Comics, Pulps, and Paperbacks: Why such a discrepancy in values? 26 26

[Surfing Alien]

Don't have my keeper handy but I have a pic of my reader I sold last year. It had some wear but was quite vibrant. What a cover. A Maguire Masterwork for sure

[Darwination]

What's a copy like that go for?

[Surfing Alien]

On 8/1/2024 at 7:24 PM, Darwination said:

What's a copy like that go for?

Whatever the market dictates.

I think I sold that copy for about $15, but that was last year. Jimbo would probably argue that I'm a fool for selling it for less than $90. How do you replace these books?

Edited August 2 by Surfing Alien

[Sarg]

It's the same painting, but Belarski did quite a bit of repainting for the Pop Library cover. Repainted the lady's face, removed the phone on the left, her left hand holding the phone receiver, and removed the gun blast. I like the Pop. Library cover better. 

Not my copies. 

[Surfing Alien]

On 8/1/2024 at 8:20 PM, Sarg said:

It's the same painting, but Belarski did quite a bit of repainting for the Pop Library cover. Repainted the lady's face, removed the phone on the left, her left hand holding the phone receiver, and removed the gun blast. I like the Pop. Library cover better. 

Not my copies. 

In Every Single Instance, the paperback blows the pulp off the deck and into deep waters.

[Darwination]

[jimjum12]

On 8/1/2024 at 8:17 PM, Surfing Alien said:

Whatever the market dictates.

I think I sold that copy for about $15, but that was last year. Jimbo would probably argue that I'm a fool for selling it for less than $90. How do you replace these books?

I wouldn't call you a fool. If you have two, why not. Seriously, you've sold several that I would have paid twice your ask, but we are all friends here, so there IS that. Either way, your threads are hot. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

Edited August 2 by jimjum12

[Randall Dowling]

That's a pretty copy of a fairly tough book, James!

[jimjum12]

On 8/2/2024 at 9:37 AM, Randall Dowling said:

That's a pretty copy of a fairly tough book, James!

That was the PB that "popped my cherry" in regard to pricey books. It actually looks better than the picture and was purchased pre stroke. I think it set me back a couple hundred. There are several other streetlight covers I'd like, but that one just grabbed me. I think Lowell clued me in to it in one of his threads that I was late to. I've never spent 1K on a PB, and probably can't anymore anyway. Lovisi recently listed some real ringers on eBay, as well as Garage Comics, but his are more esoteric in nature, but seem very nice shape. Alas, I'll likely have to content myself with what I already have with the money books. Honestly, I started with resale in mind, like comics were, but decided to stay on the sidelines and collect for a while. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

 

These are some that set me back a bit, several more than I could likely recoup, but collecting isn't always about flipping and investment, these may just end up as "found" money for an heir to auction off on eBay. With most of these, I had to sell to buy.

Edited August 2 by jimjum12

[Randall Dowling]

On 8/2/2024 at 10:06 AM, jimjum12 said:

That was the PB that "popped my cherry" in regard to pricey books. It actually looks better than the picture and was purchased pre stroke. I think it set me back a couple hundred. There are several other streetlight covers I'd like, but that one just grabbed me. I think Lowell clued me in to it in one of his threads that I was late to. I've never spent 1K on a PB, and probably can't anymore anyway. Lovisi recently listed some real ringers on eBay, as well as Garage Comics, but his are more esoteric in nature, but seem very nice shape. Alas, I'll likely have to content myself with what I already have with the money books. Honestly, I started with resale in mind, like comics were, but decided to stay on the sidelines and collect for a while. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

 

These are some that set me back a bit, several more than I could likely recoup, but collecting isn't always about flipping and investment, these may just end up as "found" money for an heir to auction off on eBay. 

Wow!  All beautiful books!  That Lurking Fear is VERY tough in that condition.  Thanks for sharing, James! 

[Surfing Alien]

On 8/2/2024 at 3:18 AM, jimjum12 said:

I wouldn't call you a fool. If you have two, why not. Seriously, you've sold several that I would have paid twice your ask, but we are all friends here, so there IS that. Either way, your threads are hot. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

Thanks James,

I factor in several things when figuring what to ask, it's not easy in the current pretty hot pb market. When I have a high sell through, sometimes I think I'm asking too low, but then I remember the whole point is to actually get them sold, and it should be friendly here. 

I was joking about the $90 because you had mentioned it in a thread a while back, but seeing guys like Lovisi suddenly listing $50-100 books for $500-900 makes me scratch my head like maybe I'm missing something.

To me that's the DTA method, of pricing way ahead of the market and letting books sit until the market catches up, on steroids.

As far as Garage Comics, I'm pretty sure they are trying to corner the market on high end sleaze books and are probably the buyer blowing us all out of the water on the recent bunches of nice books that hit the market.

[Surfing Alien]

On 8/2/2024 at 11:06 AM, jimjum12 said:

That was the PB that "popped my cherry" in regard to pricey books. It actually looks better than the picture and was purchased pre stroke. I think it set me back a couple hundred. There are several other streetlight covers I'd like, but that one just grabbed me. I think Lowell clued me in to it in one of his threads that I was late to. I've never spent 1K on a PB, and probably can't anymore anyway. Lovisi recently listed some real ringers on eBay, as well as Garage Comics, but his are more esoteric in nature, but seem very nice shape. Alas, I'll likely have to content myself with what I already have with the money books. Honestly, I started with resale in mind, like comics were, but decided to stay on the sidelines and collect for a while. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

 

These are some that set me back a bit, several more than I could likely recoup, but collecting isn't always about flipping and investment, these may just end up as "found" money for an heir to auction off on eBay. With most of these, I had to sell to buy.

Great books . That Dunwich Horror is incredible. I thought I had a chance on it but you were not gonna be denied that day.

[Darwination]

Edited August 2 by Darwination

[jimjum12]

On 8/2/2024 at 7:04 PM, Surfing Alien said:

Great books . That Dunwich Horror is incredible. I thought I had a chance on it but you were not gonna be denied that day.

LOVECRAFT 

... and one of my favorite stories. GOD BLESS ... 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[Darwination]

A couple of literary classics from Jimbo, the second one a freebie, great shape outside of the remainder holes (and about half of the copies of this book out there seem to have them)

[Surfing Alien]

On 8/2/2024 at 9:35 PM, Darwination said:

A couple of literary classics from Jimbo, the second one a freebie, great shape outside of the remainder holes (and about half of the copies of this book out there seem to have them)

Nice. Yeah those punchholes are painful, along with the dreaded "sawcut" 

[Darwination]

Saw a copy of this in a recent thread from mstrange and had to track down a copy.  Love the contrast of the rainbow colors on the front to negative on the back cover

[Darwination]

On 8/2/2024 at 8:45 PM, Surfing Alien said:

Nice. Yeah those punchholes are painful, along with the dreaded "sawcut" 

There's certain issues in the grubbier vintage girlie magazines (particularly of the bad mag variety) that I've never seen without the sawcut

[Surfing Alien]

Gil Brewer, James Meese, Very High Grade, what's not to love?

🫡

[Randall Dowling]

So, I've been reading several articles written about paperbacks lately.  And I keep coming across the same name, a name I've known about for a couple decades, ever since I first saw a copy "Collecting Paperbacks?".  The name is, of course, Lance Casebeer.  He was one of the first, really big collectors of paperback books and by all accounts, he was a pretty interesting character.  Here's a brief excerpt from an article by Lisa Morton from 2008:

https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/morton_07_08/

Quote

 

It all started with Lance Casebeer.

In the late 60s, a man with a name that sounded as if it’d come straight from a cheap crime novel started collecting old paperbacks. Casebeer, who’d once been a comic book dealer, traded one expendable pop culture item for another, and in 1976 he started sharing his obsession with other collectors. That was the year he inaugurated Lance-Con, the first annual gathering devoted solely to vintage paperbacks; for the next quarter-of-a-century, Lance-Con would continue to be held in Casebeer’s Portland, Oregon home, drawing up to 200 bibliomaniacs yearly. Most came to buy, trade, or sell, and all came to appreciate Casebeer’s collection, which by 2000 was the only complete collection of all paperbacks published between 1938 and 1968. During these gatherings, the almost-exclusively middle-aged men would spill over into the backyards of Casebeer’s neighbors, exchanging esoteric bits of information on their favorite authors, or arguing whether there were more paperback covers featuring Marilyn Monroe or gorillas (that was a real contest Casebeer had once entered into, and he had the roomful of Monroe books to prove he’d won). Each Lance-Con culminated with a group dinner, usually featuring Casebeer’s notorious purple turkeys, some locally hired entertainers, and a lot of kegs.

Casebeer, who died in 2003, also published a newsletter, Collecting Paperbacks, and probably helped to establish vintage paperbacks—which up until the 80s had been largely ignored by most antiquarian booksellers—as legitimate collectibles. Well, if these little jewels, once considered wholly disposable and featuring authors with names like Vin Packer and Gil Brewer, can be said to have any legitimacy whatsoever.

 

There are lots of references to him all over the internet (his name is pretty good for Google).  Wish I could have met the guy while he was alive.  Perhaps some on this board met him.  To this day, the copies that were in his collection seem to command a slight premium because they were in his collection (kind of like Edgar Church) and the books are generally known to be in very nice condition.  @Pat Calhoun @Surfing Alien Seems like you guys might have crossed paths with him?

I think a lot of these early collectors in paperbacks are interesting.  They blazed a path that makes my exploration a bit easier and for that, I'm thankful.