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Posts posted by Bookery
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- jimjum12, OtherEric and Darwination
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On 6/10/2024 at 1:50 AM, waaaghboss said:I wonder if they just thumbed through the bookery guide and any entry with a notation about the cover they glued tge classic cover moniker on. I'm actually curious where they got their classic cover list from, because some like the amazings just make zero sense.
At first I was wondering about that too... however, the June '48 Amazing above isn't even broken out of the run in my guide. I do think there is a tendency (and maybe I was guilty of it in the guide too... I'd have to review all of the entries) to place anything with a skeleton cover as "classic". But there are probably hundreds of them in pulpdom. I do think the FFM above qualifies... green skeleton, green shroud, jawless and with those bizarre egg-yolk eyes... there's really nothing else like it, and by one of the best artists in the business to boot. The DFW is also a particularly fine example of this "sub-genre" of cover art, so I don't have a problem with that designation either. But there is also a tendency to call anything with a nude or semi-nude on the cover as "classic", and I don't agree with that. In fact, I'm sure I'm in the minority, but I think many of the Brundage covers are over-rated as "classic" covers. Maybe 2 or 3 might make my cut (I don't even particularly like the bat-woman cover, but would concede its status just because of how often it has been reprinted).
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On 5/26/2024 at 12:03 PM, tth2 said:As I suspected, pulps from the 1930s (and even 1920s) are not as non-existent in 7.0 and above as had been made out to be, at least based on the run of slabbed Weird Tales that'll be in Heritage's upcoming Signature Auction. There are three 8.0s, a couple of 8.5s and even one 9.0, all pre-1940.
Or perhaps CGC grades less strictly or with different criteria than pulp collectors traditionally have?
In addition, right after the record-setting sale of a CGC 7.0 Bat Woman Weird Tales #118 (Oct 1933) in the last Signature Auction, there will be a CGC 7.5 copy with White pages.
A few years ago someone brought into my shop a run of about 30 or so Weird Tales from the '30s. They were spectacular. I graded most an 8.0, with a couple even at 9.0, which I had never given to a pulp before. So it can happen. As others have pointed out above, WTs may be a bit easier to come across those grades than some. I believe you can find almost any science-fiction pulp above 7.0 if you are patient, since so many were kept. But it's going to be more difficult to find high-grade Detective pulps, Spicys, westerns, etc. Some will have to do with printing quality as well... Fiction House was as cheap about printing their pulps as they were their comics. Street & Smith seems to be a bit better paper, so high grades turn up now and then. Argosys vary by era... the 1890s are actually better made than the 1920s ones.
- Point Five, waaaghboss, comicjack and 3 others
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On 5/22/2024 at 3:35 PM, Darwination said:
That Thrilling Mystery is totally new to me, by the way, very cool. I'd never have pegged it for a Ward (and honestly still don't see it).
That would appear to be an error, probably taken from the Galactic Central site. Belarski dominated the covers of that title during those years, and there is no listing for any other Ward cover in the entire run.
- tth2, comicjack and PopKulture
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I've got a really lousy selection of pulp stock at the moment, and I still probably have all of those issues stuffed down in the basement in better grade than that... because, at least in the past, they were more trouble to bag and price than they were worth, esp. if less than 5.0 or 6.0.
- manetteska and jimjum12
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On 5/19/2024 at 11:41 AM, Surfing Alien said:
Beyond that, as a very active buyer in today's market, there are already hundreds of vintage paperbacks that top $100 in high grade. It's a way different market than when the last guides came out 20-30 years ago.
Yep. And as I'm discovering, some of the higher values are not even with the old traditionals we tend to think of. I'm seeing surprising prices (to me anyway) on things like the 1st ace editions of The Lord of the Rings, 1st pb edition of The Princess Bride, a number of '80s horor pbs with bold covers, die-cuts, etc., '70s and '80s horror-movie tie-ins... just as off-the-top-of-my-head examples.
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On 5/19/2024 at 1:08 PM, GACollectibles said:
Soooo, you!
I 2nd the motion!
Unfortunately, no. I'm far from a paperback expert... the aforementioned lamination question perpetually vexes me... I never know which were supposed to have it, and which never did. I'm also not good at spotting unsigned artists... as we've seen right here on these boards several far better at that than me. I'm a data compiler, not much more. If someone else were to leap forward with a comprehensive paperback guide (with or without pricing, if that's an issue) I'm all for it!
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On 5/18/2024 at 9:34 PM, Dr. Love said:I'm fairly confident in speculating that a smaller unique holder/well just for the pb/digest market isn't in the cards.
You're probably right... but it's kind of a shame. They need a case that is squarish but could actually fit on a bookcase and be displayed spine outward. The book, with the added dimension of the upper description label, might combined be about the size of a standard hardback book in height. If they did do it, I'm guessing it might be easier to adapt off of their video game model rather than a comic book one. From a profit perspective, there are far more vintage paperbacks out there than pulps, and they are still being published. We've seen from people sending in last week's comics to be graded, that fans of a particular series or author will send in even modern paperbacks to have a graded collection of their favorites, be it Stephen King or James Patterson. The argument is that paperbacks aren't all that valuable, but does anyone really think that copies of vintage stuff currently valued as $10 wouldn't soar to $100 if in a slab if graded 9.4 or above? How valuable would those Jim Thompson books suddenly become?
The drawback... you'd need at least one true paperback expert on staff... one who knows which books have their lamination missing and which don't, which Gold Medal is the 1st printing and which is a later. Notations that indicate that even though pb X is a 3rd printing... it's the 1st with Frazetta art, etc. Putting together a comprehensive database would be tricky (though I'm working on it with a 1500-page start so far... caveat... it will never be finished in my lifetime, so don't expect it will turn up soon wherever fine books are sold!).
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On 5/15/2024 at 5:51 PM, GACollectibles said:
Thanks, I hadn't seen that. However, they are still individual numbers without context. How are they dealing with slight title changes in a pulp? For an alternating title like Submarine Stories and Navy Stories, do they number as one title, or separately (I would opt for separately on this one, fwiw). Is Thrilling Wonder Stories continued from Wonder Stories, or does it begin with a fresh sequence? How are some of the girly mags numbered, when we're still not sure if we've identified all of the issues? If one pops up in-between down the road, will it be numbered 12-B, for instance? I don't overly care how they choose to do it, but they probably should release the list so that we're all on the same page. I was going to assign a numbering system in my first guide, but decided not to at the last moment because I was undecided how it should be done (and I'm glad I didn't... because how I would do it now would be different for how I had the guide arranged back then (plus we have a lot more information now than then). At this time, the CGC numbers don't mean anything because we only know what they are after the fact (when a specific issue is slabbed and comes up for sale).
- Point Five and waaaghboss
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On 5/15/2024 at 3:52 PM, F For Fake said:Is it still true that Overstreet won't value a book at anything below cover price? I haven't bought one for years, but that was always the biggest issue for me. Prospective sellers would actually bother to look at a guide, and see that their drek books were worth $2-3 each or whatever; then I'd have to tell them that not only is the book not worth that full cover price, but it is, in fact, worthless. So many comics are literally not worth the paper they're printed on. Starting the value as a baseline of "It's worth at least cover price" has always been wrongheaded. If they no longer do things that way, I retract my grumpiness.
One of the biggest problems with Overstreet is that they list the drek at all. They are by no means a comprehensive checklist... there are plenty of titles missing... so why list so much modern bin-books? If you want an updating checklist, there's the Grand Comic Book Database. Because so much garbage (price-wise, I'm not making content judgments here) the type is now almost microscopically small. If you're publishing a collector's price guide, you probably shouldn't be including anything less than $10 value (imagine if Holroyd's paperback guide tried to include everything up to last month's new James Patterson releases!). This would allow for more readable print, also for inclusion of significant variants (which are mostly absent now), and a far more efficient book for the collector. If I'm a collector, especially a new one, I don't need a list of 97 Spider-man titles that sell for cover or less, I need a breakdown of the 8 or 10 titles that have issues of above-average value.
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On 5/15/2024 at 11:42 AM, GACollectibles said:
Not sure if anyone has already pointed this out, figured I'd post a PSA.
Did CGC ever release their pulp-numbering system? Without it, I don't have a ready way to look up what "Super-Pulp Stories" #132 is in terms of content or art, since other references aren't listed like that. Also, though not likely at this point, I've toyed in the past about releasing an issue-by-issue pulp guide or checklist (my first 2001 book sort of was, for major titles at least)... but it would be really confusing if my numbering sequence didn't end up matching CGCs (I would defer to theirs if I knew what it was). If they've posted it, I've missed it.
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The prices for these Marvel pulps are mind-boggling to me. Before Covid I would probably have slapped $20 here in my shop on the copy that sold for $264. As for the copy that sold for $47... I routinely tossed pulps in that condition into the trash (to be honest... probably still would -- there's a point where something is so rough that, in my mind, it ceases to be a "thing"). These pulps are pretty common, and there is no such thing as a "rare" science-fiction pulp. But these issues are now bringing the kind of money that only a few years ago was reserved for rare Saucys, Submarine Stories, or early Weird Tales!
- jimjum12, Darwination, OtherEric and 1 other
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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.
I know, I'm late to the party. But it's been gnawing at me. So... .
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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.
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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.
- jimjum12 and littledoom
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If you use your Cole's cash and discount coupons, you too can have a wardrobe like that pretty cheaply.
- Point Five, Professor K, comicjack and 1 other
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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".
- OtherEric, asimovpulps and Primetime
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On 3/31/2024 at 7:45 PM, PhantomLadyKiller said:...
I thought I was not going to make it... masters of deception and great liars... burn his pulps... collapsed and died... the big house... rabid... might be dead... lives of quiet desperation...
march on to the bitter end where we will eat dirt in the boneyard...
I'm confused! I thought I was looking at a pulp thread, but apparently have wandered into some first-hand account of life with the Cartels!!!
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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.
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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.
- KCOComics and royaluglydudes
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- Pat Calhoun, waaaghboss, PopKulture and 10 others
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Here's a few scans from the lady's collection... I apologize for the price labels which are quite annoying... I was going to take time to properly scan them after I graded them, but word got out and the sold so quickly I never got back to it...but you can still get an idea of them, and how it's a shame we don't know more about them (or who has the rest of them that they sold in the '80s!).
Signed pulps?
in Pulp Magazines
Posted
Pulp signatures are going to be pretty rare, since there weren't dozens of conventions per year for them to attend like with comics, and most contributors were much older than than the comic creators, or long gone. The vast majority of signatures will have come out of the the old PulpCon and Windy City shows, so the writers and artists that attended those will have signed a number of items. Walter B. Gibson turns up fairly often, as he attended several of them, as did Robert Bloch, Hugh B. Cave, Walter Baumhofer, Ryerson Johnson, Nelson Bond, Norman Saunders, and a few others. Even though he rarely ventured outside of California, I'd assume there are a number of signed Bradbury pulps out there. I'm sure there is no such thing as a Robert E. Howard signed pulp, as most of the people in his town wouldn't have even known he was a writer. And pulps weren't the kind of thing most readers thought about having signed to begin with.