Surfing Alien

If that's getting started I can't wait to see the finish!

Some minty fresh Avons from the early 50's "lamination" period. Lamination presents its own preservation issues. The Avons are pretty good at holding tight, i've had more difficulty with Pocket Books laminate peeling and shredding. Here we have an old hag with a gun - and a nobody of a guy who is the only fertile male on earth. Could be tiresome

Some vintage Avons in the mail this week - Ward Greene was an author and manager at King Features Syndicate who wrote Alex Raymond's Rip Kirby strip for many years among others. Ann Cantor chose to paint a classic bondage cover for this 1949 Avon paperback. Gladiator is an earlier version of the Superman character, born with super strength, skin and speed who fights the Germans in WW 1. The cover is uncredited but a classic for sure

Mysterious Time Machine - 418 6th Ave, New York, New York 10011 - Roger's shop blows Midtown Comics away as far as back issues. He's been in the West Village since the 1980's and he's just a great guy to banter and bargain with. And i'll vouch for Pinocchio in Brooklyn - it's been there forever. I used to go there back in the 80's and would walk out with a stack of silver marvels for $20. Wish I could travel back in time

That's an incredible copy if it's yours. I've never had a nice one. I'm pretty sure that one was a pulp cover also, as many of the Popular Library mystery's were.

Pop beat me to the punch but here's my 2 (or 3) cents - Madwoman is a great cover so you’re showing good taste off the bat! Rule No. 1 is always to get stuff you like – then you’ll be happy no matter what. You could pick up one of the old price guides by Jon Warren or Kevin Hancer just for picture references and to see what (was) considered break-out material. Since many books do have multiple copies availabe and are relatively inexpensive, I’m always looking for the best copy I can justify at the price. The prices are all over the map with some of them so I’ll often wait for another copy to become available at a lower price if I can’t find the right combo when I first look. 4 copies of a book is not that many if demand ever picks up, although many collectors won’t sell unless they have to when prices are low so it’s actually very difficult to get a feel for how many are actually out there. There really is no organized market with stats like there is for comics. There are some books that I see dozens of copies of (mostly best-selling authors of their times) and many books never come up. Lesser known authors or authors’ first books before they became famous can be scarcer. I find that the Digest sized books are much less common and I feel they have the most potential to increase in value in the future (if they ever do) because they have larger more displayable covers and CGC for instance, already grades the same sized TV Guides. Maybe someone will grade them some day. Quite a few sellers of more expensive Digests include the small number for sale in the world in their listing. That all said, you really just need to scan around a lot and decide what you love and how available it is. I love the looks of mint Avon’s (especially the later ones with the lamination fully intact). Many can be found for $5-$10 fairly regularly on ebay but some of them are very tough. I Married a Dead Man by William Irish comes to mind – a great cover, a cult followed author, and no one seems to sell their copy. I’ve paid up for books I really wanted even though I am cheap, cheap, cheap but after a while of searching you start to get a feel for those books that you never see or never see in nice shape (Overboard by George Worts comes to mind) and when they pop up you just have to pony up or you may not see another one for a long time.

Nice pickups They're getting tougher to find in the wild. Barbie more often has a cigarette than a gun in these but when she has one she's deadly...

Great haul! Case of the Seven Sneezes is just about the top of the GGA-line for Dell Mapbacks

No need for them. Phones and the Internet... they've got the whole world. She does love real books made with paper though so there's hope

Rampart Street is crazy for a Pocket Book

I'm with Pat on this - I started with SF and authors I liked - although I do like plenty of lurid genre art. I couldn't see myself leaving my daughter a box of the sweat mags when I croak but she can appreciate the paperbacks, pulps & comics - even the JD and GGA stuff. But there's something for everyone in the collectors eye - those sweats always get bids when I see them auctioned on the bay -same thing for a lot of 60's/70's soft core "adult reading" paperbacks. I like the fact that this stuff is still relatively inexpensive. I don't have the budget to buy high end comics but I've been known to hoard lurid covers to "high literature" books

Giant insects are always fun

Sharing mine.. cool mood to the cover art

I think I still need "Vulcan's Hammer" but picked off one of the singles this week

Best for last, picked up my first "bedsheet", a Clark Ashton Smith story cover on the June 1932 Wonder Stories. This barely fit on my scanner - they have a different feel in hand and it seems like the paper quality is better, less fragile than a lot of others.

Got this low grade British Weird Tales with a very eerie Virgil FInlay cover as an "add in" to these other buys. I read the cover story by Margaret St. Clair - it was odd, and entertaining.

I don't have any Chandler to add ...yet But picked off another Private Detective - this one with a choking/pistol whipping cover by Lewis Trege - who, from the lack of info on the internet, was another unsung artist working in the pulp "trenches" in the late 40's. The cover teases that the title story was by "George Harmon", presumably indicating George Harmon Coxe, who usually wrote for higher class pulps but in the interior it is by "William Dectaur", a Trojan Pubs house name according to www.philsp.com

Love the date stamp!

Nice Headlight Cover from Avon... back cover Is interesting too. Like I said on another post Avon reused their front covers on back covers and this is a nice tie in with house of fury by Felice swados who wrote the original story for reform school girl..

A colorful spine shot of some recent arrivals. Love the look of minty vintage pb stacks...

sigh... another one on the want list

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Wish I kept my Jim Thompson's when I sold my collection I'm gonna try to replace them at some point but everyone knows about them now so they're never cheap. I posted these bad girls a while back but they're worth a review considering the topic

This board can be trouble! Those two are on my want list now I'd love to know the history, whether the companies were related and re-used art or if the artist was smart/fotunate enough to keep the art and shop it around?