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

[Surfing Alien]

On 6/4/2023 at 12:14 PM, Sarg said:

The guy's facial expression ... 

How many early Avons have photo covers? These must not have sold much, explaining why they soon went to all painted covers.

I know, he don't want no lovin'   Around when Donald Wollheim became editor at Avon (1948 I think), they tried out a lot of different things, from photo covers in the late 1940's and then gradually going all paintings with much better artists in the Raymond Johnson/Bill Randall style, full tilt by late 1949.

[Surfing Alien]

On 6/4/2023 at 1:54 PM, Pat Calhoun said:

Classic Avon GGA!  It's funny, in between the photo cover and this crazy one, Avon had Bill Randall paint a lighter cover with the title toned down for the Diversey Novel Library series, which is scarce also.

 

[moonpool]

[Surfing Alien]

On 6/4/2023 at 7:41 PM, moonpool said:

Wowzers! We've now posted all the classic vintage pb editions of this book!

[OtherEric]

On 6/4/2023 at 4:20 PM, Surfing Alien said:

100%. Way harder. Sci-Fi collectors have hoarded everything compared to other genre collectors. OtherEric and I have discussed this and the Westerns are even tougher to find, although usually cheaper, since they are less collected.

To make a VERY general statement, I think on average you'll pay about double for a D-Series Mystery double what you would pay for a SF or Western, with tons of qualifiers based on demand for the specific book and so on, of course.  You'll pay about the same for an average Western or SF book, but you'll see about 100 SF doubles for every Western double you run into.

If you want REALLY scarce, look for the handful that aren't in any of the three main categories.

[Surfing Alien]

So, as I mentioned over in my sales thread, this happened this weekend in my old Comic Room

 

After I figure out my shelf configurations, I'm going through my whole collection and installing them in the cabinets. They're 15" deep so I can double shelf even the Digests and still have room to display at the front of the shelf. I put some PKD's on a shelf to get a gist of how it's gonna look. Pardon the glare.

 

 

[Randall Dowling]

Looks great, SA! 

[Book Guy]

On 6/4/2023 at 4:20 PM, Surfing Alien said:

100%. Way harder. Sci-Fi collectors have hoarded everything compared to other genre collectors. OtherEric and I have discussed this and the Westerns are even tougher to find, although usually cheaper, since they are less collected.

The later Ace Double westerns seem to turn up fairly often. Almost nobody collects them or collected them back in the day but I still see them around. The Mysteries almost uniformly have great covers. The earliest D Westerns also have very Pulpy Covers, but they are Westerns so I just don't care much emotionally!

[Book Guy]

On 6/4/2023 at 9:47 PM, OtherEric said:

To make a VERY general statement, I think on average you'll pay about double for a D-Series Mystery double what you would pay for a SF or Western, with tons of qualifiers based on demand for the specific book and so on, of course.  You'll pay about the same for an average Western or SF book, but you'll see about 100 SF doubles for every Western double you run into.

If you want REALLY scarce, look for the handful that aren't in any of the three main categories.

The Wodehouse I see around. I sold a copy earlier this year. The others are pretty hard. There won't be much buying pressure on them as they fly under the radar of genre collectors so the prices might be reasonable. Other than the Wodehouse it looks like the others are French Authors in translation. An Editorial idea that didn't pan out?

 

[Sarg]

On 6/4/2023 at 6:41 PM, moonpool said:

Now you're talkin'!

[Sarg]

On 6/4/2023 at 11:47 PM, OtherEric said:

To make a VERY general statement, I think on average you'll pay about double for a D-Series Mystery double what you would pay for a SF or Western, with tons of qualifiers based on demand for the specific book and so on, of course.  You'll pay about the same for an average Western or SF book, but you'll see about 100 SF doubles for every Western double you run into.

If you want REALLY scarce, look for the handful that aren't in any of the three main categories.

 

 

Nice. For Wodehouse's early USA pbs, I was only aware of Dell's "Code of the Woosters" with the mapback. Good to know there's more with painted covers.

[Randall Dowling]

On 6/5/2023 at 7:32 PM, Sarg said:

Nice. For Wodehouse's early USA pbs, I was only aware of Dell's "Code of the Woosters" with the mapback. Good to know there's more with painted covers.

Even better is the fact that those are all Norm Saunders covers. 

[OtherEric]

On 6/5/2023 at 4:09 PM, Book Guy said:

The Wodehouse I see around. I sold a copy earlier this year. The others are pretty hard. There won't be much buying pressure on them as they fly under the radar of genre collectors so the prices might be reasonable. Other than the Wodehouse it looks like the others are French Authors in translation. An Editorial idea that didn't pan out?

 

I think you're right about the editorial idea that didn't work.  I actually have a weird theory that the reason Shame was the first book Ace reprinted was because it didn't sell well as a single.  My guess, and it's purely a guess, is that they had to release the translation of Therese Raquin they had commissioned, but were afraid it would also do poorly.  So they added the Shame reprint to drive the price of the book up a dime, hoping it would at least recoup the cost of having the translations done.

[OtherEric]

A couple in today.  I saw the Avon in @Surfing Alien's sale thread, and it looked interesting.  But didn't want to pay a premium copy price to actually read the thing, so found a cheap copy online and actually got moderately lucky in terms of condition.  The G-8 speaks for itself, I need to figure out how many Steranko paperback covers I still need.  I'm pretty sure I've got at least around 2/3 of them...

 

[Surfing Alien]

On 6/6/2023 at 12:23 AM, OtherEric said:

A couple in today.  I saw the Avon in @Surfing Alien's sale thread, and it looked interesting.  But didn't want to pay a premium copy price to actually read the thing, so found a cheap copy online and actually got moderately lucky in terms of condition.  The G-8 speaks for itself, I need to figure out how many Steranko paperback covers I still need.  I'm pretty sure I've got at least around 2/3 of them...

 

That's pretty nice, it has the usual fade of the blue to gray but the cover looks smooth  They pop up but usually faded and creased. There aren't a ton of what I'd call the equivalent of WW2 comic book covers but this is one of the more striking ones, along with the Dell "I Was A Nazi Flyer"

Edited June 6, 2023 by Surfing Alien

[Surfing Alien]

Started bringing my boxes back to the comic room (er, now "The Library" ) and got busy sorting some of the Ace's.

[OtherEric]

On 6/6/2023 at 4:21 PM, Surfing Alien said:

Started bringing my boxes back to the comic room (er, now "The Library" ) and got busy sorting some of the Ace's.

Looking good!

I also see duplicates of at least three books where I could use the under copies when you have your next sale…

[Sarg]

I was curious to see if James Hadley Chase was still being reprinted, and if so, what titles and cover art was used. 

Twelve "Chinamen" and a Woman is still in print, as a two-fer with No Orchids for Miss Blandish. The less said about the cover art, the better. 

Is Chase worth reading? He's got a lot of promising titles. Since he's English, I'm inclined to think he's too polite to be hardboiled. 

[Robot Man]

My favorite digest. This copy has page 3-4 (first two interior pages). A letter from the author to his daughter if I remember right. It was supposedly removed in most copies.

[lbcolefan]

Here’s a couple more sets of my original owner books. I never got around to reading the Flash Gordon books.