MacGyver]

Hey- a throwback to the late '80s.
"Don't (ahem) mess with the babysitter." - "Adventures in Babysitting" (1987 classic! But definitely watch this one edited on TV if you can- there's some choice words in there I didn't realize were there when I first saw it...)

[tomswift2002]

I've heard about these in the past, and have even talked about these books here.  As far as anyone knows, #131-134 only got to around the outline stage, with 131 and 132 possible having 1st drafts of the first few chapters written before being cancelled, but those books were nowhere near being complete as Casefiles, so if any of the stories that were meant to be within this section were rewritten as Digests, they were probably at a stage where any alterations would make the story unrecognizable as a repurposed Casefile.

[Bigfootman]

I've heard about these in the past, and have even talked about these books here.  As far as anyone knows, #131-134 only got to around the outline stage, with 131 and 132 possible having 1st drafts of the first few chapters written before being cancelled, but those books were nowhere near being complete as Casefiles, so if any of the stories that were meant to be within this section were rewritten as Digests, they were probably at a stage where any alterations would make the story unrecognizable as a repurposed Casefile.

I do remember reading on at least  2 sites that multiple unpublished Casefliles manuscipts were recycled for use in the Digest series, however, the only site I can remember is:
http://hardyboys.bobfinnan.com/hbpb.htm#top

Update: Found the second website:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060318042439/www.hardy-boys.com/bg/9/bg_9_4.html

[kosmicdust]

[MacGyver]

Nice! Thanks for the pictures.

[Lungbarrow]

Looking at the list of ISBN numbers there, a couple of things pop out at me. Firstly, they are ISBN-13 numbers and these were introduced much more recently. If the books had been published as intended, they would have had shorter ISBN-10 numbers. Not that it matters since all ISBN-10s have corresponding ISBN-13s and the book depository site seems to convert the 10-digit ones to 13 digits when searching. Also, the code for book #130 can be worked out - the last digit is a check digit and not part of the code. Looking at the numbers before and after #130 in sequence (and ignoring the check digit) they end in:
#129: 742
#130: ?
#131: 744
#132: 745
#133: 746
#134: 747

It's not hard to work out that #130 would have ended in 743. Using an ISBN calculator (http://www.hahnlibrary.net/libraries/isbncalc.html) we get an ISBN-13 of 9780671007430 and an ISBN-10 of 0671007432. Interestingly, this ISBN number was used for a published book. The Hardy Boys #150 - The Crisscross Crime! Which, according to this was a rewrite of the original Casefile #130! Hah! I thought I'd done some really clever internet sleuthing there only to rediscover a fact I already knew!

[MacGyver]

Even if only to confirm established facts, it's still nice detective work on your part.

[tomswift2002]

You might also want to take a closer look.  All the numbers start with 978.  978 is how 10-digit numbers are converted to 13-digit one.  The 978 is just added to the front.

[Lungbarrow]

That, and then the check digit is recalculated.