Surfing Alien

My OCD will not allow this This shrinkwrap is safe for my tenure as custodian of this copy

Another nice arrival is this copy of the Arkham House "Kecksies" in the publishers shrinkwrap. It reminds me that I saw these in Forbidden Planet on Broadway in New York in the late 70's when I first started haunting stores for Science Fiction. This is from 1976, so 47 years old now and cool to have a shrinkwrapped copy of that memory after all that time. Being a condition freak, I couldn't resist it either!

Saturday mail fun. Stoked to get a high grade copy of one of Steranko's greatest pb covers, inscribed and signed by Steranko. I love how artfully he wrote to the side of the image. It's to John Pelan, a small press publisher and author/editor of pulp/fantastic publications.

Need that one too Seems like there's always one more to get in vintage paperback world Part of what I love about it!

I still need this one Here's a pic of some of the other silver spine Science Fiction titles. They make a great set to collect but are a bear to find without major chipping and rubbing to the silver on the spine edge. These are the best of each I've managed to hunt down. Some great artists here, Bergey, Powers, Schulz, Dunn and Meltzoff, off the top of my head.

All true, especially since it gets lost in the GGA sauce of other publishers that Pocket pioneered the nipple cover with "Nana" (top left) in May 1941 ! and, over time, published many cool GGA and other garish delights like Warren Baumgardner's awesome "Head of a Traveler". Some killer Pocket's, from left to right, top to bottom: Nana by Emile Zola - cover artist uncredited The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett - in GGA backshot dust jacket painted by Stanley Meltzoff My Late Wives by Carter Dickson (John Dickson Carr) - trip inducing cover by famed comic book artist Louis Glanzman (I wonder if Lou Marchetti saw this one before he painted "Cry Plague"?) Rampart Street by Everrett and Olga Weber - torture/hanging GGA cover by Barye "The King" Phillips Head of a Traveler by Nicholas Blake - decapitation cover by Warren Baumgardner Trouble is my Business by Raymond Chandler - branded chest/headlights GGA cover by Herman Geisen The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler - sweet, moody GGA cover by Robert Schulz Pick-up On Noon Street by Raymond Chandler - Incredible Robert Maguire GGA cover. The biggest problem with Pockets is that they published so many titles, non-fiction and mainstream fiction alike, that there is no collector interest for, so it's like mining for gems and takes some work to find the sci fi, the hard boiled mystery's and all the GGA that is dotted around the run. I got some cool stuff in today that i'll try to post later

I didn't even know Barbie hard covers existed. She looks like an early Barbie. Very cool!

H.P. Lovecraft was profoundly influenced by Hawthorne's "House of the Seven Gables" Lovecraft's ideas for several stories of generational curses lurking and ghosting in the walls of an ancient New England house came from Hawthorne, the OG of horror novelists.

They're not flashy and didn't feature much GGA until quite a bit later ("Nana" by Emile Zola, being the exception!) But the solid, high quality construction and great classic titles that Pocket Books put out early on ensured the paperback book became a staple of American life from the 1940's on. Finally got to my boxes of Pockets that were stored away during the renovation. These earlies are all 1st printings and, I think, all fall into the proto fantasy/sci fi/adventure genre of having fantastical elements, even Sherlock to a degree. They are all 80+ years old now. That's mind boggling.

Some nice Fightin' Marines covers

Some nice Fightin' Army covers

One lot of 62 Bronze Charlton War books - pretty high grade - warehouse copies. A nice stack that I found while cleaning up the comic room and setting up our library shelves. I still need to make room so I'm going to shop them here before sending them to my ebay store. Looking to get $240 *now $200* for the lot, that's about $4 *$3* a book + actual shipping to wherever you're at. They weigh about 10 1/2 pounds and my zip is 34654 if you want to estimate it to you. Not looking to break these up. Great looking and reading for the price. I bought these in the 1990's off the street in New York City from one of the many street dealers I bought from there who had several long boxes of high grade late bronze Charltons. Long runs of many of the major titles. The spines look unread, they have varying amounts of edgewear and corner wear but all look in the 6.0 and up range, many VF's. Nice smooth covers with great color. I was told they were from a warehouse and they have that uniform high grade look to them. Some pretty cool covers and art by Warren Sattler, Pat Boyette and others, including some pretty dramatic WWII covers. Who can resist "The Devil Hound Of Hitler"? Fightin Army (28 Books) 99,102,103,108,118,122,123,124,125,127,128 (2), 130,131,132,137,138,140,141,142,143,145,147,149,154,155,156,158 Fightin Marines (34 Books) 111,112,113,114,115,118,119,120,121,124,126,127,130,131,133,134 (2), 137,138 (2), 139,141,143,149,150,151,152,155,157,159,160,162,163,165 I'll post a few pics of the stack and some of the covers below.

I've been selling Vintage paperbacks here lately, but yes I do still have comics! A couple of boxes anyway although I've sold off most of my high end books over the years, mostly at good prices for the times so I only have some regrets lol. The rules for this thread are: -No HoS or Probation list buyers -I will ship to Canada but will have to quote shipping options. -Payment via Venmo or Paypal preferred. I also can do Zelle although it is a bit more of a pain to do. -Shipping via USPS for actual shipping charge. They weigh about 10 1/2 pounds and my zip is 34654 if you want to estimate it to you. Not looking to break these up. -First in the thread wins and prevails over pm offers -Returns accepted for 14 days after delivery but please let me know asap if you are unhappy for any reason and I will make it right. I do miss things occasionally. Feel free to pm with offer or questions.

Thanks. Nice copies of some pretty tough books. If these were comic book covers... On top of all that, bright white books are pretty hard to find, almost as tough as dark colored pb's without creases.

Take at 60% - don't think I have this one either

Take at 60% - don't think I have this one

Thanks Rick!

Great books RD! I take a few days off for vacation and you and Catrick storm the boards with pb's Awesomeness!

I finally acquired a nice copy of "For Love of Imabelle" a while back but I think the Avons were packed up. Here she is with the other PBO's of the Coffin Ed & Gravedigger Jones series by Chester Himes. Mitch Hooks cover on Imabelle, George Ziel on the Avons. A real nice example of groundbreaking pbo's with great cover art all around. It's so much fun to be able to display these correctly 🤘🥳

Sweet books. That "Overboard" looks pretty dreamy I've noticed a lot more competition for nice pbs online lately, and I quite logically suspect it's for the above quoted reason. I wish I had more time to box dive at Windy City as there were definitely still relative bargains to be had in the vintage pbs.

There's no such thing as too much Heade! My vote for the lingerie cover, besides the beautifully painted full body shot, I've seen the head shot cover many times and not the body shot so pretty sure that's the rare one

I did get you to show three views though

Ooh.. touchy lol! I posit it is two pieces then, since the brown curtains wrap to the spine, and agree the back cover is a separate vignette... although taken as a whole is something completely different than the doubles and singles

A couple of cool digests that came in this week. Back when I first started posting I posited that Digests have the best appeal long term as a collectible pb since CGC already will grade them. My opinion hasn't changed mostly because they are so much bigger than a standard pb so the art has more impact. Love me some digests Archers are halfway between a pb and a digest. The Heade covers are insane and this is one of the rare ones. UniBooks are tough because of the cheap cover paper. I always wanted this one as it's crazy and was definitely re-used a few times. This the last UniBook. Suffers the same fate as last issues of comic books. Poor distribution and retention. Great cover and topic add up. This one is pretty rare, the Fiesta's were the poorest sisters of UniBooks after the Stallion Books. Topic and art (looks strongly like Warren King) are way out. Classic JD probably Lou Marchetti's most recognized and killer JD cover. Croydon's are a bear looking like this. Cheap paper.