asimovpulps

It feels like we need an entire thread dedicated to The Ghost Table. If nothing else, those three words are a great secret pass phrase to suss out whether someone is a True Pulp Collector or just a pretender

Back to the topic at hand, what is the Boardie wisdom on clipped ads in otherwise mid-high grade pulps? Will these be green label if they don't impact the story? Should I avoid like the plague or just treat it like it's a grade lower? Looking at a few which have clipped ads so really appreciate the advice!

I tend to let these things go pretty quickly, and my guess is not showing the spines may have actually made them more money (in the short term at least). The $18 shipping charge on the single $45 pulp I won....that one rankles me a bit more...especially since shipping rates weren't published and priority mail is pretty expensive and only costs ~$8.50 at retail rates. Fun auction to watch, lots of cool books, some weird prices, and definitely some room to improve the experience. But life goes on. And the silver lining is it led to a fun discussion on pulp spines and some awesome pictures of @jimjum12and @RedFury's collection.

...the day it came off the press! That's an unbelievable copy @jimjum12and probably the gold standard of what one could find these days. For the rest of us, if you can still read the words on the spine then that's a small victory. Here are a few of mine with varying degrees of spine fading to give some additional context. Interestingly, when WT went to yellow letters on a red spine it made the problem worse because the red degrades to yellow and makes the words difficult to read (see January 1933 and July 1934 below). The older copies had blue/black letters, so spine fading doesn't look nearly as bad (see Feb/June 1926 below).

Not only that, but a number of Pulps (rough guess 25-40% of the ones I was eyeing) didn't include pictures of the back or spine, which made it impossible to gut check the grade. I know spines aren't easy to scan but as @RedFurysaid it matters a lot more when you're attaching an 8.0 to a pulp which very rarely appears in 6.0+. I ended up not bidding on a number of books because I didn't feel comfortable with the scans.... ...though I ended up not winning a number of books because they went for 2-3x what I wanted to pay...

I'm curious if you know the print run estimates for WT across the different eras? I vaguely remember (with absolutely no evidence, so it could have been a dream) an estimate of ~50k. Given what I've gleaned from quick research, Weird Tales was constantly in dire financial straits so probably couldn't have supported a massive print run at any point in its history. For comparison, it looks like Action #1 had a print run ~200,000 which eventually reached ~1 million per month. ## WARNING: Begin nerdy rant ## There's a concept in economics called "velocity of money", essentially the number of times a piece of currency goes through the economy in a given time period. For comics, it feels like the "velocity" is very high as the same comic may be sold multiple times in a given year. That seems to be driven by a number of factors including: 1) enough supply to create viable demand (as @Bookery pointed out), 2) transparency into the product quality (CGC grading), and 3) price discovery (lots of publicly visible transactions). In Pulps, your guide + eBay + these auctions help with price discovery (even if some Auction prices seem whacky, part of why we know they're whacky is we have other price data points), CGC appears to be around the corner with grading to standardize quality....so the final question is around supply... ## End nerdy rant ## -Matt

I doubt it makes a difference, but I for one am eternally grateful you did. I just got into pulps last year and I've essentially read your guide cover to cover. Between @Bookeryand the Boardies on here patiently answering my basic questions, it's made collecting a lot of fun and led me to a lot of great discoveries. Plus multiplying everything by 10 in your head isn't that hard 🙂

A workaround - you can change the drop down option in the search bar from "Comics" to "Sold" and then search by title/title + year/etc. That will show you all recent sales, but most pulps are just from this auction. Not quite as intuitive as Heritage, but it'll get you what you need

Posted my copy on the last page, but interesting that the Canadian WT reissue of the Shadow Over Innsmouth did choose to feature Lovecraft on the cover only a few months after the US issue did not.

This is fascinating, I never realized the discrepancy from year to year and just assumed the one of the right was trimmed. Is there a source of precise/accurate measurements of untrimmed pulps somewhere? Isfdb.org gives categorical measurements and classifies both issues you posted as "Bedsheet - 8.25" by 11.25" magazines" which won't help a grader much. But a source of measurements could be a good way to both assess level of trimming (X inches/mm of trim) and accelerate how quickly graders can identify a trimmed copy in the wild west of pulps. Sounds like a terrifying undertaking, but the second best time to plant a tree is today...Maybe these measurements make it into @Bookery Guide for the Pulps - Third Edition..... -Matt

Curious what folks think about Pulps without overhangs which are trimmed? Should they be treated the same/differently as those with overhangs? Untrimmed, no overhang: Trimmed (look at story title on bottom right):

Just spit balling...but my name also happens to be Matt and it sounds like you all are waiting for my decision ... I wonder if there's a hybrid approach between Blue Label and PLOD, where you grade the pulp first without regard to trimming and then note TRIMMED on the actual grade sticker and some notation of degree (somewhat similar to the APPARENT and CONSERVED marks on PLOD slabs). This opens up the full range of grades to allow for more nuance in grading, but still clearly calls out the trimming as a defect without the negative connotations of PLOD. Assuming trimming is as common as it sounds, the alternative approach where trimming just caps out at a certain grade (call it VG) would force trimmed issues into a very tight grading band that might create issues in itself. Agreed @detective35 that the masses will ultimately decide relative value. Caveat: my bias is as a low/mid grade collector, so may be wildly different than collecting high grade

Thanks for sharing, super exciting! This feels like the right move, especially since trimming will still be factored into grade. I believe Bookery caps at VG for trimmed issues - though my sense is CGC may lift that cap to FN- or FN+ for otherwise pristine copies to avoid a huge glut at VG. I'd imagine with CGC still staffing up + the tsunami of initial submissions, we're probably still looking at 9-12+ months until we actually see slabs on the market? Over/under?

Yeah I'm having trouble tracking down who did the interior art for the Canadian version, and for that matter why they wouldn't have kept the Bok illustrations... naive guess is that it involved The cover art was done by Edmond Good and seems more true to Bok's interpretation.

Let's keep the party going. Here's a fun issue which is one of only four Lovecraft covers. From what I've gathered from fellow boardies (thanks as always @OtherEricfor the knowledge), this is a bit of a tough find: Weird Tales May 1942 (Canadian) with Shadow Over Innsmouth cover (originally printed in January 1942 US WT). Really nice copy too, very happy to add it to the collection! Just missing that 1924 Houdini issue of the 4 HPL covers now

Sad to be nearing the end of the daily Lovecraft series. Thanks for sharing your collection @OtherEric!

I'm going to need some more popcorn at this rate...

Good luck everyone! My bids are already in the rear view mirror, so I'll be and sending my good vibes to everyone else

Sharing a few highlights from a big batch of Astoundings which arrived last week. Had quite a bit of fun unpacking this box! Complete At the Mountains of Madness by Lovecraft from Feb-April 1936. Shadow Out of Time by Lovecraft in June 1936. Dangerous Dimension by Hubbard (first Astounding appearance) in July 1938. Who Goes There by John Campbell later adapted into The Thing in August 1938. Lifeline by Heinlein, his first published sci fi story in August 1939.

Two treasures from a weekend pulp hunt in the real world. Definitely wasn't expecting to add these to the collection any time soon, let alone in the same day. Both dinged up (missing back covers), but no complaints from me. Weird Tales December 1932 - first Conan story by Robert E Howard Amazing Stories September 1927 - A Colour Out of Space by Lovecraft

Keeping the party going - not looking to sell, but wanted to share since it's a relatively recent addition to my collection. Cheers!

A pulp (bedsheet, technically) which needs no introduction. Maybe in the 25th century, time travel will exist so someone can go back and stop the person who wrote all over the cover

Great question and agreed on classic series/storyline as the projects I tend to enjoy most. That's how I started (Foundation series) and first branched out (Dune - if we want to be loose in our "pulp" definition), and they were some of the most memorable issues I've collected....even if I overpaid for a few as part of my "learning experience tax". I'm actually not done with I, Robot which is surprising given I really went all in with the AsimovPulps screen name... . The ones I have left are easier to find mid-40s to 1950s digests so the just haven't been top of mind. But that could be a fun (and less expensive) one to fully complete. I'll take a look at the few of the storylines you mentioned and see if any pique my interest, thanks for sharing! I considered diving into Lovecraft for about 3.5 seconds until I realized it was very expensive and seemingly impossible undertaking, but I am still looking for that elusive April 1936 Astounding to round out Mountains of Madness. Almost done reading the actual story, though I ended up reading the ebook scans of the pulps so as not to destroy the fragile copies I have. Thanks as always for the suggestions! Matt

Mail day! Startling Stories - September 1939 featuring the first (to my knowledge) pulp cover by Alex Schomburg. I've now completed my "grab it just for the cover" wish list, which was admittedly only this one and the Amazing Stories - April 1928 issue I posted previously. Completing a list is nice but making a new one is even better, so I'm happy to hear any recommendations Cheers, Matt

Two down (Feb + March 1936), one to go (April 1936) to complete my set of At The Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft in Astounding Stories. Thanks @OtherEric for the introduction to Lovecraft. Not the best copy (the "March" on the spine almost fell off as I was bagging + boarding...) but hard to complain anytime you can get your hands on one of these.