- Popular Post
-
When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Book Guy
-
Posts
337 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Forums
CGC Journals
Gallery
Events
Store
Posts posted by Book Guy
-
-
-
-
-
- Popular Post
- Popular Post
The plastic bag makes the covers somewhat dull. This was a very bright and clean example. A Superior Copy! What has this gone for recently?
The ripples are from the bag. It's a beautiful, flat and bright copy. Great spine etc.
None of these are for sale, BTW/ He'll die with 'em!
-
Visited a friend last week who is an avid Weird Tales Collector with a second common friend to catch up on things and view his collection. Was served a great spaghetti dinner and was allowed to handle the Mags! Here are some shots of a few mid-30's highlights. These were formerly Frank Robinson's under copies and are very nice indeed. Better than the pictures show. He also had a number of the 'bed sheet' issues and many from the 1920's. It was fascinating to see the evolution of WT through the years through actual copies spread out in front of you. I had not seen many of the bed sheet issues before. Definitely the Brundage era covers are the best, though there are outstanding covers from all eras. WT is something I was interested in collecting, back in the day, but never quite managed to grab more than a couple of copies and now that ship has sailed!
Enjoy!
- Bugfarm and Surfing Alien
- 2
-
-
On 9/21/2023 at 9:09 PM, Darwination said:
I'm going to go ahead and stick these here since it's an active thread and seems to have a lot of material. I considered the sweat mags thread, but I don't know if these are exactly that.
I've been sorting through 40 boxes today (almost there, good lord, fun tho) and separating books out into type and genre, etc. First time I've ever done a comprehensive sort. I always take cover scans of magazines and pulps (wish I'd done it for all comics and newspapers and tabloids and paperbacks, too) as they come in, so I can see my collection that way, but it's another thing altogether to sort the slicks from the pulps from the modern mags, pulps into genres or titles, etc. I showed off this set (have some dupes,too, not sure if these are all scans of my best copies) to my wife. She sat there with a look of horror at my wonder with these covers. Thomas Beecham, True Strange 1-7. I think I saw the original of one of these cover's original painting sell in the last couple years for like a grand, no love from the art world!
I like TRUE STRANGE as well. I have the Elvis and I think one other, though I don't see it here. Might be wrong
-
Display copies? Hung on the wall? The kid bought them for a discount when the next issue arrived?
-
On 6/23/2023 at 8:31 AM, Number 6 said:
I think this a key point: if customers only have access to your book inventory by walking through your door or the handful of shows you attend you’re going to miss a lot of the interest that’s out there.
Dealers who have their own websites with searchable inventory, or at the very least, sell through sites like ABE or Biblio, seem to be doing fine. Auction sites like HA and PBA Galleries seem to get strong results.
It wasn’t just comics, there was a bunch of quality book material that got snatched up during the lockdowns of ‘20/21. Books aren’t as sexy and pound for pound probably don’t get the same crazy money that comics are getting right now, but there still seems to be strong interest for now.
My best years in business were the pandemic years and this year is still above average. So things went wild in Books too. Also eBay has come of age as a site to sell books with. eBay outsells Amazon and ABE combined for me. The key in the current market (to me at least) is to be more careful about what Books you invest your time in describing, photographing etc. I'm becoming more ruthless on what I pass on-even after I've already paid for it. Unless there is some buying pressure on a Book, I don't want to carry it. Or at least it has to be unusual, scarce, rare in a jacket etc. Otherwise I don't bother to put extra effort into trying and just donate or discard it. This was not my habit in the past, or rather I was more willing to give these marginal books a chance. Also online I don't handle anything below a price of $15.00. And I'm sure that price point will continue to rise. Even at that price point I don't carry much-only items I have a long history of selling and I know will move fairly quickly. And you can't raise the price of slow books to match an arbitrary price floor. There has to be, or seem to be genuine desire for the Book at any particular price. Also, I rarely 'Overprice' deliberately just to see if there is a market for something. Lastly expensive Books punch above their weight-as should seem obvious. They pull in more money for the same amount of work. So I try to have as many of those as possible.
I was somewhat surprised about how well Stephen King still sold. I got a lot of his Books recently, sometimes in multiple copies, mostly sharp. It had been a few years since I handled a large number of his Books. Usually they trickle in one at a time, usually with reading wear etc. So I was surprised at how much the prices had risen (Pandemic!) so I experimented with the prices on these by pricing them higher than I would have considered 3 years ago but not in the nosebleed environs of the top priced copies. They sold pretty well and I was uncertain any would sell at those sort of prices. So he's still solid for me.
Another example is LONESOME DOVE. I sold 2 (maybe 3) copies of nice copies in jackets at $200 or so. It's a common Book and its time is somewhat past. None sold overnight but each took a month or two to sell but it showed there was still ample demand.
A walk in Bookstore is almost a thing of the past.
Younger people still want Books but what exactly they want is not fully formed yet. For example if they like Beat Lit, they might desire to own First Editions or conversely be satisfied with a 1972 paperback reprint of ON THE ROAD considering it to be a Vintage 'Beat Era' artifact. Time will tell.
-
- Popular Post
- Popular Post
On 6/21/2023 at 6:52 AM, Bookery said:The most alarming collapse of all has to be the rare/used book market. There were collectors for rare and out-of-print books almost since the invention of the printing press. It was a huge viable market for 500 years! Then in a quick 20 year span it all collapsed. Sure... as has been stated, there are plenty of nosebleed rarities purchased by elites... but many of these are just valuable for being valuable. Nobody has been reading Fitzgerald or Hemingway or Steinbeck for a couple of generations, and the only reason some of those prices remain high is because they always have been. More precipitous is simply the fall of the general used book. You think $1 comic bins are a tumble from $5 retail price? Try buying $25 hardbacks that are tough sell at $1 a year later. There is some increasing interest in vintage paperbacks, as there has been with pulps... but that's more to do with cover art than the content within. I love rare books and still carry some in my shop... but that's out of my own nostalgia rather than a sound business decision. Rare books, stamps, coins... these were traditionally the gold standard of collectibles. "Pop culture" collectibles have always been even more ephemeral... with most being popular for only a few years (Beanie Babies) to a few decades (Big Little Books, Hummels, Coca-Cola tie-ins, all-things western) before ultimately having no interest for a new generation.
Absolutely not true! I bought a nice collection with lots of Literary First Edition material about 4 months ago and have been selling the heck out of it. Steinbeck, Hemingway, Stephen King, E F Benson (in jackets), Faulkner, Sci Fi more and more and more. What they have in common is that they are popular authors in good condition with jackets. Usually 'classic'; Authors and not 80's-90's flavor of the month. USUALLY according to my database, they sold for a lot more than they sold the last time that I had one. I was somewhat shocked at how much really nice copies of 'middle period' Stephen King sold for. However, that said I was never at the absolute top of the market. Dealers who sold at the elite level may be having trouble finding customers, but I don't have experience in that realm.
I bought a large collection of Military & Western Americana about 18 months ago. Western America is becoming increasingly hard to sell given cultural & demographic changes but they also sold surprisingly well albeit at 'reasonable' prices. California County Histories did well. Military still has a strong readership. In both areas I only bothered to list books that had some demand behind them and didn't bother with the true low end of the market. I've done this for about 50 years so I have a good eye for what is common and what people actually want.
I am semi-retired so I didn't try to 'push' the prices and that along with careful selection is the key. It is a stock-pickers market right now. You list the right books t the right prices and they sell just fine.
That being said, your larger point is true. What has collapsed is the middle of the market, both middling demand and middling prices. Also maybe middling condition as well. Demographic and generational cohort changes are playing themselves out but the final resolution to that is probably past the end of my career so I don't worry about it. If I buy something that sold in the past, but now there are simply too many copies online or most especially too many CHEAP copies, I don't bother to list them, just donate them to a Thrift. Part of that has to do with my short time horizon. Ten years ago I might have listed them and waited. Not anymore.
I will also note that if not for my most recent purchases my monthly sales would be tepid at best, but that's always the way it is. What sells best is always your newest material. After you have it for a while everybody who is currently looking for a copy has seen yours and you are just wishin' and hopin' until somebody new enters the market. That's always been the way it was.
People who have walk-in shops seem to be doing less well than me and your analysis is probably spot on for those people. Having a bricks and mortar Bookstore seems hard nowadays.
For people who are mostly comic collectors and not that interested in Books, I'll point out that Books and Comics sell differently from each other. There is a very strong emotional/psychological will to buy for comic collectors, a deep and ready market for 'keys' and history of fevered speculation and (mostly) rising prices None of those really apply to Books in the same way. Most Books (except say 'necessary' or 'useful' Books like Textbooks, repair Manuals etc) seem to be bought almost on a whim! There has always been some speculation and flipping in the Book World, but really a tiny fraction of what is common w/ comics.
In short: pick the right books and price them reasonably and they will still sell. The percentage of the available Books that are 'right' is a diminishing percentage of what's available though. I would agree with you that it is a fading business, more like an Antique business than the Book business of yore. However it's still viable and will continue to be.
-
Wow!
TWO Scuba Covers!
-
WOW! Great Stuff! I've never seen any of them. Lots of True Crime. Was that typical of Canadian Pulps? I loved the CRACKED DETECTIVE and HISTOIRE! Mystery Fiction Canadian Pulps must be quite rare. Wow again!
-
- Frisco Larson and bc
- 2
-
- bc and Frisco Larson
- 2
-
- Frisco Larson and bc
- 2
-
- Frisco Larson and bc
- 2
-
- bc and Frisco Larson
- 2
-
- Frisco Larson and bc
- 2
-
-
-
- bc and Frisco Larson
- 2
-
- bc and Frisco Larson
- 2
-
- Frisco Larson and bc
- 2
-
- bc and Frisco Larson
- 2
The WEIRD TALES Thread: Collecting The Unique Magazine
in Pulp Magazines
Posted
Last one for today at least. Price sticker is on the bag.