Surfing Alien

Some more of the vintage goodness... Tough to find this one in any shape. Many were crushed in foxholes. Ace D-129 The Dangling Carrot by Day Keene backed with Silenced Witnesses Ace D109 Mambo to Murder by Dale Clark backed by I See Red by Sterling Noel (Cover by Harry Barton) Gold Medal 691 Fire in the Flesh by David Goodis. Cover by Barye Phillips Avon 344 The Chinese Parrot by Earl Derr Biggers. Cover by Raymond Johnson. The colors on this copy are eye-popping. Ace G-637 The Ganymede Takeover by Philip K. "Spoon" and Ray Nelson. Cover by Jack Gaughan Popular Library 134. The Case of the Crumpled Knave by Anthony Boucher. Rudolph Belarski's first cover for Popular Library. This one is always encountered with lamination peel so this is pretty exceptional. Dell 553 The Mark of Zorro by Johnston McCulley. Cover art by Robert Stanley. I've had quite a few copies of this one over the years and very tough without creasing. I'll post some more as time permits. I have several hundred more like these on the way.

This ^ I didn't buy any for months but just got some Vampi's and Savage Tales that I recently posted so looking for some more mag nostalgia in '23

After acquiring a nice copy of Savage Tales #1 last year, I guess I'm back at it to chip away at the run. I actually picked up the rest of the run in a lot of mixed grade to fill them in and read but I'm looking to get better copies. The #2 isn't high grade but it was pretty nice and reasonable and the #3 and 9 are keepers for my (non-ultra high grade) purposes. I'll take nice 7.0-9.0's

Happy to get some Friday fun again Got in another box of high grade paperbacks. Some real cool ones in this batch, here's a few. I'll try to post a few more over the weekend. These are pretty incredible in-hand. Gold Medal 366, The Woman is Mine by Harry Whittington. Cover art by James Meese. Ace D-17 Shakedown by Roney Scott. Cover art by Norman Saunders Backed with The Darkness Within by Walter Ericson aka Howard Fast Gold Medal 277 Flight to Darkness by Gil Brewer. Cover art by Barye Phillips Beacon B174 Affairs of a Beauty Queen by Orrie Hitt. Dell 9200 Ubik by Philip K. *Spoon* Cover by Jeff Jones. An impossible black cover. The collection actually has some real nice books reaching into the late 1970's. Harlequin 167 Love Me and Die by Day Keene. Another Harlequin in impossible shape. There's been 4 or 5 of them so far in the collection.

You know how much I love the Attack of the Giant Fonts on the cover art 😆 But still think the actual image is awesome. Would love to know who did it...

Here's a few more recent pickups, mostly from the same high grade collection: Been looking for a nice copy of this classic forever since I had one in my original collection that I sold. They don't show up often without creases, this one just has some corner wear and is one of the nicer ones I've seen in a while. Some more...

In penance for my shame in not posting any Vampi's since August I just rewound the thread and hit the button on all of your excellent pickups. I've spent a lot of dough since then on portions of a high grade vintage paperback collection the likes of which I might not see again so had to put the mags on the back burner but just got in a nice group of 30 or so Vampi's that were quite undergraded and filled in a bunch of holes in the #60-80's slots. I'm only missing 15 of the first 80 now and a couple of dozen for the run.

One of the few great White Circle covers, most of them were pretty crude but this one gets past that with a great composition and babe👍 The US 1st paperback is great too in its own way though, and the breast-baring was quite shocking and controversial at the time. Unfortunately the colors got washed out a bit in print. The image is much more vibrant and striking on the original painting, which survived in the Spillane estate. The original also confirmed that it was by Tony Varady, a somewhat mystery man, who painted many late 40's -50's pb covers and one of the first to paint more realistic covers at Penguin/Signet after Jonas' symbolic style got dated.

Here's a couple of pics from the high grade collection

Thanks. It actually has some small creasing in the lower right corner but it's about the nicest one I've seen with clean staples. Rusty staples on these 50's digests are more common than clean ones

I bought a bit of a trove of minty classic pbs and digests over the Holidays that I hope to take some pics of soon. Here's a real nice copy of Sinner's Club by the Great Harry Whittington. Carnival Books #923. One of the first JD novels I read and been looking to find a better copy for a long time and finally did 🙂 Classic cover by Rudolph Belarski.

Those are some of his last covers. Here's one of his first. True Detective from October 1956, before he started getting paperback assignments in 1958.

That is beyond cool Pat! January 1 and Peter Driben rare Skull cover. Your hunt just gets better & better! Happy hunting in the new year!

Married to Murder by the Great Harry Whittington. Phantom Mystery 503. Published by Hanro in 1952. The artist is uncredited but seems to be one who did a couple of the uncredited Phantoms. Very impactful, great colors and gravity-defying 😁 I still have a few more to go in this fantastic original novel digest series but I'm making progress. This title was elusive.

Merry Christmas Fellas! It's a blessing to share our little treasures with such swell folks here. I think I posted this one last year but Banbery's wonderful illustrations on this cover are always worth visiting again, especially the back cover parade.

Here's a bunch more high grade recent pickups for your holiday perusal... This Harlequin cover is a redraw of the Phantom Books original. One of the tougher Charles Williams Gold Medals with a pretty intense Barye Phillips cover This Goodis Bantam is generally plagued with bad lamination peel so I was happy to get a nice one. Cover by Bill Shoyer I didn't think I'd be able to upgrade my Dancing Detective but this one was pretty luscious and better than the undercopy A nice addition to the Lionel White collection that I didn't have. Cover by Robert Abbett

Very Nice. Here's the first Red Circle non-fiction title, #2, "Passionate Fool" by John A. Moroso. #1 in the series was a non fiction title "Sex Life and You" with a non-pictorial cover, one of many "sex advice" books that started appearing after the first Kinsey report in 1948. It's interesting to know if it was planned to alert you about problems in your sex life in #1 and then start a run of sleaze romance and men's adventure type titles with sexy covers As seen in Pat's post and the uncredited but quite classic GGA cover below and my Lion post above, Goodman hired and deployed the same stable of artists that populated his vast Pulp, and later, Men's Adventure Magazines, in the paperbacks. It was natural progression that followed the demise of the pulps and rise of the magazines and pb's.

Group shot of some nice Lions Along with Pyramid Books, there's something about their small format and skimpy page count (and fragility) that makes them compelling.

That's a stunning cover that I've never looked at before. Aside from the Good Girl, I love the little beckoning Devil with the dagger.

Thanks! I love me some boxing covers too!

Another long week but some more friday fun arrived so I'll share some here. Been hooked into some high gloss minty fresh books lately. The Golden Amazon is the second time I've upgraded my copy. My undercopy is very nice but has a couple of reader's creases and a little rubbing. This copy, despite the little chip is pretty stunning for a Harlequin. I just don't see them with this kind of color strike and gloss. They're usually rubbed to death because of the cheap ink. This one looks never read. Cover art by Paul Anna Soik A couple of unread earlier Ace doubles. D-50 The art on Bad 'Un by Victor Olson. Ace D-101. Neither covers is credited but Point of No Escape looks a lot like Olson also. A real sharp Lion with cover art by Mort Kunstler An early Elmore Leonard western with cover art by Harper Johnson And another upgrade, this time on Robert Maguire's first paperback cover, Hal Ellson's JD classic, Tomboy I'll try to post a few more this weekend. I am going to New York City next week for Christmas. It will be the first time I've seen many of my relatives since the damned 'vid and there's nothing that will keep us away this year. Maybe I can find some bricks and mortar book stores to pick if there are any left there

I know its considered common but who doesn't love a James Bama Avon cover from when he just started and comic book interiors? Haven't picked up many pulps lately but like this one and love the John Giunta "Crom the Barbarian" comic inside

Here's a few more pretty pbs... This is the last of the Woolrich/Irish Popular Library titles I needed. I've held out because I had to, there just haven't been any nice ones come along. Then this shows up and I don't think it's improvable. It's also Belarski's last cover at Popular Library. Raymond Johnson started at number 452 and became the primary artist after Belarski. Speaking of Raymond Johnson, this is an upgrade to my current copy which is really nice except for a small but nagging corner crease I had never seen this James Meese cover before. The lady is so tough and the copy is really sharp so I had to bring it home This is another Avallone book, via pseudonym. I dislike the giant font covers but it's a pretty uncommon Frazetta cover and super sharp so it's in the keeper pile now. This one is for @frozentundraguy, a little earlier than the one he posted (I think it's the first Pyramid Fu Manchu) and maybe the brightest pages and edge stain I've seen in a 60 year old pb. Cover by Mort Engle.

Even though I mostly work at home, it was a long week at work getting year end stuff squared away so it was nice to get some high grade Friday fun in to share. Although several of us have posted this classic before, including myself, I've been looking for a "Forever" copy of it since I began collecting again and this beats my undercopy by far. Cover art by Robert Crowl I don't collect a lot of westerns but I couldn't let a sharp Dell by Elmore Leonard with a cover by George Gross get by me. A Day Keene novel I didn't have yet. Zenith Books ZB-31. Cover art by Mort Kunstler. Zenith must have been related somehow to the Goodman empire because the artist stable is right out of his Men's Adventure Mags, similar to Goodman's Lion Books. I've been trying to up my Handi Books game and this one is a beaut. #130 by Robert O. Saber aka Milton K. Ozaki. Cover artist uncredited but sweet and will go nicely with the July 1952 Strange: The Magazine of True Mystery I have with the art re-used. Lion 153 Tough Guy (Long Haul) By A. I. Bezzerides. It's the second paperback edition after Dell #416 with the Robert Stanley cover but both are hard to find in any kind of decent condition. This one has better cover art imho and this copy was amazing. Cover art credited in various places to Rafael DeSoto and I tend to agree, especially the square jawed trucker, although I see some Harry Barton in the hitchhikers face. I'll post a few more as I go through them

Very nice set Pat, and nice "connections" as well . I've got a big bunch of some real killer books on the way but got a scattering of cool items in the meantime. A couple of Lions with Lou Marchetti covers (I'm 99% sure now on Frankenstein but checking with some friends). Frankenstein is a duplicate but I have to check if it's an upgrade, it's pretty close to my current copy iirc so I had to grab it. It's one pb I have never seen a fine or near fine copy of... And a couple more Berkleys with biblical connotations. Cover by Charles Copeland Cover uncredited but it has always been considered a classic since I began collecting in the 1980's. I've had multiple copies and always pick them up if I can reasonably because it's an easy flip. I think i've sold 5 copies in the last year.