MANUAL TRANSMISSION

by Fred Gay

Solution: HOMINESS

Each indicia has an incorrectly formatted ISBN. The addresses given for the publishing companies are all warehouses of the industrial supply company McMaster-Carr. All of the fake ISBN numbers are part numbers from the McMaster-Carr catalog (and Googling the "ISBN" for the book Engineer's Handbook-Power Transmission yields a pdf of a page from the catalog). The catalog is available online at www.mcmaster.com.

In the catalog, each of the parts called by the fake ISBN numbers has a particular single letter associated with it. When these letters are ordered according to the edition number (which is the first number shown in the group that goes to 10) given at the very bottom of the copyright page, they spell HOMINESS.

1st edition6484K105Size 330H Timing BeltH
2nd edition9396K418Silicone O-RingO
3rd edition4328T48M Gear Oil AdditiveM
4th edition1264T42Stainless Steel I-BeamI
5th edition93303A150Aramid/Buna-N WasherN
6th edition97431A210E-Style Retaining RingE
7th edition3784T21Open-End S-HookS
8th edition2967K35Sink Drain S-TrapS