OtherEric

I remember getting those when they came out, it wasn't my intro to the EC books- I think I even had my first couple originals by then. But they're the first time I got to see a large sample of the stories. So very fond memories indeed.

December 1946. You can swing an original, I saw at least four copies on AbeBooks. I stopped looking once the price got over $20.

I really do think EC collectors in general are far more understanding of those of us who collect the books in lower grade. EC fans just love reading the books in the originals, and we'll all take them however we can get them. As wonderful as the various reprints are- and make no mistake, they are wonderful- nothing is as fun as seeing the original editions. Such good stories and art; there's a very good reason that even well into the 80's they were held up as the best comics ever made. I think most people now will agree there are comics that are just as good, but there really isn't anything that's topped EC at its best.

I think this is his only cover for Astounding. Supposedly he was so angry that they cropped his original painting he swore never to work for them again. Good issue; it also has the first story by Robert Heinlein.

Here's the splash page for one of his very few comic stories. He really didn't do much at all beyond the "Just Imagine" pages for Real Fact. Cover isn't by him, but might as well include it.

Let's see what I've got handy to share. @RedFury already posted all the Weird Tales covers I have by him, I think...

FFM to FFM

Fantastic Adventures to Fantastic Novels

I've picked up all the issues since the renumbering; but to be honest I had decided to stop until the shutdown announcement was made. Some very good stuff, but it was still not enough I like per issue to make me get it consistently. I haven't had it on a subscription or pull list; just grabbing at the Fred Meyer.

Amazing Stories to Amazing Stories

I absolutely agree that Scientology completely obscures his literary reputation, Pat. While I stand by my description of him as "a competent hack with some good stories", I think that's actually significantly better than the average for pulp writers of that era. Typewriter in the sky is a genuine classic, for example; and being a competent hack was actually the exception back then. He's quite readable; and while I won't seek out books because of him I generally do read his stuff when I get a magazine which happens to have his work. Maybe I should go ahead and actually read "The Ghoul", since I have the magazine handy anyway...

Not a fan of Hubbard, I'll grant he had a few good stories back in the day but in general he was a competent hack. I'm acutely aware of how hard to get any vintage books or pulps with his work are to find; though. He definitely has a following. And it can make getting issues you want for other reasons tricky. I'm not saying this magazine shouldn't command a decent price, for example. I'm saying that it should command that price because it's the first appearance of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, not because of the cover story. But in my experience people selling it promote Hubbard over the Fritz Leiber story.

A couple pickups at the local book store. I did mention I wanted at least one D-series western as an example:

Found in a dollar bin today. This one's getting cross-posted:

Today's dollar bin jackpot:

That's a great book, Raze! I don't know that it's quite a grail on my personal scale, but it's definitely high on my want list. And don't sweat the condition. As all Golden Age collectors know, sometimes you just have to take the copy of the book you can find even if it's not in the grade you want, just to have a copy. My EC collection even includes a *shudder* pedigree book. Not a Gaines File Copy, but my Panic #6 is from the Don/Maggie Thompson collection.

I think you have a slight edge over me, but we're both in the same ballpark. I've got complete runs of Aces High, Piracy, Psychoanalysis, Valor, Impact, Panic, and Frontline Combat. Oh, and the first printing of Picture Stories from the Bible Old Testament and New Testament complete editions, if you want to count those. I think the OT was technically printed by DC, actually. I'm one issue short of complete runs of Extra, M. D., and Incredible Science Fiction if you count that as a separate book from Weird Science Fantasy. Counting only New Trend and New Direction books, I'm up to 96 EC's... not quite a third of them. I think I need to go big on something for #100, which should be pretty soon...

And got the Aces High 2 and 5 in today, giving me the whole run. Only need a couple books to complete my New Direction set now. I think Aces High is generally (along with Piracy) regarded as one of the best New Direction titles, goodness knows it's in my top two by a fair margin. Here's the set, in my traditional competition with @Raze to put together the lowest grade reading run of EC's .

Not directly relevant to the specific discussion, but I feel these belong in the thread and I have them handy. The covers on the magazine got rather weird near the end.

I would just like to get any copy of the Bart House Lovecrafts! They just don't turn up much at all.

Fresh in. I THINK this is the last PKD first edition from Ace I need.

Loving all these D-series Ace doubles. There's just something special about them, isn't there? One of my better copies, although still not perfect:

An otherwise very nice copy with an obvious (but not TOO detracting) flaw for fairly cheap. And a Conan cover story, to boot. I think my next goal is a Conan WT cover that actually features Conan...

That's why I called them "tricky" rather than rare. If you think the mysteries are rare, try finding the westerns! I don't have any yet, would like to get at least a couple as examples. I absolutely agree with you that finding the books in high grade is almost impossible. I only have 1 or 2 D-series I could describe like that. I'm not positive, but I might call two of the SF doubles rare, personally. The D-13 took me forever to find a copy, I suspect that's a combo of being a very early book and it not getting flagged as half of it counting as SF until well after the fact. And I think I've only ever seen the Conan one out in the wild once. Probably at least partly being early, and a combo of a) some SF readers rejecting it as fantasy, not SF, so a slightly lower survival rate; and b) Conan & Fantasy fans means more copies are locked down hard in collections.

I think this is all of my Ace PKD first editions. I've got a 2nd edition Solar Lottery somewhere, as well as the Untelported Man/ Dr. Futurity double; and the D-series Eye in the Sky is supposedly on the way.