Pulp sales discussion thread 7 7

[Surfing Alien]

On 7/6/2024 at 12:45 PM, jimjum12 said:

I offered that issue in decent shape here for 20 bucks or so. It sat, unsold, for several threads. As for eBoy, some people didn't have their rear ends burnt up as children, and it shows. Some people are so greedy, they make it their life's mission to undermine all joy, beginning with every collectible.  GOD BLESS ... 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

 

 

The unfortunate (fortunate? ) side effect is probably going to be that many would be entrants into the market, like those that Robot mentioned walked out of that California convention empty handed, will say screw this and never enter the market, the avarice is so blood red in the streets.

Most moneyed collectors of all kinds have been in the markets long enough to at least have seen the post-covid downturn, if not the downturns (and super hyped "new markets") in the past, and likely aren't foolish enough to not do any research and just pay completely artificial prices for falling knives. Many ebay auctions of lower end books aren't even bringing the price of slabbing and postage.

On the flip side, anyone foolish enough to pay these hyper-inflated prices for relatively common books, deserves the punishment you've described above

That all said, people can do what they want with their money   I still buy pulps when I see ones I like/want - when I see copies that I can live with at prices I can live with. These are all unslabbed and primarily at auction or "human" BIN prices.  I think the pendulum will swing back to the "true collector" as the overpriced slabs gather dust and their purveyors throw in the towel on the get rich quick schema.

Just picked up this one, I only a need about 5 now to complete the Marvel run

 

 

[Darwination]

Since I've been selling on eBay, I've been somewhat shocked to realize how much of the comics market is flippers. I don't think 75 percent is an exaggeration.  It's very different with magazines, but damn if flippers don't make up a good portion of pulp sales, too.  The funny thing is the flippers do most of the haggling  What's wild about (at least some) of these FFMs and Startlings and whatnot is that you *can* still find affordable copies on dusty shelves on the internet.  What gets me is the difference between hot covers and I guess what people see as "keys" and the surrounding issues. A collection of keys is cool but also about the most boring thing in the world.  When I browse a Heritage pulp auction or eBay, I'm looking for some crazy thing I've never seen or noticed before.  That's the whole wonder of pulps.

I do not like to see newbies get ripped off, but any collector of anything needs to look at comps and sales history.  If you still want that shiny object, go for it, but do at least a little homework. And if you can't find comps and sales history for truly scarce books, fantastic, at least you are an explorer of uncharted waters.  If it is an open auction, there's likely to be another collector out there that will let you know when they snatch that grail out if your hands (says the recent loser)

[Robot Man]

On 7/6/2024 at 4:07 PM, Darwination said:

Since I've been selling on eBay, I've been somewhat shocked to realize how much of the comics market is flippers. I don't think 75 percent is an exaggeration.  It's very different with magazines, but damn if flippers don't make up a good portion of pulp sales, too.  The funny thing is the flippers do most of the haggling  What's wild about (at least some) of these FFMs and Startlings and whatnot is that you *can* still find affordable copies on dusty shelves on the internet.  What gets me is the difference between hot covers and I guess what people see as "keys" and the surrounding issues. A collection of keys is cool but also about the most boring thing in the world.  When I browse a Heritage pulp auction or eBay, I'm looking for some crazy thing I've never seen or noticed before.  That's the whole wonder of pulps.

I do not like to see newbies get ripped off, but any collector of anything needs to look at comps and sales history.  If you still want that shiny object, go for it, but do at least a little homework. And if you can't find comps and sales history for truly scarce books, fantastic, at least you are an explorer of uncharted waters.  If it is an open auction, there's likely to be another collector out there that will let you know when they snatch that grail out if your hands (says the recent loser)

I concur. Lotsa “newbies” now in the pulp market. Every body wants to get in on the “next big thing”. Pulps have been collected forever but prices have always been considerably lower. I don’t want to blame CGC they are simply smart business people and cranking out pulp slabs like a factory right now.

As far as getting “ripped off”, that is on the buyer to jump in the pool and get educated before they open their wallets. Sometimes, mistakes are part of that education.

And yeah, I am loving the current popularity of pulps. The exposure to so many cool ones I never knew existed. 

[Darwination]

On 7/5/2024 at 10:26 AM, Sarg said:

This book was $20 a year or two ago. I don't want to make any untoward accusations, but it sure appears as if somebody bought all publicly available copies, submitted them to CGC, and then decided that it was in fact one of the most valuable pulps ever published. Is anybody buying this?

 

 

It seems like the pulps are coming back down to Earth.  This last weekend at HA saw some sweet Tarzan Blue Books and a few cool Schomberg Astrology mags.  Then there was a complete run of Golden Fleece that didn't quite set the world on fire.  In the hmm, maybe I shouldn't have slabbed these category -

I do like this one, but why FIGHT CRIME when you can steal it for a dollar Maybe it was one of those weekends without many watchers.  I know I missed the auction.

[Bookery]

The frightening thing is, on those low-end sales, Heritage charges a minimum $29 buyer's premium.  Assuming they aren't items Heritage owns outright, that means the consignor of some of those items only got $4!

[tth2]

On 7/11/2024 at 12:53 AM, Bookery said:

The frightening thing is, on those low-end sales, Heritage charges a minimum $29 buyer's premium.  Assuming they aren't items Heritage owns outright, that means the consignor of some of those items only got $4!

And then factor in the cost of grading! 

I think it highlights that grades, and grading accurately, are just as important with pulps as for comics. 

People need to realize that there are some/many pulps that just aren't worth slabbing in low grade, and also some that aren't worth selling in low grade as individual issues. 

[baggsey]

On 12/10/2021 at 5:20 PM, OtherEric said:

I don't have any answer for this other than "it depends".  Some of the British editions are almost identical to the US editions, some drop illustrations or stories, and other changes.  My gut reaction is they're usually less than the US versions, but that's far from universal, and given the increased interest in UK comic variants I could see UK pulps jumping as well.

Further confusing the issue is there are at least some pulps... Astounding in the late 30's comes to mind... which have UK editions that have the US price on the cover.  I'll try to dig out my one example and show it here.

Do you have a 1930's pulp printed in the UK that you can highlight? If you have a UK version of Astounding Stories it should have "Atlas Publishing & Distributing Co Ltd" somewhere in the indicia.

[OtherEric]

On 7/28/2024 at 5:40 PM, baggsey said:

Do you have a 1930's pulp printed in the UK that you can highlight? If you have a UK version of Astounding Stories it should have "Atlas Publishing & Distributing Co Ltd" somewhere in the indicia.

I have ONE that's either 1939 or 1940, let me see if I can find it.

[OtherEric]

On 7/28/2024 at 5:40 PM, baggsey said:

Do you have a 1930's pulp printed in the UK that you can highlight? If you have a UK version of Astounding Stories it should have "Atlas Publishing & Distributing Co Ltd" somewhere in the indicia.

Found it, and the indicia is conveniently on the back cover, actually.  I think I've see it claimed that the UK cover is actually a recreation of the US cover, but I can't remember where I saw that.  It looks incredibly close to me from pictures online but I don't have the US version.  UK version is MUCH shorter than the US inside, 96 pages and only four stories.

 

[Darwination]

pretty close if it is a recreation

[baggsey]

On 7/28/2024 at 7:52 PM, OtherEric said:

Found it, and the indicia is conveniently on the back cover, actually.  I think I've see it claimed that the UK cover is actually a recreation of the US cover, but I can't remember where I saw that.  It looks incredibly close to me from pictures online but I don't have the US version.  UK version is MUCH shorter than the US inside, 96 pages and only four stories.

 

Thanks @OtherEric for posting this. Astounding Science Fiction was one of the earliest pulps that Atlas Publishing & Printing negotiated to reprint in the UK. Street & Smith would send over actual hard-copy of the original pulps that Atlas would use as the basis for their edition. Street & Smith in later years (eg 1950s) would mandate that they had "First American & British Printing" rights on all materials they purchased for publication, but back in the 1930s Atlas was limited in what they could reprint by the rights owned on each individual story by S&S. 

Eventually, S&S terminated their contract with Atlas Publishing & Distributing Co Ltd in 1962, when S&S had made an editorial policy decision to terminate the Atlas contract, and print and publish UK versions of the magazine (since renamed Analog) themselves.

[baggsey]

On 7/28/2024 at 8:11 PM, Darwination said:

pretty close if it is a recreation

Street & Smith always sent a file copy of the complete magazine to Atlas Publishing & Distributing Co Ltd in the UK for Atlas to use as the basis of their version, with notes on which content they held the copyright.

[OtherEric]

On 7/28/2024 at 6:11 PM, Darwination said:

pretty close if it is a recreation

Actually, I think the chances are good it's a meticulous recreation, looking at it side by side like that.  The aura around the men at the bottom is different, and many lighting highlights aren't quite the same.  The eye beams are different and the metal tube thing to the upper left lacks some detail.    But it's so close as to make one wonder why they needed to bother.

[Darwination]

I've heard some pulps (likely not S&S) would be sent over remaindered as ship ballast, but there were a whole variety of arrangements, and I've read about foreign distribution agents/agreements from smaller publishers, too. 

There are some pretty bad cover "re-creations" in the girlie pulps, but those might have been pretty much black market.

[baggsey]

On 7/29/2024 at 3:50 PM, OtherEric said:

Actually, I think the chances are good it's a meticulous recreation, looking at it side by side like that.  The aura around the men at the bottom is different, and many lighting highlights aren't quite the same.  The eye beams are different and the metal tube thing to the upper left lacks some detail.    But it's so close as to make one wonder why they needed to bother.

I agree that the cover has been re-created based on the original.

The import tariffs into the UK from "non-Empire" counties (eg United States) in the 1930s were at least 100%, which made the import of magazines from the US very expensive. Following WW II, until the late 1950s there was a near complete ban on imports of magazines and many other products from the US, unless they were of a scientific or educational nature. Atlas Publications & Distributing in the UK had to acquire UK Government approved import licenses to simply import single paper file copies (not actual printing plates) of pulps from their US publishers, from which they would produce the UK versions.

So the US covers would be photographed in the UK from the original pulp, and then new printing blocks would be made up to produce the British cover (an expensive process). Those new printing blocks frequently needed touching up or enhancing, and that is what is seen on the Astounding Stories covers produced in the UK. If you compare Doc Savage pulp covers printed in the US by S&S and the UK versions printed by Atlas, some issues look like they were completely redrawn and repainted. 

In some instances S&S did not have the British reprint copyright ownership ( or could not locate the paperwork) in which case a UK cover might have to be completely redrawn, or substituted by a different cover entirely.

As per @Darwination 's point about items being shipped as ballast to the UK, that would have happened prior to 1939, if indeed it did happen. From the research I've done, prior to 1939 a small selection of pulps were printed in the US for shipping to the UK (eg Black Mask pub by Pro-Distribution in NY). Upon the outbreak of war in Europe, Black Mask was printed in the UK based on content sent from the US.

[Darwination]

In my pet area of pulpdom, the girlie/breezy sorts of pulps, the relationship between UK and US editions usually generates more questions than answers, but part of that may be that naughty magazines are often sold on the black market in the first place.  But here's an above board one from 1923 I pulled out of the boxes to take a look at, and lo and behold, it's an Atlas, too.

Saucy Stories v06n21 (1923-08-01.Atlas) (UK Edition) cover A.H. Palmer

\

and, again, like on that Astounding the indicia is in the back (seems like I see this in Aussie pubs, too?)

And, from the ad, you can tell Macfadden had some sort of stake in this venture, too.  Printed in the U.S., but published in London?  I'm not sure I'm wrapping my head around that

This one from my collection says "Printed in England"

I recall The Parisienne being mentioned in particular on my pal Sai's blog, Pulpflakes, in a description of how one of the magazine's agents (John William Gleinster) was "skimming" per sale of the UK editions:

https://pulpflakes.com/blog/2023/04/secrets-of-the-mask-part-1-in-the-beginning/

In the 30s, you see all sorts of funny business like this one.  Sold in the UK per the price tag but also the 35 cent denomination, usually a sure giveaway of some sort of sketchy UK reprint.  Later on, 50 cent or 75 cents denominations were put on brit girlie covers to give the illusion that the UK mags were actually American (to evade authorities or because of a perceived superiority of US girlie material, I do not know).  This cover image was used at least 3 on three or four different UK reprint titles

Or sometimes you simply see absolutely zero in the way of publisher info:

Here's a few examples of cover knockoffs in the mid 30s

One of the best way to identify UK girlies? Staple rust I swear all of the girlies I get my hands on from over there have rust issues:

but who cares about rust on a girlie this hot

 

[baggsey]

On 7/29/2024 at 9:40 PM, Darwination said:

In my pet area of pulpdom, the girlie/breezy sorts of pulps, the relationship between UK and US editions usually generates more questions than answers, but part of that may be that naughty magazines are often sold on the black market in the first place.  But here's an above board one from 1923 I pulled out of the boxes to take a look at, and lo and behold, it's an Atlas, too.

Saucy Stories v06n21 (1923-08-01.Atlas) (UK Edition) cover A.H. Palmer

\

and, again, like on that Astounding the indicia is in the back (seems like I see this in Aussie pubs, too?)

And, from the ad, you can tell Macfadden had some sort of stake in this venture, too.  Printed in the U.S., but published in London?  I'm not sure I'm wrapping my head around that

This one from my collection says "Printed in England"

I recall The Parisienne being mentioned in particular on my pal Sai's blog, Pulpflakes, in a description of how one of the magazine's agents (John William Gleinster) was "skimming" per sale of the UK editions:

https://pulpflakes.com/blog/2023/04/secrets-of-the-mask-part-1-in-the-beginning/

In the 30s, you see all sorts of funny business like this one.  Sold in the UK per the price tag but also the 35 cent denomination, usually a sure giveaway of some sort of sketchy UK reprint.  Later on, 50 cent or 75 cents denominations were put on brit girlie covers to give the illusion that the UK mags were actually American (to evade authorities or because of a perceived superiority of US girlie material, I do not know).  This cover image was used at least 3 on three or four different UK reprint titles

Or sometimes you simply see absolutely zero in the way of publisher info:

Here's a few examples of cover knockoffs in the mid 30s

One of the best way to identify UK girlies? Staple rust I swear all of the girlies I get my hands on from over there have rust issues:

but who cares about rust on a girlie this hot

 

Thanks for posting these, especially the content from the UK edition of Saucy Stories. I'm currently researching the origins of Atlas Publishing & Distributing Co Ltd in the UK, and how Atlas publisher Walter Stephen Dexter grew from being a wholesale newsagent and bookseller to overseeing a pulp publishing business. As far as I know, Saucy Stories was the first pulp that he imported into the UK. Up until seeing your post, I assumed that he had printed the British version of Saucy Stories in the UK, but that appears to not be the case. That is actually consistent with his publishing of the UK edition of Black Mask (from Pro-Distribution of New York) which started in June 1923, where UK editions were also printed in the US for Atlas until 1939, when Atlas started printing the British version in the UK.

Dexter set up Atlas Publishing & Distributing Co Ltd in Nov 1914, and I believe that he imported various American books for sale through his own bookseller shops in London before embarking on US pulp imports.

By extrapolating from the issue/volume numbers of the UK Saucy Stories, I presume that the first UK Saucy Stories appeared around middle of 1921. Is that consistent with your understanding?

Also, who was the editor of Saucy Stories in the version you posted? British ex-pat pulp writer Wyndham Martyn (AKA William Hosken, William Grenvil) was editor and VP of Inter-Continential Publishing in NY at the time of the US edition of Saucy Stories (US May 1919 issue  Vol VI   #4) . I wondered if Dexter knew Wyndham Martin and leveraged that relationship to close the first pulp contract with Inter-Continental.

[baggsey]

On 7/29/2024 at 9:40 PM, Darwination said:

In my pet area of pulpdom, the girlie/breezy sorts of pulps, the relationship between UK and US editions usually generates more questions than answers, but part of that may be that naughty magazines are often sold on the black market in the first place.  But here's an above board one from 1923 I pulled out of the boxes to take a look at, and lo and behold, it's an Atlas, too.

Saucy Stories v06n21 (1923-08-01.Atlas) (UK Edition) cover A.H. Palmer

\

and, again, like on that Astounding the indicia is in the back (seems like I see this in Aussie pubs, too?)

And, from the ad, you can tell Macfadden had some sort of stake in this venture, too.  Printed in the U.S., but published in London?  I'm not sure I'm wrapping my head around that

This one from my collection says "Printed in England"

I recall The Parisienne being mentioned in particular on my pal Sai's blog, Pulpflakes, in a description of how one of the magazine's agents (John William Gleinster) was "skimming" per sale of the UK editions:

https://pulpflakes.com/blog/2023/04/secrets-of-the-mask-part-1-in-the-beginning/

In the 30s, you see all sorts of funny business like this one.  Sold in the UK per the price tag but also the 35 cent denomination, usually a sure giveaway of some sort of sketchy UK reprint.  Later on, 50 cent or 75 cents denominations were put on brit girlie covers to give the illusion that the UK mags were actually American (to evade authorities or because of a perceived superiority of US girlie material, I do not know).  This cover image was used at least 3 on three or four different UK reprint titles

Or sometimes you simply see absolutely zero in the way of publisher info:

Here's a few examples of cover knockoffs in the mid 30s

One of the best way to identify UK girlies? Staple rust I swear all of the girlies I get my hands on from over there have rust issues:

but who cares about rust on a girlie this hot

 

I think your link to your pal's pulpflakes blog answered my question, in that in 1919 J.W. Glenister of Inter-Continental went to the UK to negotiate with British publishers to sell Saucy Stories and Parisienne.

[Darwination]

On 7/30/2024 at 10:53 AM, baggsey said:

By extrapolating from the issue/volume numbers of the UK Saucy Stories, I presume that the first UK Saucy Stories appeared around middle of 1921. Is that consistent with your understanding?

Also, who was the editor of Saucy Stories in the version you posted? British ex-pat pulp writer Wyndham Martyn (AKA William Hosken, William Grenvil) was editor and VP of Inter-Continential Publishing in NY at the time of the US edition of Saucy Stories (US May 1919 issue  Vol VI   #4) . I wondered if Dexter knew Wyndham Martin and leveraged that relationship to close the first pulp contract with Inter-Continental.

There's no editor listed in the issue - I'm at a loss as to who it was at the time, but I'll keep an eye out.

Love this information on Atlas and UK pulp publishing in general, Baggsey, it helps make a little sense of what I see in the UK pulps from the 40s to the 50s.

According to Galactic Central, it looks like the first UK editions of Saucy Stories appeared in 1922, but I'd say it's just approximation:

http://www.philsp.com/mags/saucy_stories.html#british

http://www.philsp.com/homeville/FMI/k09/k09371.htm#A2

You can see if you scroll up from the UK edition that the record of the U.S. edition is spotty, too.  It's getting so much better, though, as contributors to Fictionmags send in covers and contents pages to Phil Stephensen-Payne (a fellow brit if I'm not mistaken) where he kindly gets it in the database.  He's really good about having a separate cover/contents index for the UK (or Canadian) editions.

I believe I've linked this before in various threads but this is a nice on-ramp to the index:

https://pulpflakes.com/fmisearch/

That search function is still in development, depending on what you are looking for it can be easier to access.

 

Edited July 30 by Darwination

[baggsey]

On 7/30/2024 at 11:43 AM, Darwination said:

There's no editor listed in the issue - I'm at a loss as to who it was at the time, but I'll keep an eye out.

Love this information on Atlas and UK pulp publishing in general, Baggsey, it helps make a little sense of what I see in the UK pulps from the 40s to the 50s.

According to Galactic Central, it looks like the first UK editions of Saucy Stories appeared in 1922, but I'd say it's just approximatation:

http://www.philsp.com/mags/saucy_stories.html#british

http://www.philsp.com/homeville/FMI/k09/k09371.htm#A2

You can see if you scroll up from the UK edition that the record of the U.S. edition is spotty, too.  It's getting so much better, though, as contributors to Fictionmags send in covers and contents pages to Phil Stephensen-Payne (a fellow brit if I'm not mistaken) where he kindly gets it in the database.  He's really good about having a separate cover/contents index for the UK (or Canadian) editions.

I believe I've linked this before in various threads but this is a nice on-ramp to the index:

https://pulpflakes.com/fmisearch/

That search function is still in development, depending on what you are looking for it can be easier to access.

 

Yes, thanks, I've found www.philsp.com to be a superb source of information myself, if rather awkward to navigate. Not a criticism, as I applaud the work that has gone into creating it.  I was able to trawl through it to build a list of all of the pulp titles that Atlas published in the UK, and did the same for Thorpe & Porter while I was at it.  Thanks for the link to the search function on pulpflakes - I've bookmarked that.

I think that the history of pulps in the UK is really split into two periods - pre and post WW II. Original publisher Walter Stephen Dexter died in 1944 and left the Atlas business to his son Walter James Dexter. Walter jr was responsible for branching into publishing reprints of American comics in partnership with K G Murray of Australia, as the availability of old US pulps to reprint dried up by the late 1950s.  The decision by Street & Smith/Conde Nast to terminate the contract with Atlas to reprint Analog in 1962 put the nail in the coffin of the pulp reprint business in the UK.