Westy Steve

Didn’t realize that.

Mounties is awesome but the space detective is a clear case of “We can't buy that for cheap”. Congrats on the deal though. That one’s on my want list.

Don’t give the peanut gallery ideas! Nothing to see here! Move along.

Wow that’s cool. I’ve been looking at that book and I thought that it was the same artist! I love that cover. You’ll have to let me know where you got one that high grade. I didn’t see one.

Down the rabbit hole I go! I don’t think I shared this picture here? This Triffid book is a new pick up and I was mesmerized by the condition of this book. The bag makes it look like there is a corner crease in the upper right but that is just the light. The book was packaged inside a plastic bag and seems to be as clear as Mylar and makes the colors pop so I contacted the seller and asked where I could get some bags like these. 100 for $10. They are already on the way. It’s really hard for me to buy comics now. My dollar seems to go a long way in this field of collecting.

Thank you! I will check it out. I’ve learned a long time ago that it is always a good idea to buy the book before you buy the collectible. But what if the collectible is a book? 🙂. Thumbing through my new coffee table book, I’m super excited about the prospect of collecting more stuff that moves me. There’s a lot more out there than I thought there was.

New pickups. I’m now a confirmed paperback collector. A couple of thoughts: First, some of these paperbacks look absolutely amazing on mylar. Second, I had no idea that Marihuana was such a thin book! It’s constructed exactly like a comic book! That doesn’t really come across in the cover pictures. Three: I picked up a textbook like every good student should

Love how he has an unnecessary and potentially irritating shark fin on top of his cap.

That Agatha Christie book is amazing! Having looked at a bunch of pictures of different books over the last couple of weeks I’ve noticed most covers show murder in the form of a dead body. Fewer still show the murder victim about to be grabbed or murdered. That one actually shows the murder in progress Do we have a term for these kind of books? Should I trade mark “MIP” cover? (Murder in progress)

Bought for $20 each. I wasn’t aware that there were Tarzan titles that were not photo covers. I like this version better. This one is this issue number nine. I believe issue number seven has Tarzan mixing it up with dinosaurs. I kind of want that one now.

Love that! If you don't repost it, how can we learn what's good? Man, this stuff is addictive. I pulled the trigger on a couple more items. I'll save those for later, but they give me pride of ownership...maybe that's what I should be looking for.

Thanks. Ok, there’s the rub. The PBs are scarce enough that I’ll likely snag every one that I see IN THE WILD. So with limited storage space, unless I want a collection of nothing but common stuff, I need to be judicious about my online purchases. Trouble is I don’t know what the better material is. I know some basics like some of the crown jewel titles to look for but sorting the pearls from the peas is hard. So far I’m looking at higher grade stuff, early Avon’s, Avon Doubles and early Dell mapbacks. But what else should I keep an eye out for? I just pulled the trigger on a seemingly higher grade copy of Madwoman (Avon, 1943) because it has a cool cover with GGA, a syringe, and the back cover is pretty neat too (reminds me of Hitchcock’s Vertigo). But I wonder if I should have saved my funds for something else since there are 4 listed on EBay. The low price of these and the desire for sellers to unload creates so many options that it’s somewhat overwhelming. (Sellers Photo with 3 feedbacks-yikes!)

Wow, I always thought Schwarzenegger was too big for his role. This picture gives me pause. IMHO Conan is not muscle-bound but more like a strong gymnast (picture the rings exercise). Or maybe like Tarzan. Speed and power., not just power

Thanks! This is so fascinating to me. His early appearances make him look more civilized and almost Roman. Then he seemed to take on a more British Nobleman/Carl from Accounting appearance. Seems like Smith was influenced by Frazetta and the de Camp covers. Thanks to all who shared.

OK, outside of what a map back is, everything else was Greek to me. I’ve ordered a text book to study the stuff and I’ve been watching YouTube like a fiend. This gives me more to look up.

Hey you pulp aficionados. What did Conan look like before Smith put pen to paper? I have the following but I’m sure that’s not his first appearance. For that matter I’m not even sure it’s him! Where was the first rendering of him? And what did he look like in the early pulps?

Dang you guys and your compelling thread! I went into a 2nd and Charles thinking I was going to find a bunch of these. Out of approximately 500k to 1 million books they had a dozen “vintage” PBs and I bought the best two. Yes, mine are common issues among the rare, but I liked the recognizable author name on the Queen book (edit: maybe both books to those more literate than I) and the Barbie with a gun and they both seemed to be in nice shape. I almost missed that the white stripes form the letter “A” on the Queen book. I’m hesitant to post in this thread because I don’t want to throw gas on a fire that I want to continue to smolder. I have so many questions but I’m intentionally keeping my post count low. Every time I get into a new thing it takes off and I don’t want that at all.

My recollection of it was selling things in the CBG and seeing golden age selling for multiples of guide. Me and a buddy of mine would list cool covers and multiples of guide and they would sell and we thought those people are fools for paying so much for those LB Cole covers. I remember a dealer at one of the local shows buying a couple golden age books from me because “he wanted to get in the golden age game”. Can I also seem to remember the old catch issues of higher grade Timely going absolutely ballistic. I didn’t have the money to participate in it, but I was shocked how much books were selling for compared to the guide. FWIW, I Do you remember the photo journals coming out about that time.

Hmph. Must have been.

I seem to remember back in the 1990s, golden age material really took off price-wise. Or was that my imagination since I wasn’t fully tuned into that market? Did it happen? What caused it? My hazy memory is that silver age stuff got too high and it moved up in sympathy. Anybody remember?

Let’s see what Golden age goody you bought recently for not a lot of money. I’m not talking about a ridiculous bargain you lucked into. I’m not talking about a purchase you made 30 years ago. I’m talking about a purchase that’s a good example of what a modest amount of funds can buy TODAY. Share the price Or price range if you feel comfortable doing that.

That’s fair, but part of me feels that if the book was not a “tortured 9.4”, it would’ve sold for even more money.

Y’all are funny. Do you think there are people out there with the means to buy that book who want one who said to themselves “I think I’ll wait for a better one to come along”. I think they are just looking at it like it will be a long, long, long time before a better one comes to market.

Thanks. And that’s how I console myself. I have a long list of things that I sold that I would love to get back. The thing is, it has more to do with timing than anything else. I think my ideas are good, but I never keep my ideas long enough time to marinate. So now I’m putting a hard stop on sales of anything good. I’ll still sell lesser stuff, but I’m gonna try to hang onto my good stuff Even if I temporarily lose interest in it.

Hey guys, You know, I have come to the conclusion that I should just never sell the better collectibles that I buy, ever. Apparently, I’m good at picking out things to buy but bad at picking what to sell to fund other wants. Steve