Surfing Alien

Supersnipe was great, I remember one day buying stacks of mint overstock Avengers Annual 10 & X-Men 150 there back in the day. Other great Manhattan spots were Village Comics on Bleeker Street, Manhattan Comics under the Chelsea Hotel on West 23rd and a bit later in the 90's, Jeff's Comics and Cards on Sullivan Street (Where I met Howard Rogofsky) In Brooklyn you had Pinnochio on McDonald Ave. in Gravesend, Silver Star on Nostrand & Avenue V, Bob's on E.19th & Avenue U & My Friends Book Store on Flatbush Avenue & Foster Avenue and a few others We used to read the Yellow Pages for used book, magazine & comic stores and took buses & trains all over to discover the shops in other areas. It was a great time because any used book store might have a pile. This was mostly before the proliferation of shops in the late 80's and early 90's (and the subsequent crash that wiped out almost every shop in existence)

I remember it on the path of my Manhattan pilgrimages. I was never a big toy guy but I dabbled in them. Sadly it is gone as of 2008. I found a very nice tribute to the store and its owner, Grover Van Dexter online here: https://gvshp.org/blog/2016/08/24/village-people-grover-van-dexter/

The Batcave, Forbidden Planet, St. Marks, & Roger's Comic Shop (before he morphed to The Mysterious Time Machine) in the Village, Big Apple Comics on the upper west side were just some of the haunts in Manhattan - there were lots of smaller shops that popped up here and there that lasted a few years at a time.

Sweet copy!

The thrill never goes away - but it's definitely different than it was "back in the day" I buy very few comics these days, mostly vintage paperbacks & digests because you can still get a relatively cheap old paper thrill in those arenas. I recently bought a pulp for the first time in a long time - which I know you collect for the same reason - vintage thrills at more reasonable prices and un-slabbed enjoyment. I've been selling off the modest comic collection I gathered in the 70's and 80's bit by bit over the last 20 years - and you bet I slabbed every Golden Age book that was worth more than a few hundred dollars. I've gotten top dollar for those books by slabbing them (and no grading hassles) and learned a fair bit about CGC grading in the process. The few comics i've bought have been undervalued but cool (to me) things like old Crime Does Not Pay, just to leaf through them and look at the ads - and of course... smell the paper

Thanks. Yeah, part of the life situation was being a new father though, for which no earthly possessions could surpass You're well on your way - and now you've got the toughest of them all . I've re-acquired some Aces but i'm pretty picky and cheap so it's slow going

This was a small place on Greenwich Avenue, back when you could open a small bookstore in NYC

It was already signed when I got it. An interesting find and a great deal for me. It was in the display case of a (now long gone) rare bookstore in Greenwich Village in the 1980's. The guy had a few other vintage paperbacks and i'd go in there and buy something occasionally and chat with him. He had great stories about the Village and Beats and book lovers. After he found out I was collecting vintage paperbacks we talked about doing some trading and he ended up taking a bunch of lower value but very sharp Ace Sci-FI doubles I had in trade for the Junkie. He was willing to do it because he had it on display for quite a while but no one ponied up the 200 or so bucks he was asking for it and he figured he might do better with some less expensive stuff. We both were winners because I got a spectacular book I could never afford and he actually moved some of those Ace Sci Fi doubles.

My old copy. Life circumstances had me sell it in 2004 but at least Ebay was around unlike when I sold the bulk of my original collection in the mid 90's. I got a pretty penny for it at the time, around 1K IIRC.

Just arrived. You people made me do it! I think I am going to regret picking this up because it's so damn cool and i'm going to want more. I used to have a bunch of pulps back in the day and reading this thread forced me to hit the buy button recently. I really dig the late 40's early 50's Planets with the full length space babe art.I find this one particularly hot and the blurb is awesome.

Congrats! Great pickup. I hope some day to get one back again although I know it will never be as nice as the signed one I had. I have some pics of it somewhere i'll try to dig up.

In a place far away... and a long time ago... there was a man named BOROCK. It was a long time ago and in a place far away that he invented ALL this . But really... it took a nobody like me to mention HIS name. Wow... y'all are really f'd up. I guess crossing the street strips your cred. Pity... He bought a few books from my table at Greenberg shows back when... he was a tough grader then and all but WOW what a poor reception for his grading up in here... There is NO free speech here so i guess i'll see ya'll later or not at all. I have nothing invested here, just a saying...

This is a pure watering down (non large, high grade only) and up as well (speaking for the Universal only) of the Pedigree label, basically, every rule they have ever made in the past was made to be broken by them for future money streams. I'm not bashing them, i'm a capitalist, but expect more as time goes on. As for the ebay deal - that was brilliant. Brand X has made significant inroads (and improvements lately) but this deal, which I assume is an exclusive, immediately stamps CGC as THE authority on the biggest independent marketplace on the planet The other guy can't make that ground up in any way at all. Great marketing coup.

Here's her stepchild. Pretty good shot!

My eyeballs are rolling all around my head. It's boggling to think these were dupes/undercopies of what he has posted.

"She was sleek and tawny and hot-blooded as a tiger" I find that Falcon's are even more difficult than Rainbows and grab them whenever I can find them reasonably. Looks like an un-credited George Gross cover to me?

For you booty lovers... "Andy agreed to rescue Sam's beautiful young daughter, Joyce, from the stranglehold of Dope!" Rainbow's are one of my favorite series and not easy to come by, especially in condition.

Welcome - I love "The Witching Night" cover. I need to get one of those. It's not easy to find anything in the wild anymore. I had a huge collection back in the early '80's that I sold off to pay rent on my first apartment. That was mostly found in the wild in New York City's basements and small bookshops. It was a wonderful time of discovery. I found a near perfect copy of Reform School Girl and a gorgeous signed copy of Burroughs' Junkie in those places. My current collection has come mostly from the internet - where there are still finds to be had if you're patient and know how to search. The prices are all over the place. Books that auctioned for $100, i've found the next day for $10 and vice versa. Some books are everywhere and some are nowhere to be found. I tend to make a good run at what I like if I haven't seen a lot of them and search for the best price/condition ratio on the ones I like that are more commonly available.

I know.... yawn... imagine if this was a high grade comic book cover...

There are several incredible Ace cover paintings in the Crain collection auction over at Heritage. I so wish I had the swag to play in that end of the pool!

I love a "Tough Doll" This book is based on the premise that "Even the knowledge that Jon Russell, Steve's best friend, wanted her was not enough to keep Ann from the life of shame to which she dedicated her gorgeous body..." A checklist compiled online indicates that Erolie Pearl Dern Gaddis had 284 novels published during her lifetime under her various pseudonyms. A wikipedia page boasts that she wrote 3000 words a day, 6 days a week for many years. Talk about laboring in obscurity!

Just living in Florida back then, without AC, was a danger

That's such a pulpy concept - shooting a giant cannon at a star!

Bump... to quote the pulp thread... what would this be worth if it was on a comic book cover? Rodewald got away with some crazy stuff in the fairly mainstream digests

Not a bad copy of a book that don't come up like this