Weird ISBN code from Amazon

[Moloch]

I believe this was already explained here in the Librarians group, but I can't find it.

Sometimes I find books, usually very old, with an ISBN confirmed on the Amazon page.
The latest example is: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...

This is an Italian book from 1961 and I'm 100% sure that it didn't have an ISBN. The Italian National Library Service doesn't list it: http://id.sbn.it/bid/UBO0139035

And yet the ISBN appears in the Amazon page, but the digits 66 and 97866 are very strange for an Italian book.

I think this is a case similar to when Amazon "assigns" an ASIN to a single used paper copy of a book in the marketplace (by the way, this book has an ASIN too).

Do we keep these likely "fake" ISBN codes on Goodreads? Can I delete them from this book? Should another NAB record with these ISBNs be created?

Thanks

[Moloch]

I don't get an error here https://www.loc.gov/publish/pcn/isbnc... or when saving edits to the book.

Anyway, they are possibly made up so I want to know if they should be ignored and/or deleted if they were added here on Goodreads.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

It would not have had an ISBN in 1961, but if there were later printings, one might have been assigned.

[lethe]

66 does not appear in the country identifier list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...

Italy is 88.

[Moloch]

rivka wrote: "It would not have had an ISBN in 1961, but if there were later printings, one might have been assigned."

So when in doubt it's better to leave it?

Sometimes I find "weird"(*) ISBNs like these occasionally, often they start with 55

(*) "weird" for Italian books, that, as lethe says, usually have ISBNs starting with 88

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Moloch wrote: "So when in doubt it's better to leave it?"

Usually, yes.

[Alex]

Wanted to see if it's unique to this book, or if this ISBN series is used for others and found this: https://www.abebooks.it/products/isbn...

This is unusual for ISBNs because I only changed the last non-check digit, so I would expect another edition from the same publisher, but it actually gives one from a different one (which does not seem to be owned by the same company). Might be an ISBN-like identifier rather than true ISBN?

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Alex wrote: "Might be an ISBN-like identifier rather than true ISBN?"

Possible. There are also companies that buy reprint rights to books, and I have previously seen some of those that assign weird ISBNs when they do those reprints. (They are not really publishers, per se; they make deals with the actual publishers.) Less likely for a book quite this old, but not impossible.