Bookery

As always with selling, it depends upon one's situation. Pulps shot up enormously through the combination of pandemic monies (like all collectibles) and the promise of imminent slabbing (a similar surge in comics prices occurred soon after CGC came into existence). I have seen, however, a slipping back of prices in certain areas (Shadows and Docs have dropped in recent auctions, and they never moved up as much as other pulps to begin with). Some prices on common pulps are certainly irrational exuberance. On the other hand, I haven't checked out this week's auctions yet, but from what's been posted here, it looks like maybe they got another boost from the release of slab photos. I don't know that prices can speed along as they have because I think the anticipation of slabbing has already been factored in, but rarities (and there are a lot of them with pulps) which have meager sales records are up for grabs when they do show up at auction. The retirement scenario you cite above is probably not uncommon. But it makes no sense for someone in that position to worry about trying to "time" the market for maximum value. Chances are they bought these pulps years and decades ago, so up or down, these pulps are now mostly worth multiples of what they paid. If I was retiring to Florida and could raise a couple of hundred thousand by selling off a collection I'd rather not transport to begin with, I think the 5% CD interest right now would make a nice bonus to whatever other retirement income I had coming in. I sold off my Centaur collection about 20 years ago. It would be worth many times now over what I got had I kept them. Did I lose money? Who knows, because that money would have been reinvested in other things over time. Maybe I lost by selling them then, or maybe I gained, because I have no way of tracking how that money was spent over those years. If I hadn't sold valuable comics and books back then, I wouldn't have bought the two buildings I did, which are now fully paid off, and will someday form the basis of my own retirement when I sell them.

This has been brought up a few times over the years, but I personally have no idea how to do this. The problem is with protecting copyright. Even my 2nd bound edition was scanned (by a person who was on these boards at the time, no less) and put on the internet for free. Judging by the downloads it got, I'm guessing it cost me a couple of hundred sales. I would think a digital version would be even easier to swipe. On the other hand.... there's no real profit to be made on a reference book anyway, so I've pondered just putting it out there for free. But even then, there's a danger in someone downloading the data, altering the pricing, and using it to fool buyers or sellers. I would have to pay someone to set it all up, attach it to my website (or start a new one), make sure it's secure (if that's even possible)... all of which would require putting even more money into it, which makes little sense especially if its made free. I never expected it to make money as a book, but I figured it might at least help drive collections my way. It never did. It just ended up making info available to eBay sellers and auction houses, which is where the vast majority of pulps are now being sold. Surprisingly, that data seems to have held up pretty well. The pulps I identified as being scarce 20 years ago, still turn up less frequently than surrounding issues of titles. I thought with more attention on pulps, and maybe more issues coming onto market because of it, the perceived scarcity levels might change... but I haven't seen that happening. I'm not anti-slab by any means, but I'm not personally a big fan. However, I actually see less of a "problem" slabbing pulps than comics. With comics, you are missing out on all of that interior art and story, and there are hundreds (thousands?) of comics that will never be reprinted. But with pulps, pretty much every significant author and story has been reprinted, often many times. There is no trouble finding anything you want to read by Chandler, Hammett, Lovecraft, Howard, Bradbury, Derleth, L'Amour, Bloch, etc., etc. Almost all of science-fiction that appeared in the pulps has been reprinted, save for a few authors who are probably too dated and hackneyed to be of interest to modern readers anyway. The hero pulps have all been reprinted. And original pulps are often difficult if not unpleasant to try to read and flip through. So in many ways, pulps are actually even better candidates for slabbing than comics, especially now that it appears the overwhelming interest in pulps is for the cover art.

Technically, there have been "3" editions. The first was titled "Bookery's Ultimate Guide to the Pulps" (2001) and was quite a bit thicker than later editions, as it listed a number of titles with issue by issue lists. "Bookery's Guide to the Pulps" came out in 2005. As printing costs rose, it became necessary to slim the book down a bit, and so non-"key" issues were grouped into runs, much like Overstreet. Since by this time issue-by-issue content and photos were available at Galactic Central, I didn't see a need to re-invent the wheel. What Galactic Central doesn't include is (besides prices, of course) is info on author's 1st appearances, which stories are "key" or historical, and other data (beyond story title and author) that may be of interest to collectors. The Bookery Guides are the only consolidated source for that info. Heritage dubbed the last edition of the Bookery Guide (2020) as the 2nd edition, and as I said, even I can't obtain copies beyond my own personal one. The 2005 Guide shows up with dealers and on eBay from time to time. It's prices are absurdly outdated, but the data is still pretty good (I added more info for the 2020 release, and corrected errors and typos, but most of the data is still good on the old one). As for publishing another edition, I'm not sure. I still work on it (if for no other reason I still need it updated for my own use). I've improved (yet again I think) the format slightly, and of course, have made additions and corrections. But it represents 30 years of work, and the last release was certainly a bit of a disappointment (despite Heritage doing a great job with the design and layout). I'm not in a position to self-publish it anymore... way too time-consuming with shipping. If I make enough updates for myself that I essentially have a whole new guide put together anyway (which is what happened with the 2001 one), I may consider it... though in this digital age I'm not sure there's much appetite for publishing physical reference books that are never going to really pay off financially for the publisher.

If you are talking about the pulp guide, no... it is virtually impossible to obtain. The previous edition I self-published, and could print what was a sufficient quantity to last a couple of years. This last guide was published by Heritage, and they had complete control of the print run (which from what I understand was only 500 copies). The guide sold out those numbers pretty quickly, but because its timing ended up being poor (came out just as pulp prices were shooting upwards rapidly), I think Heritage felt it was already too outdated to continue with. To see images of the pulps coupled with story contents, see the Galactic Central fiction magazines site (it's massive). For prices, right now you are pretty much stuck with eBay and auction house sales to go by.

Appreciate all of the hard work you are putting into this. However, for those not wishing to plunge into all of that data, I've provided a brief summary below...

Supposedly, CGC already grades lobby cards (or used to)... I searched but couldn't find any current info on their site. I bought a set of Bullitt lobbies off Heritage a few years back that were CGC graded. It didn't seem to take off. The "slabs" were flexible with binder holes so they could be put into notebooks. I didn't care for them, as I was expecting a thin, but rigid holder so they could be flipped through in a box. Too bad... lobbies make perfect sense to slab, and there are hundreds of thousands (millions?) out there... so if done right could be quite lucrative for a grading company. Also, there are a lot of reproductions and forgeries out there (some very difficult to tell from originals) so it would be nice to have the authentication.

To be fair, the whole taboo of "married pages" is another of those strange idiosyncrasies of the comics community. It's not like the centerfold was replaced with a reproduction... all of the material is still original, still part of the first release of that issue, still part of history. So the staples don't match up perfectly... knock a couple of grades off. In the collecting of first edition books, collectors switching out dust-jackets with the book underneath is common (not that there's really any way to tell in most cases). Have a fine book, but ratty dj, and a nice dj on a book with a cocked spine, and most collectors will switch them out so that they have one overall nice copy and one uniformly lower-grade copy. It's not a perfect analogy, of course, but close enough that it's worth contemplation.

I expect to be rolling in millions, I tell you, millions... after I sue ChatGPT for stealing my intellectual property. I wrote this response to a thread about time travelling to collect comics two years ago -- "In fact, this whole going back in time to buy a valuable comic has already been done. But as you say, there were consequences. Before this occurred, the most valuable comic book was not Action #1 at all, which was a little known book with a character who was cancelled after 5 issues. No... the time traveler went back in time to secure what was indeed the world's rarest and most valuable comic. But he got greedy. He piled away box after box of the goodies, expecting to be rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he also inadvertently altered the past. Then he kept going back further and further trying to correct his mistake. But the changes kept piling up. It's a long story, but his machinations ended up making the Superman character a hit. And the boxes of what had once been the world's rarest and most valuable comic, now made valueless due to his over stockpiling? Major Inapak. True story." (2021)

Actually, with pulps, the difference won't be as significant, I'm thinking. The plastic of the slab is "X" amount thick. I'm assuming it will be the same plastic for both comics and pulps. Adding that thickness to a thin 36-page comic is a considerable increase in size. Adding it to a pulp that's already an inch thick isn't, comparatively, that huge an increase in thickness.

No... but does it matter? The public's taste today doesn't seem to demand much in that regard, seemingly preferring retreads and standardized cliches (see modern movies) to depth or nuance. If you can, like Jackson Pollack, splatter the movie or game screen with colorful CGI, the public seems content enough.

Eventually, perhaps. But not based on that story, at least. It reads like a Little Golden Book (you can almost visualize the accompanying illustrations on the opposing page). I wonder if ChatGPT "intentionally" wrote it like a children's book, or if that's all it can handle at this point? Serious question.

If pulps reflected the real world, an entrepreneur in the '30s could have made a fortune manufacturing torture-wheels.

On the plus side -- this is one of the rarest of all pulps (are there even 10 extant copies in the world-- who knows?). On the downside -- it's so obscure that only die-hard longtime pulps collectors have ever even heard of it. Frank Robinson was obsessed with high-grade copies of his pulps, so one suspects this "vg" copy was the best he could find. Still-- it's not Shadow #1, or the All-Story Tarzan, or Weird Tales #1... so, based on the multiples of 2020 Guide a lot of things have been going for, and factoring in the above observations, and then tossing in an "I haven't really got a clue"... I'll go out on a limb and say $30k with bp.

Of course dealers will make actual friends over the decades (I think my previous post may have given the impression a buyer and a dealer can never be friends, which as you point out, isn't so). What I, and likely others, are referring to is the concept that you would walk into a show, strike up a conservation with a dealer, and have an expectation of some sort of bonding because of it. The friends you make over the years likely has a lot to do with other interests beyond just the dealing in comics (or any collectible), whether it's sports, or movies, or family, or pets, etc. This is probably easier to do if you have a shop as opposed to being an exclusive show-dealer who is on the road all of the time.

It depends upon the price point. The one thing that has remained steady these past few years are less-expensive non-key silver & bronze. Most books that were in the $5 to $20 range before the pandemic held steady through the pandemic and are still $5 to $20 books today. They didn't rise, they didn't drop. If anything, I'm selling more of these than ever before, as some collectors are now wary of paying $100-$200 for a key or semi-key that has been falling steadily for months, unsure of where the bottom is. Moderns are a different story... with a lot of once-$20 books now back in the $1-$5 boxes.

There is one point that is often over-looked. There is an assumption with comic collectors that what is now considered desirable art will always be considered desirable art, as if tastes don't vary over generations. As brilliant as Matt Baker is, will this be of interest to collectors who grew up on this style of art...?

No, sorry... The Strand is not included in the guide.

You could say that about any profession... plumbers, roofers, grocers, lawyers, government workers, therapists, car repairmen, retail outlet workers... what's his point? It's called a job. Does anyone expect these people to be your friends also? Sure there are outright crooked dealers. But again... you could say that about any profession. Just like when hiring a contractor... if you don't like the estimate, or the attitude, go somewhere else. It really is just that simple.

The Canadian editions are reprints (the #1 issue came out over a year after the U.S. original) and would be worth considerably less, with the earlier and more expensive the issue, the greater the difference in value. However, I've not really tracked the 1940s issues, which have different cover art. By this point the U.S. editions aren't all that expensive to begin with, and there may be completists who like acquiring the variant (albeit crudely-drawn) covers, so they may hold a more comparable value? I'm sure someone on here collects them and could give more input on what sort of pricing they come across.

I can feel for the editors at Overstreet (I thought Overstreet himself hadn't had anything to do with guide for years, but I could be wrong?). When I began to get the first pulp guide ready for 2001, prices really hadn't changed much on pulps in 10-20 years. But in the time between compiling data, organizing it, getting it to the printers, etc., eBay had suddenly discovered pulps. By the time the book was published in the summer of 2001, prices were already outdated. Fast-forward to 2019, as I was working to update with the "2nd" (actually 3rd) edition. Prices had stabilized for awhile. Pricing is already several months old by the time you get the text organized, the material sent off to the publisher (this time Heritage), it goes through editorial revisions, then off to the printers. In a stable market, not a big deal. But once again my timing was off. By the book's release in 2020, CGC had announced it would be slabbing pulps, which was a huge and immediate market driver. Then Covid hit, and pricing of all collectibles went through the roof. By the time the book came out, some of the prices were off by a factor of 5x-10x! So much so, that after all that work, Heritage only ran off a few hundred copies and called it a day, feeling that it was already an outdated work (though for some reason, they still quote its values in their auctions).

Exactly. Just my own business as an example, worth a small fraction of the Levine collection... if I needed to liquidate it is extremely unlikely I could sell the stock as a whole. There would be different buyers for the comics, for the pulps, for the movie items, for the books. Even at 10-cents on the dollar, would someone who only deals in comics want the hassle of hauling out all of the other material and finding buyers for it? Probably not. Also... if one agreed to the caveat that the collection not be broken up, would that mean issues couldn't even be traded in for upgrades? If I had the money to buy every DC comic ever published, the only fun left for me, as a collector, would be to search out upgrades over the years for the issues that need it.

Well... the thread did ask for unpopular golden-age opinions... so here goes. I wonder how much longer Hitler covers will be a thing. I was updating my buy guide and to be sure... these covers are either stable or still increasing in value. But you have a whole generation (or two) coming up who really have no idea who that is. They hear the name a lot... but it's usually just bandied about by every political side who calls someone they disagree with Hitler. Before Hitler came along, who was the previous dictator / conqueror that would have been universally known? Would there be lots of collectors out there for Napoleon covers? The generation that fought that war is all but gone. Much of the generation whose fathers fought that war are also gone. Will there come a point where younger collectors will no longer care to spend $10k or $20k or $50k for a cover featuring just another murky historical figure that for them comes from a vague and distant past? I guess I'm not offering an opinion per se, as much as a rumination...

Hold on, that's proprietary! "Mulch" is one of the official Bookery grades here in the shop (especially for the last collection I picked up... ).

You make some good points and offer a bit of hope (at least for a few years). It's also possible there's a bit of a bounce-back... I haven't done that much with books since just before the pandemic. Heritage gets strong prices for stuff that seems pretty mediocre to me... but they also have a million-dollar hype machine behind them, so I'm not sure their prices are reflective of the overall market. I do sell mainly through my store, so there's that. In the '80s and '90s Dayton had a very strong book market, with one of the nation's largest independent bookstores (now long since sold out to a chain), and over a dozen used/rare book stores (now there's only one that's mainly mail-order and another that's $1 books only). For years Stephen King was one of the most requested authors (I'm talking collectibles, not reading copies they could get anywhere)... someone would literally walk into my shop every week or two wanting collectible King stuff. It's now probably been several years since someone even inquired about them. So definitely the book shop business is all but collapsed. Larry McMurtry owned a famous bookstore (actually a book village) and was quoted late in his life that "there are no longer buyers for what I have to sell" (paraphrased from memory). When I started out ('80s) I had a small room of used science-fiction paperbacks and would do about $500 per week in sales. Before I closed it out I had a huge 1000-sq. foot room filled with paperbacks and hardbacks we marked down to $1 each. And these were quality titles... I didn't carry the multitudinous mass-market stuff you could find at every Half-Price books. All high grade. Toward the end we were down to doing $20 per week. Now obviously these weren't collectibles, but it's indicative of the overall desirability of physical reading copies. But you are right in that rare stuff in quality jackets can still sell (maybe not locally) for now. But a lot of books under that criteria are scarcer than most comics (even golden-age) to begin with.