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Pulp Sellers
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Started by goldsilverap,

30 posts in this topic

jimjum12

jimjum12

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Posted (edited)
On 1/8/2023 at 7:54 PM, Randall Dowling said:

By far, my favorite convention.  Highly recommended! (thumbsu

www.fantasyillustrated.net is also a fine source for Pulps and 1st Editions. The proprietor is Dave Smith. He sets up at the occasional show, too. GOD BLESS... 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)(thumbsu

Edited by jimjum12
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Rick Hall

Rick Hall

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On 1/13/2023 at 8:41 PM, goldsilverap said:

Thanks everyone for the recommended sites, one other thing thing is there something like Overstreet guide in the pulp world?

No. Both editions of the Bookery price guide are out of print, out of date, and were not that accurate when new.

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Bookery

Bookery

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On 2/18/2024 at 6:43 PM, Rick Hall said:

No. Both editions of the Bookery price guide are out of print, out of date, and were not that accurate when new.

Not entirely accurate.

There have been 3 editions under slightly different titles... 2001, 2005 and 2020.  

Depends on what you mean by accurate.  When word leaked out prior to the 2001 guide coming out, there was a general panic in the pulp-convention community.  I was some interloper they didn't know (despite having attended several PulpCons) and surely the guide was designed purely to drive up prices (how this was supposed to help me, I don't know, as I didn't have a large inventory at the time).  There were a lot of on-line attacks, and "guarantees" the guide would be over-priced.  When I premiered the book at the 2001 PulpCon I even arrived to find that my dealer's table has been stuck back in an exit alcove and turned to face the wall.  The show-runner thought this was amusing.  To my own fault, the advance word of the distrust in the book probably made me overly cautious and very conservative in my pricing (though to be fair... every price in the book was exactly how I priced my own stock).  So when the guide actually did premiere, the complaints then switched to how all of the prices were too low!

The 2005 guide prices were fairly accurate for awhile... the market had settled down after an initial spike due to an influx of eBay sales.

The 2020 guide came out just before CGC announced it would be slabbing pulps.  That drove prices up almost immediately.  Then the Covid collectibles spike drove everything up even further.  That guide was out-dated (price-wise) pretty much out of the gate, which is probably why Heritage didn't keep it in print.

However, though I generally don't complain about it, I always take some issue with the books being described simply as price guides.  I am a data completist... rather compulsive about it, actually.  The books were born of my own extensive note-taking and compilations for years just so I could be consistent with my own inventories.  I would have been thrilled if someone else had done it.  But no one did.  Pricing was always the last thing I worked on before publication.  All other information came first.  Save for a few errors corrected in each new edition, and the typical typos, the other information contained in them is quite accurate... authors, artists, title-changes, 1st appearances, publishers, format, scarcity indicators, etc.  To include all of this information and leave out pricing just to appease a few who preferred to keep that information to themselves, seemed a disservice to collectors, as well as my own desire to be comprehensive.  There are a number of different sources where such information can be cobbled together, especially now more than in 2001, but the Bookery guides remain the only sources where all of this is in one place.

Yes, pricing in them is dated, though may be useful in terms of relative pricing (issue x is worth twice as much as issue y, etc.), but the rest of the data is still useful, depending upon your collecting needs.  Ideally, an issue-by-issue guide would be best... but it would run 1500 pages.

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jimjum12

jimjum12

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On 2/23/2024 at 9:50 AM, Bookery said:

relative pricing

This, coupled with the stellar referencing, makes your guide quite indispensable, unless someone prefers to collect in ignorance. A large amount of Pulps are sold at auction, and due to their scarcity, those prices can be outliers, as the internet broadens the buying pool to an almost unrealistic parameter. I, for one, thank you for your admirable effort. As they say, there are those who do, and those who complain. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)(thumbsu

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Bookery

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On 2/23/2024 at 10:17 AM, jimjum12 said:

This, coupled with the stellar referencing, makes your guide quite indispensable, unless someone prefers to collect in ignorance. A large amount of Pulps are sold at auction, and due to their scarcity, those prices can be outliers, as the internet broadens the buying pool to an almost unrealistic parameter. I, for one, thank you for your admirable effort. As they say, there are those who do, and those who complain. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)(thumbsu

Thanks for the kind words.  As for the bolded part above, I do caution newcomers about taking auction prices with a grain of salt.  Truly expensive and ultra-rare pulps may be more accurately represented at the big auction houses, if for no other reason than this is often the only forums in which they appear for sale.  But there is definitely auction-exuberance with more common material.  For instance, I'm currently tracking auction data continually for my own uses, as well as in case there is a 4th (and final) guide.  I see a number of science-fiction pulps, for instance, going for 2x-5x the guide prices at Heritage and other auction houses.  Yet simultaneously, the same books can be bought off eBay or mycomicshop.com for at guide prices or smaller premiums up to 1.5x.  

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Robot Man

Robot Man

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I too commend you on your efforts to legitimize pulp collecting. I know Overstreet had always taken a beating about prices in his guides.

What many folks tend to ignore is the information in guides like these. It is invaluable. An incredible resource.

No printed “guide” can even hope to reflect accurate, day to day pricing. Collecting comics and now pulps have become the stock market. Almost impossible to determine even with the electronic media we have at our disposal.

Thanks, so much for your efforts. I pull out my pulp guide several times a week. Not for prices but for the wealth of information contained inside!

 

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jimjum12

jimjum12

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On 2/23/2024 at 11:39 AM, Robot Man said:

I too commend you on your efforts to legitimize pulp collecting. I know Overstreet had always taken a beating about prices in his guides.

What many folks tend to ignore is the information in guides like these. It is invaluable. An incredible resource.

No printed “guide” can even hope to reflect accurate, day to day pricing. Collecting comics and now pulps have become the stock market. Almost impossible to determine even with the electronic media we have at our disposal.

Thanks, so much for your efforts. I pull out my pulp guide several times a week. Not for prices but for the wealth of information contained inside!

 

(thumbsu

One thing many people don't mention, and possibly fail to understand, is that there are many types of sales that comprise an accurate benchmark in time. There are friendship sales, hardship sales, accommodation sales, and consignment sales, as well as the ubiquitous Auction sales. I'm not going to insult anyone by defining each, as each term itself should be self explanatory. Needless to say, circumstances dictate price, and there are mucho variables at play. Long term  accuracy in a fixed reference format may be a bit optimistic, particularly with rarities. With things like this, one is best served by gut instinct honed over time. The guide will help you to realize that if you find a Spicy, mixed in with the boxing pulps, all at 10 clams each, your choice is simplified, unless you only have 10 and really, really dig boxing Pulps. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus):bigsmile:

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waaaghboss

waaaghboss

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My poor guide has seen a lot of use, invaluable resource as has been said.   Not sure why some would complain about a printed guide not having up-to-the minute accurate pricing,  but as has been said the pricing is great for a relative comparison between issues and titles.  My one small request if and hopefully when a new guide comes out is standardizing the placement of the rarity indications for the books, maybe always at the end of the descriptive paragraph?  

20240223_110517.thumb.jpg.5090e44aebe38d19d425564000c87f06.jpg

 

To get back on topic, I found this site referenced in the big pulp thread and seemed to have a good reputation.  If anyone has small sites with pulps I'd be curious to see those as well.

https://www.jamespayettecomics.com/catalog_list1.cfm?cat_descr=W&cat_family=2&family_name=Pulp

 

 

 

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jimjum12

jimjum12

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On 2/23/2024 at 2:12 PM, waaaghboss said:

My poor guide has seen a lot of use, invaluable resource as has been said.   Not sure why some would complain about a printed guide not having up-to-the minute accurate pricing,  but as has been said the pricing is great for a relative comparison between issues and titles.  My one small request if and hopefully when a new guide comes out is standardizing the placement of the rarity indications for the books, maybe always at the end of the descriptive paragraph?  

20240223_110517.thumb.jpg.5090e44aebe38d19d425564000c87f06.jpg

 

To get back on topic, I found this site referenced in the big pulp thread and seemed to have a good reputation.  If anyone has small sites with pulps I'd be curious to see those as well.

https://www.jamespayettecomics.com/catalog_list1.cfm?cat_descr=W&cat_family=2&family_name=Pulp

 

 

 

Jim had a ton of McLaughlin pulps and may still have some. I picked up a bunch of shudders and spicy's from him. He's great to deal with ... a friend once told me, and rightfully so, that Payette has the best "Good" in comics. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)(thumbsu

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Surfing Alien

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On 2/23/2024 at 9:50 AM, Bookery said:

Not entirely accurate.

There have been 3 editions under slightly different titles... 2001, 2005 and 2020.  

Depends on what you mean by accurate.  When word leaked out prior to the 2001 guide coming out, there was a general panic in the pulp-convention community.  I was some interloper they didn't know (despite having attended several PulpCons) and surely the guide was designed purely to drive up prices (how this was supposed to help me, I don't know, as I didn't have a large inventory at the time).  There were a lot of on-line attacks, and "guarantees" the guide would be over-priced.  When I premiered the book at the 2001 PulpCon I even arrived to find that my dealer's table has been stuck back in an exit alcove and turned to face the wall.  The show-runner thought this was amusing.  To my own fault, the advance word of the distrust in the book probably made me overly cautious and very conservative in my pricing (though to be fair... every price in the book was exactly how I priced my own stock).  So when the guide actually did premiere, the complaints then switched to how all of the prices were too low!

The 2005 guide prices were fairly accurate for awhile... the market had settled down after an initial spike due to an influx of eBay sales.

The 2020 guide came out just before CGC announced it would be slabbing pulps.  That drove prices up almost immediately.  Then the Covid collectibles spike drove everything up even further.  That guide was out-dated (price-wise) pretty much out of the gate, which is probably why Heritage didn't keep it in print.

However, though I generally don't complain about it, I always take some issue with the books being described simply as price guides.  I am a data completist... rather compulsive about it, actually.  The books were born of my own extensive note-taking and compilations for years just so I could be consistent with my own inventories.  I would have been thrilled if someone else had done it.  But no one did.  Pricing was always the last thing I worked on before publication.  All other information came first.  Save for a few errors corrected in each new edition, and the typical typos, the other information contained in them is quite accurate... authors, artists, title-changes, 1st appearances, publishers, format, scarcity indicators, etc.  To include all of this information and leave out pricing just to appease a few who preferred to keep that information to themselves, seemed a disservice to collectors, as well as my own desire to be comprehensive.  There are a number of different sources where such information can be cobbled together, especially now more than in 2001, but the Bookery guides remain the only sources where all of this is in one place.

Yes, pricing in them is dated, though may be useful in terms of relative pricing (issue x is worth twice as much as issue y, etc.), but the rest of the data is still useful, depending upon your collecting needs.  Ideally, an issue-by-issue guide would be best... but it would run 1500 pages.

Tim, I just wanted to be another voice of thanks. Your guide formed a large part of my education on titles, authors, artists and all the other things that Pulps are besides price. The unfortunately disparaging tone of the post you responded to seems to disregard the tireless effort such a guide is. It seems to be a theme in many responses to old posts that were dredged out. Your persecution as an interloper back in the day was surely undeserved however my own sense of the reaction of "old time pulp collectors" in other forums than these to CGC grading confirms there's a bias to keeping the club door closed. The disgust and down-nose gazing I've seen at the prospect of the invasion of the club by vulgar cover art collectors in some groups is a bit disappointing but not unexpected.  I gather the same commenters will be happy to sell their wares at the higher prices that an expanded market of collectors will bring when they decide to cash out, as all humans must do eventually (or die with their booty in the hands of heirs)

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Number 6

Number 6

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On 2/23/2024 at 1:16 PM, Surfing Alien said:

Tim, I just wanted to be another voice of thanks. Your guide formed a large part of my education on titles, authors, artists and all the other things that Pulps are besides price. The unfortunately disparaging tone of the post you responded to seems to disregard the tireless effort such a guide is. It seems to be a theme in many responses to old posts that were dredged out. Your persecution as an interloper back in the day was surely undeserved however my own sense of the reaction of "old time pulp collectors" in other forums than these to CGC grading confirms there's a bias to keeping the club door closed. The disgust and down-nose gazing I've seen at the prospect of the invasion of the club by vulgar cover art collectors in some groups is a bit disappointing but not unexpected.  I gather the same commenters will be happy to sell their wares at the higher prices that an expanded market of collectors will bring when they decide to cash out, as all humans must do eventually (or die with their booty in the hands of heirs)

My exact instructions to my family:  "I want to be buried with my booty in my hands"

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Number 6

Number 6

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Seriously though, any chance on a new printing of the guide?

I don't think I'll jump in whole-hog on pulp collecting, especially with CGC now involved in grading them, and most of my disposable income is going towards book collecting.

But it would be nice to have a few pulps by my favorite authors, and I definitely need to get educated before I start spending any serious money on pulps.

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Bookery

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On 2/23/2024 at 2:12 PM, waaaghboss said:

 My one small request if and hopefully when a new guide comes out is standardizing the placement of the rarity indications for the books, maybe always at the end of the descriptive paragraph?  

Something to consider.  Actually, for the most part, the 2005 edition did it this way.  For the 2020 guide, I was going for something that could be read in a somewhat entertaining fashion, without just being totally dry data.  You would laugh if you knew how much effort I did to try to come up with a different way of wording all of the similar western pulp entries, for instance!  Or, the cover art for one title is "collectible", in another "sought-after", in a third "popular" or "enticing" or "in-demand" or "valued by collectors", etc. :bigsmile:

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