Bookery

On 4/27/2024 at 6:28 PM, OtherEric said:

@Bookery Do you have any idea what's up with the alternate 1st page illustration on the Manhunt #1, Kubert rather than Baker?

Nope.  This is the first I'm hearing of it.

On 4/19/2024 at 2:30 PM, Number 6 said:

THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS by John Wyndham

"First published by Michael Joseph LTD" stated on copyright page.  1st UK and true first edition/first printing with no other printings noted.  Black cloth covered boards with gold titles to the spine.  Filmed 4 times, most notably in 1960 as Village of the Damned starring George Saunders and Barbara Shelly and remade in 1995 by John Carpenter starring Chrisopher Reeve and Kirstie Alley.  Pringle's list of Science Fiction:  The 100 Best Novels.

Book:  Near Fine closer to Fine, touch of dust soiling to top of page block, slight offsetting to endpapers and front/rear pastedowns (not as bad as usual for this book).

Dust Jacket:  Near Fine, unclipped and correctly priced at 13s 6d net.  A faint spot just below "the author" at the top area of the front panel.  Slight soiling to the white areas of the front, spine and rear panel.  A strip of the orange a the top of the front panel and the orange on the spine panel just slightly faded.  Slight crease to the women's skirt on the spine panel.  Now in a removable protective dust jacket cover.

 

$425.00 shipped in the U.S.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know, I'm late to the party.  But it's been gnawing at me.  So... .

I assume it was mass-media that in the past year started referring to all of this as AI.  I'm not a techie, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression true AI still is in development and doesn't yet exist, i.e. a continually evolving program that learns and becomes in some form self-aware.  Everything most people talk about are just advances in specific programs and CGI.  But it sounds scarier and more ominous if the media refers to it as AI.

Of course, if there was some magic price and everyone everywhere was expected to meet it, then comic book prices would never rise, or fall, over time.  The "market" would cease to be and forever stay stagnant.

On the other hand, I always thought it was a bit weird that con prices tend to be higher then elsewhere.  In a normal world, it would seem if you bring a bunch of dealers together into one place, competing directly with each other, often with a lot of the same stock, it would drive prices down.  But it doesn't seem to work that way with collectibles.  

If you use your Cole's cash and discount coupons, you too can have a wardrobe like that pretty cheaply.

On 4/20/2024 at 12:10 PM, OtherEric said:

Maybe I missed it, but I think this is the first pulp slab I've seen with the "classic cover" notation, or a variant on one at least.  And I'm not sure it was really considered a classic cover before they used it as the cover on the @Bookery guide.

  Agreed.  Heritage chose the cover because they had the original art in their possession for an upcoming auction, and could capture the art without having to edit around text on a pulp cover.  I was okay with it, because it's an eye-catching piece for a reference book and I liked the overall "red" color theme.  But I'm not sure it's a cover that most people had considered as "classic".  

On 4/1/2024 at 6:27 PM, PopKulture said:

I’d be very surprised if that’s a legitimate result. There are a lot of shenanigans going on right now in pulps. Jordan Belfort would be proud of some of the “pump and dump” strategies being employed in this newly-hyped field. Unfortunately when some new money comes rushing into a collecting field, there are always going to be big bad actors creating the same sort of FOMO that we just saw unfold in comics over the past four years. Rinse and repeat… 

At least with NFT’s, the treachery was right up front. 

Hard to say if it's that, or it's just comic collectors thinking that it should be priced like a comic with a similar cover?  Either way, uninformed buyers leaping into the pulp market are going to likely get burned in a big way down the road, and that's not good for the hobby.

Though as a rule, pulps are harder to obtain than vintage comics, it's not always the case.  A science-fiction pulp from, say, 1942, is probably much easier to come by than comic books from that year.  As for the science-fiction reprint pulps of the '40s and '50s... Famous Fantastic Mysteries, A. Merritt's Fantasy, Fantastic Novels, Fantastic Story... these are among the most common pulps there are.  I'm in a small Ohio suburb, and I've had hundreds of them over the years.  Even in high grade, they aren't all that scarce.  

On 3/29/2024 at 10:32 AM, Peachpit said:

FMV=51000$

 

Well, it's likely that really isn't FMV (again, whatever that means).  No dealer prices a book at $51,000... that tells me you're looking at an auction result.  If that's a single result, by definition, FMV would be somewhere below that, since $51k is the highest price anybody was willing to pay at that moment in that forum (if it's a big auction house like Heritage, that means it's the most money even the "big boys" who play in that arena were willing to pay, all across the planet).  If you're looking at an average price for a given period (a month, a year?), then it's still the average price the big auction house players were willing to pay.  Also, did that price represent a book that's been escalating, or one that has been falling in price (most likely the latter if you're looking at recent results).  Also, is your copy identical to the one that sold.  Or is it white pages vs. off-white copies?  Even with equal grades, different buyers will accept or reject certain flaws.  I have one customer of golden-age who will turn down any book with a staple-pull, regardless if it looks otherwise near mint.  The next guy may be fine with a staple-pull, but won't touch a book with a corner-bend.  But they may grade the same.

It's likely if Heritage sold a big book in its auction for $51k, the realistic price for a show or shop dealer is probably going to be closer to $45k.  If you're just going to charge the same as a billion-dollar auction house, why should a customer buy from you?  Now your $37k offer is actually more like 82% of FMV.  And that's assuming the book can be turned quickly before it possibly drops even more.  Maybe a dealer is content with a quicker turnover at $40-$42k.  I could make nearly $2k on that $37k just by putting it in a CD right now... with no risk whatsoever.  There are bonds and stock dividends out there that pay even more.

Maybe $37k is low... if it's a truly hot book like SpMan 1... but it's probably not ludicrously low.  If it's a golden-age book that's showy but is going to take a while to move, then it's probably more than fair.

On 3/27/2024 at 2:47 PM, detective35 said:

Tim

if we're talking about Tom, I've had multiple detailed discussions with him regarding the Strasser collection as he knew Von quite well.
 

I've taken down the notes in detail and he's explained everything in detail as much as he can remember (as far as the church sale that they were at, and where Von Craybill  loaded up the Cadillac with some 1700 to 1800 Strassers lol.)

There were some other people in the area and outside of the area that I obtained other detailed information as well, and Todd did research on Robert Strasser himself.

Yes, sorry... forgot that he talked with you.  BTW... I spelled the name wrong above... it's Von Crabill (confirmed on on old ad from the TV station he worked at).  Tom also confirmed that at the time, the books were not referred to as Strassers (they were just called "those pulps that Von picked up")   The Strasser connection was made later from names written on them.  The confusion I made with Spicys vs. Shadows was from the fact that around the same time, from this same area, another collection of very high grade pulps was discovered.  The two collections were polar opposites... the Strasser collection had none of the "girly" titles or covers, while this other collection was almost nothing but.

The second collection would definitely have merited pedigree status, but too little is known about it.  A couple had bought it out of a house and began peddling  it to dealers, and eventually at one of the PulpCons.  I was talking with Tom again today, and we suddenly realized we were describing the same collection that I purchased pulps from 30 years later!  In 2018 an elderly woman (80s) brought in 2 batches of pulps... one was very high grade Weird Tales, the second was Spicys, Horror Stories, Terror Tales, and even one Saucy.  There were about 75 pulps total.  I assumed from the condition they were her husband's original-owner collection.  But no, it turns out they were bought second-hand by them, and they sold most of them decades ago.  But when moving, she found one box they'd forgotten about, and those were the ones I picked up in 2018 (and they were still in magnificent condition!).

Which, to dovetail back to my original point, showcases just how hard it's going to be to ever pinpoint true original-owner pulp pedigrees.  Strasser, Yakima, maybe one or two more will be determined.  But they are just so old and fragile... the combination of original owner, high grade, and a selection of keys usually necessary to what we think of as pedigrees is going to be tough.  Even the Yakimas, being latter-era science-fiction, wouldn't have a lot of what we think of as significant "keys" in them, most sf keys being from the 20s and 30s ( a few classic covers aside).  

On 3/27/2024 at 12:00 PM, detective35 said:

Matt certainly know about the Strassers!

As I mentioned, they are "all coded" (A, B,  or C Code) w. a fountain pen, as the Mile High's were, it does not get any clearer than this.

Myself and Todd Warren have recorded hundreds of codes, and based on this it was pretty simple to discern how many books were in the collection.  However you need to put in hundreds of hours of detailed research in it ,as we did.  There were between 1700-1800 books in the collection.  There were a few types of titles that were not in the collection.

I have talked extensively with a mutual friend who knew what titles were in the entire collection.   There were NO Spicy's in the Strasser collection. 

My error.  I meant Shadows.

On 3/27/2024 at 12:00 PM, detective35 said:

 

 

The Strassers were found in the late 70's and emerged for sale (sparsely in the 80's), and then in the 90's and just because they were not promoted as a pedigree when they were sold, or a master list, means nothing, you then just have to do the research!!  However, everyone knew how incredible they were at the time, as they were priced double what the other pulps were priced at when they were brought to the Con's (which certainly brought resistance to the pulp community at the time.

High end collectors know about he Strassers, just that they have not been promoted to the new collectors, until a few years ago.  Collectors are either holding tight to them, as they are so stunning, or trying to accumulate them from old-time collections, as I am.   

Tim, I have more info., that I can chat with you about via phone.

Dwight

 

I'm not saying they aren't a pedigree, just wondered how many could be identified after the fact.  And you've answered that.  My information, such as it is, comes from a friend of Crabell's who dealt with him regularly.  He was probably one of the first to see the collection and purchase books (only about 30-50, I think, as that's all he could afford at the time).  That was before they ever made it to any shows.  CrabelL was a rare book dealer who never dealt in pulps until he purchased this collection at an estate sale on a whim (his wife was furious that he'd done so).  He apparently filled his Cadillac with them to the extent that he could barely see to drive. I was at his house only once with my father who was also a rare book dealer at the time, doing some purchasing.  Unfortunately, I don't recall if there were pulps there or not.  There were lots of old books in the basement of the house, as well as in a separate shed-barn out back.  That's about the extent that I personally remember.  But my customer was there with some frequency... I'll have to ask him how many pulps were there when he last saw them, since he had a direct interest in them.

On 3/26/2024 at 6:24 PM, detective35 said:

 So far, I know the Yakima and the Strasser collections are the pedigrees. They might also include file copies, but you'd have to talk to Matt about that .

Matt stated the beginning that the Strassers were a pedigree, so I'm not sure where this information is coming from about being only 1 pedigree in pulps.

Yes, I forgot about the Strassers, but in all fairness, they have been little known until recently outside the hardcore pulp community.  And is there any real listing of them?  They were discovered so long ago (late '70s I think, by Von Crabell right here in my own area... I visited his home about that time, but wasn't paying much attention to pulps then)... this was way before anyone was tracking or even thinking in terms of pedigrees.  Crabell didn't keep a list to the best of my knowledge, and they were dispersed early on (one of my local customers owned a number of the Spicys for a time).  I know you've spent a lot of time tracking them down, but will there ever be a real way of knowing just what actual books belong to the collection beyond shadowy memories of some of the early buyers?  Or am I wrong, and did Crabell maintain an inventory listing?

On 3/26/2024 at 12:13 AM, tth2 said:

There are many comic collections that are significantly less noteworthy than the Church collection, but they're still given pedigree status.  So I don't think pulp collections should be denied pedigree status just because they don't meet the Church threshold.

Yakima sounds like it already has market acceptance as a pedigree, so CGC should recognize it, just like they recognized a number of pedigrees that had long been accepted by the market before CGC came around, even though some might not have received pedigree status if they'd been assessed under more recent tighter criteria. 

It's not a matter of denying pedigree status... I'm just not sure there are collections that qualify, is my point.  Yes, Yakima has been accepted, and they probably will put it on the ones for which records have been maintained.  But by traditional definitions, a pedigree is a collection that was put together by a single buyer fresh off the newsstands and then maintained in high quality ever since.  Since the heyday for collectible pulps was the 20s and 30s... going to be much more difficult to have surviving original collections.  Plus, the paper was generally inferior even to that of comics, so high-grades holding up for going on 100 years is tough.

I think the emphasis for pulp collectors will be on collections that have carefully been cultivated, even if second-hand or later, or come from famous collectors (Frank Robinson, Jim Steranko, etc.).  I'm sure such collections will be noted.

There really aren't any pedigrees in pulps like there is with comics (at least so far).  The only one considered a pedigree is the Yakima books, but even they were primarily from near the end of the pulp era, so nothing like the Church collection in terms of scope.  There are probably more likely to be provenance collections (like the Frank Robinson collection) than actual pedigrees like comics (i.e., purchased off the newsstand by a single buyer).

Also, with these periodic threads about dealers (usually in the negative), what exactly is a "dealer" anymore, anyway?  All but a few of my customers are dealers of one sort or another.  I have several folks who come in nearly every day to see what I've put out so they can buy it and flip it on eBay, Facebook, Whatnot, etc.  I have one gentleman in his 80s who buys cheap older books and sells them in lots at local auction houses.  I have show dealers buy from me regularly.  I have another customer who buys rough books, repairs them and sends them to CGC to get Conserved grades, then flips them.  I have another customer who is quite good at finding under-priced items in dealers' stock and then flipping them to other dealers (nobody can keep track of everything).  I don't have a problem with any of this... heck, my business depends on them!  If you've been selling on eBay for years, regardless of if you tell yourself it's just from your own ever-shifting collection, then you are a dealer too.   

On 3/16/2024 at 1:38 PM, OtherEric said:

So, I actually tried to figure out a little more about the Reader's League edition of Red Harvest... and I'm coming up with almost nothing about the publisher or this edition.  I couldn't even find it at Bookscans. 

Does anybody know anything about the publisher in general or this book in particular?

Side by side scans with the Pocket edition:

I'm not sure of the history behind them... according to Holroyd there are only 29 of them, and they all came out in 1942.

On 3/16/2024 at 10:58 AM, jimjum12 said:

One thing to be aware of, before one decides to "bet the farm", on paperbacks, is that saving paperbacks was MUCH more common during the "golden age" of paperbacks, which is usually assigned to '40's through '60's. Comics were usually tossed by Moms everywhere, as they were "kiddie stuff", and PB's were a welcome change. While some PB's will invariably enjoy a surge in demand, it will likely be less meteoric than comics. Because of the aforementioned, it is even more important to perform your due diligence and to focus on what you like, so you aren't caught holding the bag, with stuff that was merely flip fodder.  Despite the cautions, book collecting can be a fun and profitable hobby, as it has for centuries. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

I think the pressure is going to really be for high-grades.  It's almost impossible to read one of these older paperbacks, even in their day, without leaving some wear.  That means truly VF paperbacks have to have never been read.  And even if they were never read... some publishers like early Dell (lamination that peels off on its own) or Hillman (poorly made) can be excruciatingly hard to find in top condition.

Look, it doesn't matter how many copies there are.  It comes with 80 exclamation points (yes, I counted) so it's gotta be a fantastic deal regardless.

On 3/11/2024 at 12:30 PM, Darwination said:

 The real question is how much the purple is gonna ding the sales price which is hard to tell because I'm not getting a feeling yet for how the grading/boxing is affecting the sales prices either (besides them being generally jacked)

Pulp collectors seem to be a hardier lot than their comics counterparts.  They've not only dealt with, but embraced The Man in Purple, The Purple Cloud, The Purple Empire and the Purple Scar.  I suspect they won't be too daunted by the Purple Label!