Theagenes

I'd hardly call it expertise. I'm still learning about these myself. There was an index of these 30's zines published in the 1960s and I'd love to pick up a copy. BZ do you the index I'm thinking of?

Very cool Todd! Welcome to a very small club. Steve, I would say they're roughly comparable. These early issues are probably a little scarcer, especially the first three issues (the issue above with part one of The Hyborian Age is Phantagraph v4 n3 but is really the third issue---the numbering was continuing from a hectographed sf club newsletter with a different name) These three larger format issues seem to have had a lower paper quality than the later ones and are always brittle are therefore extremely scarce. I'm fairly well tapped in to the REH collecting community and I know of the existence of only 6 copies (with a likely 7th) of the above Phantagraph v4n3 with part one of "The Hyborian Age" (Including the one that Todd just got. Given that nothing seems to be as rare as we used to think I would guess that there are between 10-20 copies that survive. Bowling Green probably has a copy in their collection though I don't know that for sure. Presumably the original print run would have been around 50 copies like Fantasy Fan since the audience was the same. If Xaltotun chimes in he may have a better idea of the scarcity. The later issues, especially the 1940's ones are more common (though still scarce relatively speaking. Of course the early issues of Fantasy Fan are are also much scarcer than the later ones. For those who don't know, Phantagraph was produced by a young Donald Wollheim who went on to become one of great sf and fantasy publishers and editors of the last century.

So I've finally completed one of my tough collecting goals by acquiring all three parts of REH's essay "The Hyborian Age" in the rare fanzine Phantagraph. This is quest that has taken several years to complete.

Awesome Todd!

Incredible books guys! This one is lower grade, but it's one of the tougher REH pulps. This is an El Borak story. "El Borak" ("The Swift" in Arabic) was the nickname of Francis Xavier Gordon, one of Howard's earliest creations. He's a Texan adventure gone native in Central Asia during the height of the Great Game. Imagine Lawrence of Arabia as western gunslinger and that's El Borak. Some of Howards best adventure stories, imo.

very nice books, Thanks! Here's a couple a forgot to add.

Thanks Jack. I've really been enjoying all the books you've been posting as well. You have a sweet collection! Jeff

Thanks guys!

Thanks Richard. Not much interest in Tarzan these days, but this run has been a lot of fun to put together. Still waiting on one more from Sarasota and then I do an updated group shot. Oh and I forgot these two:

Finally getting around to slabbing all my Tip Tops.

Finally slabbed some of my Tip Tops.

Very nice Steve!

That's really cool!

Love the Black Vulmea's Vengence.

:o (worship) (worship) (worship) (worship) (worship) (worship) (worship) (worship) (worship) (worship) (worship) (worship) I think you and I are the only ones who appreciate how rare and cool this is. I've been searching for years for any of these and there's about fifty more issues that were printed. Who knows how many still exist.

This was one of my favorite books as a kid. I had the 70's treasury reprint and read it until the cover fell off.

I'm mostly a GA guy but I do have a couple of Gold Keys in the collection

Sorry Dover. It's only a couple hundred points so you'll probably it right back.

I also bagged one of my true white whales---a super rare Conan comic book published in Mexico in 1953. Yes, a GA Conan comic book, nearly two decades before the Marvel series.

This week in my collection, after working my Tarzan cover run for years I finally took over the top spot in the registry for Tip Top Comics with this 1939 white pager.

You can say that again! You can say that again! clothilde boudreaux's gynecologist retired, and she had to get a new one. at her first visit to dr. thibodeaux, he put her up in the stirrups, and clo' heard him say "mais, das a big one, mais, das a big one." clo' said "all my adult life i've had to hear comments like dat, dr. you don't have to say it twice, no." he said "i didn't, i didn't."

That is a great cover!