Yes my New Forest is a POD. I've looked at the three other PODs I bought at the same time.The b/w photos in Heathlands (NN72) are the same grey standard as in New Forest (NN73). These reproductions are of a poorer standard than the b/w photos printed on the inferior cartridge paper of my limpback version of British Warblers (NN71) . 

My POD Hebrides (NN76) shows another aberration in its b/w photos. Where these are printed right across the page, the white gap between the captions and the text proper extends up into the photos as a faint, pale "ghost shadow", see for example pages 138 and 139.

The fourth POD I bought, A Country Parish (NN9), does not have any of these aberrations. The thirty-two b/w and the thirty-two coloured plates are well reproduced and this could be because of the higher standard of original production. It would be interesting to learn in which POD volume the "grey" photos first appear.

On first receiving my four PODs I was very satisfied with the overall impression they gave. It's a question of what you can live with. The coloured plates in all four volumes are fine in my opinion. 

John B 

McKay,

I've posted a reply to your other post on the same subject under a different thread, so I won't repeat that here, but just want to comment on the illustration on p174 in the orignal first edition - it is also terrible.   It's difficult to judge a printed page against an image on the screen, but your picture actually seems to show slightly better contrast than the original photograph!

This book is littered with very many poor black and white illustrations, a reminder perhaps that the NN series was in decline at this stage and I imagine that Collins were reducing costs in an effort to sustain the series.   Some other examples that are equally poor are on pp 29, 36, 204, 206, 212, 232 - what do these look like in the POD?

Bill

Alex
Collins

However I do strongly recommend The New Forest as a book - this was one of the first I ever read - & I believe it shows Colin Tubbs to have been a great author and I strongly recommend people to almost ignore the photos (sorry) and read this one for its content - Heathlands likewise was exciting to read and perhaps because of this these managed to keep the series ticking over - when these first came out they could often be acquired through a natural history bookclub - I suspect they did boost the numbers of sales at a difficult time for the series.

The Black and White printing was often weaker in NNs published in the 80s than earlier and later in the series - many were really too detailed to fit the small boxes they were placed into - I think probably as an attempt to fit more illustrations into a given area -

Although I like the modern colour photos I think this is possibly why there have been some comments on illustrations in the last few books - we`re perhaps a little spoilt now - when NNs started full plate colour photos were revolutionary & costly - only the large  print runs helped it take off and it was amongst the first things to reduce when sales dropped. 

John B

Just to back you up....I remember seeing that post from Collins/Alex offering a free replacement but it has disappeared! It's a shame that somone didn't 'Quote' that post in one of their postings so it would have been able to be seen on more than one posting!

I have not gone down the POD route yet. I'll see what Collins reply is. £50 is a lot of money to get a faulty book!

Lee.

Alex
Collins

McKay your details are with Martins the printers, as are John Beals: both of you will be sent replacement copies. Anyone else who ordered The New Forest is also entitled to a replacement copy. I trust that answers all your questions.

Thanks
Alex