Surfing Alien

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

Finally got some more digests in A couple of George Gross beauts... A super hi-grade Belarski Nurse Digest and a "BIG" Rainbow that's a little beat on the spine but was a great add-in since I don't have one at all

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

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.

I like the war books but can't collect everything so I usually sell them when I get them. They do have a following though. They sell consistently at the right price. Here's a couple of pretty cool ones from my original collection that was in that long box I uncovered in the garage a couple weeks back.

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

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

Putting away the Day Keene Ace so took a quick group shot of some faves...

@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!

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.

It's been a while.... some fun.... The 1st Lion Book (#8) with a great early Harry Schaare cover. Martin Goodman was on a "Marvelous" track from the get go... A very sharp early Ace with those sweet Norman Saunders covers and one of Donald Westlake's scarce early efforts... gotta pay the bills ya know 😁

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

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.

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.

Just one today but she's a doozy, near the top of the drug/jd heap ...

Some snail mail arrivals A scarce Diversey diversion Dames with stogies Joy by Gross Sinners and a nice copy of the Barton/Marchetti Ace that Pat previously posted

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

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.

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

As Motley Crue might sing... Girls, Girls, Girls...

Sharp little addition to the Lion pile today

Sweet Very much in the Cole style and fits the line well

A hell of a great cover as well!

Here's the only half decent uncreased scan i've seen available on the whole interwebs (possibly my old copy ) It's Canadian actually - Studio Pocket #4 from 1952. It originally was published in Hardcover as "Heed the Thunder" in 1946 and It's not even the 1st paperback edition - that would be the (also Canadian) Newstand Library edition of "Heed the Thunder" from 1949. Both the hardcover and the Newstand Library edition show up in nice shape far more often than the Studio Pocket edition.