offer me $525 and its yours...
And I do not remember a lot of examples of Bukowski underlining his signature.
the spine and title page don't lie...
You are correct Bill. I have several unsigned limited editions that are supposed to be signed. Not only from BSP, but from several other publishers as well. You are right again in that I also treat them as variants of trade editions. I've often wondered if I should note "unsigned" on the colophon page to avoid problems in the future.
On second thought, I wonder if some or all were sent to me as "salesman's samples" by publishers, they certainly were intended for my personal use, and it would be legitimate to mark them as Presentation Copies. In other words, they were complimentary. What's the take on that idea from others.
Well, not knowing exactly the logistics of their signing system, I would think Bukowski signed first, then they were numbered. Otherwise, somehow ruining a numbered page would create a hole in the sequence that then has to be numbered after the fact (and sent back for a signature?).
If I was doing it I would send the author xxx + 20 to sign, just so I was sure I would have enough usable pages, then do the numbering last. Which would mean the sequence of numbers may not be the sequence they were signed in.