detective35

On 4/21/2024 at 7:59 AM, ThothAmon said:

To me he is the true Father of fantasy artists. Have a couple prints of his paintings hanging in the boudoir. 
 

For some reason, the St. John pulp covers have fallen off (other than of course, the first Conan story appearance from Dec. 32), but people understand the significance/ magnificance of his  paintings as he is unbelievable!

The weird tales golden blood pulp cover has quieted down, but if that cover painting  was ever released from the New Britain Museum, where Bob Lesser donated his collection to, it would set a world record for highest sale of a pulp painting for sure

On 4/20/2024 at 3:32 PM, Sarg said:

Fair enough, but where's the evidence that, e.g., Startling Stories #64 was regarded as classic by collectors "over (a) long period of time"? Covers like this and others so designated by CGC seem very trendy and recent -- unlike Batwoman or Creeping Death, which have been coveted and reproduced many, many times over the past 40 to 50 years. 

Agreed there are more things lately, but I think that's because with Galactic Central being looked at more as most of the pulp covers are displayed. It becomes almost like the photo journal guide in comics and more people are coming into the market and seeing covers they really like.
 

I know myself I've gone over every pulp run and kind of picked out a handful of covers that I consider Are they real classic ones in each run.

now some of them that we're talking about are in the top 10 of all pulp magazines.

On 4/20/2024 at 10:44 AM, Sarg said:

Makes you wonder, what are considered the "classic" covers by the connoisseurs of this forum? It should be a very short list, otherwise the word "classic" loses any meaning. Needless to say, Startling Stories #64 should not be on the list. Not even close. Covers that especially gory, weird, or sexy should not automatically qualify. No Spider or Operator #5 covers are "classic," IMO, though all of them are striking to behold today. A classic has to do more than simply arrest one's vision with lurid action. 

A few off the top of my head:

Shadow - skeleton coming out of curtain - Rozen

WT - Batwoman - Brundage

WT - giant tiger (Golden Blood) - St. John

Shadow - Book of Death with skeleton - Rozen

WT - Skeleton Writing Book - Bok

FFM - Green hooded Skeleton holding people - Finlay

 

 

I'm not going to  get into what individual collectors think is a classic cover,  but more of the collecting community of pulps over long period of time.

I think discerning classic covers by chatting with hundreds of collectors and coming to a common understanding of what multiple people think are classic covers in each title, or what covers are high demand in each run consistently overall long period of time. 

I disagree with the point that there are no classic covered spiders, I think March 34, October 37 and June 1938 are all classic covers for the spider and there could be more,  operator 5 from December 1934 is certainly a classic cover

No one knows the shadow better than I do, and certainly January 1 1933 Shadow millions is a classic cover. The ultimate cover is January 15, 1933 the creeping death. The ultimate shadow image on the cover is the partners of peril from 1936.   Many people like the golden master from 1939 and you can throw in the book of death from the 1940s .  I have missed a few more classic covers (voodoo Master, etc. ). 

However, that goes without saying that one person might think a cover is classic and then another person doesn't which is fine, to each his own.

On 4/20/2024 at 10:10 AM, OtherEric said:

Maybe I missed it, but I think this is the first pulp slab I've seen with the "classic cover" notation, or a variant on one at least.  And I'm not sure it was really considered a classic cover before they used it as the cover on the @Bookery guide.

I have seen a number of slabs that say classic cover on them.

That cover is considered a classic cover by most collectors, although the pulp itself is not rare, quite common actually.

Heritage sold the painting a few years back

On 3/27/2024 at 2:20 PM, Bookery said:

Yes, sorry... forgot that he talked with you.  BTW... I spelled the name wrong above... it's Von Crabill (confirmed on on old ad from the TV station he worked at).  Tom also confirmed that at the time, the books were not referred to as Strassers (they were just called "those pulps that Von picked up")   The Strasser connection was made later from names written on them.  The confusion I made with Spicys vs. Shadows was from the fact that around the same time, from this same area, another collection of very high grade pulps was discovered.  The two collections were polar opposites... the Strasser collection had none of the "girly" titles or covers, while this other collection was almost nothing but.

The second collection would definitely have merited pedigree status, but too little is known about it.  A couple had bought it out of a house and began peddling  it to dealers, and eventually at one of the PulpCons.  I was talking with Tom again today, and we suddenly realized we were describing the same collection that I purchased pulps from 30 years later!  In 2018 an elderly woman (80s) brought in 2 batches of pulps... one was very high grade Weird Tales, the second was Spicys, Horror Stories, Terror Tales, and even one Saucy.  There were about 75 pulps total.  I assumed from the condition they were her husband's original-owner collection.  But no, it turns out they were bought second-hand by them, and they sold most of them decades ago.  But when moving, she found one box they'd forgotten about, and those were the ones I picked up in 2018 (and they were still in magnificent condition!).

Which, to dovetail back to my original point, showcases just how hard it's going to be to ever pinpoint true original-owner pulp pedigrees.  Strasser, Yakima, maybe one or two more will be determined.  But they are just so old and fragile... the combination of original owner, high grade, and a selection of keys usually necessary to what we think of as pedigrees is going to be tough.  Even the Yakimas, being latter-era science-fiction, wouldn't have a lot of what we think of as significant "keys" in them, most sf keys being from the 20s and 30s ( a few classic covers aside).  

The Strasser from December 1933 and 1934 all had Robert Strasser written on them and a code and the Strasser from 1935 to 1941 just had the code on them.

I bought some of those weird tales that you were referring to from that collection in 2018.  I've seen the other batch of horror stories etc that you had and yeah, they are absolutely stunning.

Tim, you are correct about other past groups of books in regards to trying to pedigree them, unless they have a code on them or you can get detailed background information, it is going to be hard to pedigree them.

There is one other group of books that may be a pedigree coming up, and possibly file copies as well from the popular files, but you would have to have the lineage, especially if they do not have the stamp on them, which many of them did not.

Tim

if we're talking about Tom, I've had multiple detailed discussions with him regarding the Strasser collection as he knew Von quite well.
 

I've taken down the notes in detail and he's explained everything in detail as much as he can remember (as far as the church sale that they were at, and where Von Craybill  loaded up the Cadillac with some 1700 to 1800 Strassers lol.)

There were some other people in the area and outside of the area that I obtained other detailed information as well, and Todd did research on Robert Strasser himself.

On 3/27/2024 at 8:22 AM, Bookery said:

Yes, I forgot about the Strassers, but in all fairness, they have been little known until recently outside the hardcore pulp community.  And is there any real listing of them?  They were discovered so long ago (late '70s I think, by Von Crabell right here in my own area... I visited his home about that time, but wasn't paying much attention to pulps then)... this was way before anyone was tracking or even thinking in terms of pedigrees.  Crabell didn't keep a list to the best of my knowledge, and they were dispersed early on (one of my local customers owned a number of the Spicys for a time).  I know you've spent a lot of time tracking them down, but will there ever be a real way of knowing just what actual books belong to the collection beyond shadowy memories of some of the early buyers?  Or am I wrong, and did Crabell maintain an inventory listing?

Matt certainly know about the Strassers!

As I mentioned, they are "all coded" (A, B,  or C Code) w. a fountain pen, as the Mile High's were, it does not get any clearer than this.

Myself and Todd Warren have recorded hundreds of codes, and based on this it was pretty simple to discern how many books were in the collection.  However you need to put in hundreds of hours of detailed research in it ,as we did.  There were between 1700-1800 books in the collection.  There were a few types of titles that were not in the collection.

I have talked extensively with a mutual friend who knew what titles were in the entire collection.   There were NO Spicy's in the Strasser collection.  

The Strassers were found in the late 70's and emerged for sale (sparsely in the 80's), and then in the 90's and just because they were not promoted as a pedigree when they were sold, or a master list, means nothing, you then just have to do the research!!  However, everyone knew how incredible they were at the time, as they were priced double what the other pulps were priced at when they were brought to the Con's (which certainly brought resistance to the pulp community at the time.

High end collectors know about he Strassers, just that they have not been promoted to the new collectors, until a few years ago.  Collectors are either holding tight to them, as they are so stunning, or trying to accumulate them from old-time collections, as I am.   

Tim, I have more info., that I can chat with you about via phone.

Dwight

On 3/26/2024 at 8:08 PM, Robot Man said:

Will CGC give ped status to a Yakima with a photo copy of the cert? I would hate to send the original and lose it like what happened to a Gaines file I sent in early.

I also have a couple file copies I bought from David T Alexander that came from a writer’s files. No certificate but have the eBay listing. Would that count for a notation on the label? 

Good point about the photocopy of the cert.

You could ask Matt and maybe he had allow you to send a photocopy of the certificate when you send it in and keep the original or if you have to send the original certification in, just take a picture of it.

If that's the case and they lose the  certification, Dave will probably have a master list.

As far as file copies go, that's tricky, because if it's a "Popular" file copy and there's no stamp on the outside of the inside. you'll probably have to get as much lineage as possible so it can be traced back to the source of the main people that bought the file copies, or at least back to the people that bought them directly off the original people that got them directly from the Popular warehouse!

On 3/25/2024 at 10:13 PM, tth2 said:

There are many comic collections that are significantly less noteworthy than the Church collection, but they're still given pedigree status.  So I don't think pulp collections should be denied pedigree status just because they don't meet the Church threshold.

Yakima sounds like it already has market acceptance as a pedigree, so CGC should recognize it, just like they recognized a number of pedigrees that had long been accepted by the market before CGC came around, even though some might not have received pedigree status if they'd been assessed under more recent tighter criteria. 

Re:  Pedigrees.

As I mentioned above to Tim.

On 3/26/2024 at 9:14 AM, waaaghboss said:

It is pretty sparse, you'd think a town the size of boise would have at least 1 good book store  😞 Found this in Idaho falls, had to duel with a train just to get out of the parking lot.  Pretty sure I saw a polar bear rummaging through the trash!

😳Pretty sure you have to go 1400 miles NE to find polar bears...LOL!

Maybe black bears.

On 3/16/2024 at 11:34 PM, Darwination said:

Woo!  Gorgeous books.

Can you tell any rhyme or reason with the A/B/C/D markings in the first letter?  It looks like he mainly collected detective and hero titles?

With the hundreds of hours of research done, I still have not been able to figure this out.  There is no evidence !

I've done more research about the Strassers than anyone and neither myself, Todd Warren or anyone else I've been able to figure that out (A,B,C & D codes).  
Almost all the titles were there from the beginning beginning of 1934 to 1941, except for the weird tales Brundage covers horror stories, terror tales, spicy titles, and a few others.l