Surfing Alien

1 hour ago, Randall Dowling said:

Another Phantom.  This one is probably the nicest condition copy of any of them that I've seen.  Just gorgeous.  Of the first 14 US Phantoms, I now have 10.  

 

You, sir, are on the right track 

Su-wheat!!!

13 minutes ago, Randall Dowling said:

My least favorite (aside from this kind of damage) is when they use so much tape that just trying to get the book out is a risky endeavor.  Worse still, when some of that tape is on the book...

I get this all the time but i'll take it over the alternative except for the "on the book" part

7 minutes ago, Randall Dowling said:

Awww, man... that's lame.  I've definitely had my fair share of messed up shipping with both pbs and mags but this one is very tough.  Sorry to see it, SA! 

My least favorite (aside from this kind of damage) is when they use so much tape that just trying to get the book out is a risky endeavor.  Worse still, when some of that tape is on the book...

 

To be fair, the seller was a pro about it, straight refund, no return, but we both lamented the fate of such a nice copy of a classic cover after surviving 60 years  

He did wrap it in cardboard as well that is not in pics but it just got crushed somewhere...

Alas this one did not fare so well. I know we all have USPS horror stories, this one stung because it's my favorite Berkley cover along with Black Opium, and difficult to find as nice as it was with the white cover 

I mean, you really have to be trying, to fold a book so hard that the pressurized corner explodes into dust 

1 hour ago, damonwad said:

Does anyone know the artist on The Short Night? 

Nice gritty thing it is but no info that I can see quickly

44 minutes ago, OtherEric said:

A trio from my local book store today.  The Bart House is nice because it's the first time I've ever seen one from that publisher; it will make a good placeholder until I track down one or both of the Lovecrafts.  The Dell is #9; I couldn't resist a single digit mapback.  I don't suppose anybody knows how to identify what printing/state it is?  And the NN Avon (#35) speaks for itself, I think.  A very good use of my limited budget today, I think; although the store had gotten in close to 200 books from the 40's or earlier and I had to be choosy...

That's a good day sir 🤟🤟🤟 Don't think that Dell is a later print. No sure way to tell that I know of but most of these were one and done, even the bestsellers.  I have seen a few of, what do look like, later printings and they're usually skinnier and they'll have later numbers advertised in the back. That's about all you got to go by.

1 hour ago, Randall Dowling said:

Well, it's been a while since I last posted in here.  Work's been busy but I've managed to bring in a few new books.  These arrived today.  Speaking of Ace D-series single copies...

These two little gems were pretty exciting:

And I really like the cover art to this minty copy.  Plus, I'm in kind of a military history phase right now.

 

Sweet books.  I don't think I ever noticed quite how see-through that Yankee Pasha outfit top was  Crazy for a Dell 

8 hours ago, OtherEric said:

I think I've got 10 1/2 of those.  Somewhere I've got the weird "Special Edition" of D-110 that only has "The 1000-Year Plan" side of the book.

Nice... I think they reissued the single in the 500's IIRC

5 hours ago, Randall Dowling said:

I think technically, a stogie is neither a cigar or cigarette, but more like a cheroot.  However, when I was young during my misspent youth, we used the term to describe all manner of long, thin, rolled up smokable things.  Cigarettes included.  

@OtherEric, no offense taken  Growing up on the streets of the inner city my experience was the same as RD's. No one asked to bum a cigarette. It was "got a stogie?" Other smokables had various nicknames but "don't bogie that stogie" was a specific social admonition for those who tarried too long during the ritual of sharing Ah youth!

26 minutes ago, Randall Dowling said:

What a great bunch of books, SA!  That Day Keene is particularly desirable!  

Thanks... The reds are slightly faded but the structure is crazy... I don't think it has ever been opened... I did very carefully 

Campus Doll is super-campy fun and scarce too but I think "Hungry Men" is my favorite.

Aside from Schaare's moody, stogie smoking chick and leering dude... it's like Marvel #1 for gritty pb's (The Red Circle's are great but Lion is the Golden Age for Goodman in paperbacks) and sets the mood for all the shabby PBO realism that followed by Thompson, Goodis, Matheson, Bloch etc. etc. in the Lion imprint.

I like how Pocket handled fat books, they split them into two volumes. The Hunchback is 657 pages combined.

On 5/18/2019 at 4:43 PM, Surfing Alien said:

Picked up the nicest copies of these two that i've seen in years. Must've been unread.

Most copies are beat to hell with an occasional survivor that looks okay, but never see them with unbroken spines.

Pages are white as well. Nice Avati cover on The Fountainhead.

Here's an old post with the Rand books - I dug them out and The Fountainhead is 715 pages, Atlas Shrugged is 1084 - all of the Signet "Triple's" are pretty fat, I recall James Jones' "From Here to Eternity" being one of them.  OtherEric is right about the Ace 1st pb of Dune - I think it's about 500 pages. I don't have a copy of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich but I remember seeing it and it may be the fattest standard commercial paperback title. I'm only counting standard commercial pb's because of course there are super fat trade paperbacks like the English literature anthologies used for college lit classes that are five inches thick and probably 2000 pages, but we're talking vintage pb's here.

1 hour ago, damonwad said:

A couple Ace Doubles. 

I read the Norton books (including Sargasso of Space) last week and they were fun reads.

 

Also, a classic that I'll re-read someday and the new "fattest" paperback in my collection (570 pages).

 

 

Pretty copies 

I need to re-read "Grapes" myself, when I don't have a semester end deadline to enjoy it more   I think my fattest is either Dune or one of the Signet Ayn Rand books, i'll have to check them.

Love Norton's yarns, they're great adventures.

Robert Silverberg, is a whole other level in my mind. His early books are fun reads but starting with "Thorns" in 1967, through "The Stochastic Man" in 1976, he wrote a body of work that is mind boggling in variety, originality and character depth. They're very psychological and soul-baring, not swashbuckling adventures, so not everyones cup of tea but I love them. "A Time of Changes", "The Book of Skulls" and "Dying Inside" are my favorites.

On 8/25/2020 at 12:57 PM, Robot Man said:

Killer! I knew i'd seen this classic swipe but couldn't locate which pulp. Looking at the online archives, there's quite a few G-Men Belarski covers re-used on Popular Library's 

1 hour ago, damonwad said:

Does anyone know how to tell the first printings of the early Avon's? 

Do they need to have the Globe endpapers?  Do they also need a certain number of available Avon titles listed on back (this copy has 16)?

 Nice book. Globe end papers mean 1st printing every time, off the top of my head  I'm not sure at which "no number" they ended the globe endpapers. The no numbers go up to number 40 I think and I'm pretty sure the later ones did not have globe end papers. For those you can only tell 1st print by being roughly near the number of the book in hand. They released a couple at a time so it will only be the exact number for certain ones.

11 hours ago, catman76 said:

I knew I recognized that cover and I swear there is an album cover photo of this same woman but I can't find it right now.

Cool find. Lets just say that Avon was very thrifty with their artwork. I assume the artists got nothing extra for the multiple usages