Surfing Alien

Thanks for taking this conservative, Overstreet type approach, it's better for the hobby. As someone who has just recently started collecting them again and never had full knowledge of what was in all those runs, I will value the data itself at least as much as the pricing. If you get the pricing relation between more and less desirable issues in the runs, that is more important than being "perfect" in pricing (which can never happen). In the six months or so since i've started picking things up again, it is very hard to determine a fair price because ebay, which i'm sure has the highest volume of listings, seems to have been flooded with low and mid grade pulps at what seem to be high prices, and most of them haven't sold. I suspect it might have to do with dealers and old timers trying to cash in after all those prices achieved by Yakimas in the Crain auction and general interest from collectors like me who would like cool old paper, see pretty pictures on the Internet but can't swim in the GA comic pool. That said, like I advise about vintage paperbacks, I know there's things that come up that you better grab them if you want them now because you may not see them again at a fair price if you wait. But it's very hard to do the all research yourself on the internet, because of factors like I mentioned above. Auctions are different but 95% of ebay is BIN and it's tough to follow outside auctions unless someone like you knows where they all are. It's a huge task, thanks for taking it on.

What ever happened to Jon Warren? His paperback guide was the best of the old ones imho. Maybe the data was preserved and could be purchased and converted? It could save someone a lot of work.

Happy to pick up these 2 Schomburg war covers before prices go crazy... well they're August Schomburg and pre war, but of all the Flying Ace covers I looked at these are fascinating as harbingers of things to come. Great blurbs and actually have Nazi's being shot down rather than more generic covers. They're skinny and bedsheet size which is a pretty cool format.

Or for us bottom feeders who just started again I guess I gotta accelerate my buying while I still can! Great news about the book though, I'll be getting one

Couple of scarce digests in. Carnivals are a sweet imprint with gritty "realist" covers. They are a bit browned but present very nicely with minimal creasing. "Reckless" could put your eye out and i'm not talkin' about her cigarette. "Girl-Hungry" is an unsung Rudy Nappi JD park bench classic.

Picked up my first couple of Argosys. Sports covers in very nice condition. It's kind of crazy how relatively cheap these are compared to baseball cards from the same period. I know it's fiction so it's a different animal but they have such a Golden Age of baseball & football look and feel.

I agree about Action #1 being a tough comparable for another reason in that there is very little in the PB/Digest field that has the pop culture rocket fuel behind it that Super Hero Comic Books do. Junkie is a pinnacle book not just for the literary aspect, it also sports an iconic cover that tics all the boxes of GGA & Drugs/Counter Culture/JD. It’s surely near the top of the small format paperback pile as far as desirability although I’m pretty sure the Tarzan and Shadow pictorial LA Bantams are rarer and nearly impossible in high grade due to the fragile lamination, as well as very desirable because of their comic/pulp tie ins. As i've said before, my gut feeling though is that the Digests are where the most $ potential is. Some of them are truly scarce and/or rare, and their format lends itself to the books getting raggedy really quickly. At any given time you can find 5 – 10 decent copies of Junkie for sale. Not so with Reform School Girl or Marijuana Girl. These two also both have outside juice for the SOTI comic connection and Senate censorship investigations respectively. The Creature From the Black Lagoon digest has some back juice as well with its classic movie tie-in but it is British, although I included it because I think it's a book no collector would kick out of his or her collection lol. Many digests you just don’t ever see copies up for sale. It may be that a rise in prices could shake more out of collections and my gut would be proven wrong but I’m not so sure about that. Like Randall Dowling said, it’s such a fractured market that it’s hard to know anything. (Other than - if you see something that you don’t see lots of copies of and you want it, pay up and grab it because you may not see another in a long time)

Good points all and i've gotten some great bargains in some lots like those. Those lists are two good stabs at it but here’s some issues: The first site includes mostly private or specialty books which were not mass marketed. Reform School Girl and Junkie are both on there and they represent a Jim Thompson paperback but mention the selling price of a signed hardcover book, which is puzzling? The second one is spot on about highly collected PB authors but very general and most of the books on there are not ones that would bring the highest money in the hobby although high grade copies of any of them are good money and high grade copies of all the early Jim Thompson paperbacks could get up there, certainly in the low to mid hundreds of dollars. If what we’re talking about is true mass market paperbacks that could fetch $500 or more in high grade, off the top of my head I can think of these: The Good Earth Pearl S. Buck, 1938 No Number Pocket Book Reform School Girl by Felice Swados, 1948 Diversey Digest Junkie by William Lee (Burroughs), 1953 Ace Double Tarzan in the Forbidden City by ER Burroughs, 1940 LA Bantam w/ Pictorial Cover Shadow and the Voice of Murder by Maxwell Grant, 1940 LA Bantam w/ Pictorial Cover Creature from the Black Lagoon by Vargo Statten, 1954 Dragon Publications Paper Edition (British) Reefer Boy by Hal Ellson, 1957 Pedigree Books (British) Marijuana Girl by NR DeMexico, 1951 UniBooks Digest 1st Ed. Sex Gang by Paul Merchant (Harlan Ellison), 1959 Nightstand 1st Print Any other of the LA Bantam Pictorial Covers Any of the first ten Pocket Books 1st Printings I am mostly dialed into the standard paperback world and don't know the market world of the more hardcore sleaze books from the 60's & 70's but I know there are some paperbacks in that field, like books with Bonfils covers, that go for some coin as well but someone else would have to chime in if any of them would get into the top tier. Can you think of any others?

My copy... This was considered to be the King of all Maguire covers in the early Paperback price guides. I can't argue...

I have seen more that I haven't seen in a long time... (Is that a "Yogi-ism" lol!)

Since Pocket Books don't get enough love on this thread, here's a group shot of some early favorites

There's no doubt that the Good Earth NN Pocket Book is probably the rarest USA paperback. I think in the long haul though, there will be a better market for GGA/SOTI type books like Reform School Girl for the same "titillating" reasons those kinds of books do so well in the comic market. I do collect Pocket's & would love to have one but I view the Good Earth (and the first 10 Pocket Book 1st Prints) kind of like the more innocent early pre-hero comic books that are historically important and rare but not going to excite cover collectors and so not the same market. That said, I have no idea what a copy would sell for since they never come to market.

Decent copy of the Reform School Girl digest popped up on the 'bay this weekend and sold fairly quickly for $525. My current copy is better so I didn't go after it but think that's a healthy price in that condition. It's only the 3rd copy I've seen for sale in the last 2 years and was definitely better than the others. It is so relatively cheap for the top book in the hobby. https://www.ebay.com/itm/REFORM-SCHOOL-GIRL-Original-1948-Paperback-Pulp-VG-F-/223887430826?hash=item3420bb14aa%3Ag%3A0GwAAOSwjONeM7EN&nma=true&si=%2BCwMXSPY5ifUqQhzlTLRG7k%2FZNg%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

I'll play...

September 1945

Yes, very cool & unusual. Peter Kuhlhoff, who only has a few credited works on isfdb, but includes 3 Weird Tales covers in this period. The story is cool too, I read it last night. There's something magic about reading them in this original format.

Ech-pi-el might call it an odious green, perhaps a detestable green...

Here's a couple new additions of Virgil Finlay et al...

Top notch cover art on most of them... be careful, they're addictive

A couple cool pickups... A bizarre Frank Paul bare breasted babe SciFi cover & my first Operator #5. It's very intriguing how the stories pre-suppose Axis victories and Allied resistance.

Here's a couple stacks getting fresh bags...

This Fantasy Press 1st is the one I read. It's a beautiful book.

It's an excellent cover but don't give short shrift to the story, it's one of Jack Williamson's best imho.

Really really happy to be able to add these to the stable...

We sure get a nice variety of different styles in here. It's refreshing.