The books originally came out in 1930 with blue boards and orange printing surrounded by darker printing. There was no orange silhouette on the books at first. From 1930-1932 for volume #'s 1-7, the boards were just like the picture above on the left. Beginning in 1932 with volume #8, Nancy's Mysterious Letter, the orange sihouette with shadow underneath that we are so familiar with was added to the front cover--as shown above at right. This silhouette adorned the covers of volumes #'s 8-23 and 1932 and later printings of volume #'s 1-7. As the years went by, the shades of blue varied somewhat.

Beginning in 1946 and lasting only that year were the boards to the left featuring the usual blue colored boards and the silhouette with shadow, however, the silhouette and lettering were blue. These books were only out in this particular format for some of the 1946 printings, and are consequently harder to find than the blue with orange books or the tweeds. Only volume #'s 1-23 were printed with this format of boards.

In 1947, the silhouette was revised and the look of Nancy changed from the more 1930's figure in heels and familiar scarf to a more stocky figure without the scarf, heels, and shadow. After all, chasing crooks in heels is a real ankle twister! But don't worry, the stories themselves still have her sleuthing in heels! Volume #'s 1-28 featured these blue boards with blue revised silhouette and blue lettering.

Around 1952, the familiar tweed style boards, featured at left, were introduced. These are quite common today. They featured the same revised blue silhouette and blue lettering as the previous books. Volumes #'s 1-38 featured these tweed-style boards.

The following table breaks down all the board formats above in simple easy to reference table. An 'X' means that featured board was used for that particular volume.

Volumes:	Blue Boards w/ No Silhouette:	Blue Boards w/ Orange 30's Silhouette:	Blue Boards w/ Blue 30's Silhouette:	Blue Boards w/ Blue Revised Silhouette:	Tweed Boards w/ Blue Revised Silhouette:
1	X	X	X	X	X
2	X	X	X	X	X
3	X	X	X	X	X
4	X	X	X	X	X
5	X	X	X	X	X
6	X	X	X	X	X
7	X	X	X	X	X
8	-	X	X	X	X
9	-	X	X	X	X
10	-	X	X	X	X
11	-	X	X	X	X
12	-	X	X	X	X
13	-	X	X	X	X
14	-	X	X	X	X
15	-	X	X	X	X
16	-	X	X	X	X
17	-	X	X	X	X
18	-	X	X	X	X
19	-	X	X	X	X
20	-	X	X	X	X
21	-	X	X	X	X
22	-	X	X	X	X
23	-	X	X	X	X
24	-	-	-	X	X
25	-	-	-	X	X
26	-	-	-	X	X
27	-	-	-	X	X
28	-	-	-	X	X
29	-	-	-	-	X
30	-	-	-	-	X
31	-	-	-	-	X
32	-	-	-	-	X
33	-	-	-	-	X
34	-	-	-	-	X
35	-	-	-	-	X
36	-	-	-	-	X
37	-	-	-	-	X
38	-	-	-	-	X

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