Comics, Pulps, and Paperbacks: Why such a discrepancy in values? 25 25

[Surfing Alien]

Fantasy of a Dealer table... ya gotta let 'em breathe once in a while...

[PopKulture]

On 11/11/2020 at 1:11 PM, damonwad said:

Some Irish.

Once again, amazing high-grade examples! I don't know how you keep coming up with such nice examples with everyone at home scouring online n all...

I know you've mentioned you like to actually (gasp!) read your books - are you able to do so without damaging them? I'd be scared to open them beyond two inches or so, so perhaps you are adept at reading at an angle?  

[damonwad]

2 hours ago, PopKulture said:

Once again, amazing high-grade examples! I don't know how you keep coming up with such nice examples with everyone at home scouring online n all...

I know you've mentioned you like to actually (gasp!) read your books - are you able to do so without damaging them? I'd be scared to open them beyond two inches or so, so perhaps you are adept at reading at an angle?  

Thanks, but with all the other cool books being posted I'm obviously missing plenty. Now if I could only find that show where SurfingAlien's table is set up at.

 No "angle" reading. Except for the digests, I need to get reading copies of most of the others. It's a pain, but with some exceptions, I can usually find beat up copies for a few bucks and pass on the ones I don't destroy to family and friends. I also recently got a Kindle Oasis as a gift and am surprised I like it so much. I still much prefer books, but as my eyesight dwindles with age, it's nice to have the adjustable brightness and font sizes. Having a gazillion books to choose from doesn't hurt either.

[OtherEric]

Like I said, I've been looking to get some Woolrich to read recently.  The Pocket 257 is a 5th printing, the 570 is a 1st.  The Hard Case is obviously a recent book, but I do love the Hard Cases for trying to recreate that vintage feel.  I also got in a few Argosies with Woolrich that will show up over in the Pulp forum:

[Surfing Alien]

14 hours ago, OtherEric said:

I do love the Hard Cases for trying to recreate that vintage feel. 

That is a nice look, and the Popular Library edition Damonwad posted is one of the scarcer ones to find (and rarely goes cheap)

The Phantom Lady was a fun read.

[Surfing Alien]

15 hours ago, damonwad said:

Now if I could only find that show where SurfingAlien's table is set up at.

NFS! I did say it was a fantasy . 

I'm not making the mistake of selling again, but I will (and do) sell my undercopies as I upgrade.

You do pick up exceptional copies  I love my minty books but my net is wider so i've become willing to pick up lesser copies if the price is right. a) I can read them, if I want to, and  b) upgrade if the right opportunity comes along. 

Some books i'm looking for never seem to show up in any kind of nice shape 

[Surfing Alien]

The mystery deepens. 1st print nn#6 with 12 titles and globe endpapers... laminated.

I have to say, the laminate is so thin and peely, I can imagine they tried it out on the first runs and gave up. The vast majority of 1st prints i've seen online or in hand don't have it and don't show traces so they must've printed them with and without in the 1st prints.

That said, this is a very cool, fat volume, in better shape than usually seen. I mean they are usually thrashed and heavily spine rolled so i've never bought one before. There are some cool interior illustrations as well, including a familiar skull 

[damonwad]

1 hour ago, Surfing Alien said:

NFS! I did say it was a fantasy . 

What?!  I already bought my tickets for Memphis.

 

[damonwad]

55 minutes ago, Surfing Alien said:

The mystery deepens. 1st print nn#6 with 12 titles and globe endpapers... laminated.

I have to say, the laminate is so thin and peely, I can imagine they tried it out on the first runs and gave up. The vast majority of 1st prints i've seen online or in hand don't have it and don't show traces so they must've printed them with and without in the 1st prints.

That said, this is a very cool, fat volume, in better shape than usually seen. I mean they are usually thrashed and heavily spine rolled so i've never bought one before. There are some cool interior illustrations as well, including a familiar skull 

Another nice one and interesting about the lamination.  I like the interior illustrations too and don't think I have any pb's with them.  

[OtherEric]

1 hour ago, Surfing Alien said:

The mystery deepens. 1st print nn#6 with 12 titles and globe endpapers... laminated.

I have to say, the laminate is so thin and peely, I can imagine they tried it out on the first runs and gave up. The vast majority of 1st prints i've seen online or in hand don't have it and don't show traces so they must've printed them with and without in the 1st prints.

That said, this is a very cool, fat volume, in better shape than usually seen. I mean they are usually thrashed and heavily spine rolled so i've never bought one before. There are some cool interior illustrations as well, including a familiar skull 

 

Very interesting...

I suppose this could be a prototype of some sort as well.  Alternately, they could have run a small number of the original press run with laminate as a whole.  Which doesn't explain the color shift on The Big Four...

Or it may just be a reminder that, at this late date, we may never figure out exactly what was going on during the start-up of paperback printing!

Awesome pick-up, in any case.

[Pat Calhoun]

" I like the interior illustrations too and don't think I have any pb's with them. "

Here's a great illustrated 1963 PB  with 8 full-page Finlay plates. Text highlights include outstanding solo performances by that fantabulous husband and wife team: with Henry Kuttner contributing 'The Citadel of Darkness' - a Prince Raynor tale that's a compact masterpiece, and one of CL (Catherine) Moore's Jirel of Joiry classics, 'Hellsgarde'. Also, Clark Ashton Smith is here with one of his most awesomely cosmic yarns, 'The Testament of Athammaus'.

[Surfing Alien]

3 hours ago, damonwad said:

What?!  I already bought my tickets for Memphis.

 

"When you haven't got a prayer...                          You got a prayer in Memphis..."

[Surfing Alien]

3 hours ago, OtherEric said:

Alternately, they could have run a small number of the original press run with laminate as a whole. 

I think this is the most likely scenario as i've seen a few others (including a copy of #11 on ebay now.) Your color shift is more likely a trial run, although, as you say, we may never know.

[frozentundraguy]

Took a brief break from sci-fi and mystery as I found this book in the wild a few days ago. Somehow I had never gotten around to reading a Doc Savage story until now.  Originally written in 1934 Doc's team of 5 experts in various fields foreshadows various comic book teams. For some reason the S.A. team of Challengers of the Unknown comes to mind first.

[Surfing Alien]

How much would it be worth if it was a comic book? Probably Norman Saunders most "shocking" pb digest cover. I grabbed this one because I used to have a nice one but haven't seen any in a couple of  years.

[OtherEric]

20 hours ago, frozentundraguy said:

Took a brief break from sci-fi and mystery as I found this book in the wild a few days ago. Somehow I had never gotten around to reading a Doc Savage story until now.  Originally written in 1934 Doc's team of 5 experts in various fields foreshadows various comic book teams. For some reason the S.A. team of Challengers of the Unknown comes to mind first.

1 Doc Savage Paperback down, 131 to go!

Curiously, that's actually the Doc Savage paperback with the highest total print run, even more than the first book.

[frozentundraguy]

3 hours ago, OtherEric said:

1 Doc Savage Paperback down, 131 to go!

Curiously, that's actually the Doc Savage paperback with the highest total print run, even more than the first book.

131    The story is quite good in this one, perhaps that explains the high print run.

[OtherEric]

9 minutes ago, frozentundraguy said:

131    The story is quite good in this one, perhaps that explains the high print run.

132 total.  96 stories in single volumes; 15 double volumes (numbered 97-126); 13 Omnibus editions (numbered 1-13) that have 4 or 5 stories in each; and 8 new novels.  The doubles are the hardest to track down in general, although each era has some books that are harder and some that are easier to locate.  It took me about 20 years to put together the run.

Most of my copies are in storage, but I've picked up several duplicates over the years, and not all of those have made it to storage to compare with my other copies.  Here are the first and last books in the reprint series.  Not sure why I have a copy of #1 beat up like that; I suspect it was in a quarter bin at goodwill or something and I couldn't resist rescuing it:

[OtherEric]

And here's one from another pulp reprint series that you don't see nearly as often; it's the only one of the Corinth Operator #5's I have... which helpfully reprints one of the few issues of the pulp that I don't have yet:

[Pat Calhoun]

Here's a wild surmise: did Con read comics? Police #1 is Aug 1941 & novel's first appearance is Jul 1942