Doohickamabob

I'm curious about the details on this. What comic/grade, and why did he say he disagreed with CGC's grade? The account name has a certain irony to it.

Hooray for Reform School Girl. I doubt I'll ever find the comic, but the paperback will do.

That's a good question. Nobody I know has ever been in this situation, and I am sure nobody here would admit to being a recurring non-paying bidder.

Maybe you should send him a long note on how to pay properly. If I thought it would do any good, I would. (Or maybe I'll wait until the NPB cases closes.) Small quibble: Why if a buyer hits my BIN item and never pays do I get charged to relist the item? I was just kiddin' around of course. Regarding the BIN, I think there is a way to set up your BINs so that immediate payment is required. I forget the details but I'm pretty sure you can do that. I also think that eBay doesn't charge to relist an item if it was canceled the first time.

Maybe you should send him a long note on how to pay properly.

I gotta get me some early Lovecraft paperbacks! Is that a Matt Fox cover? Loving the other images too...

"Scott thought he knew all about sex -- until he tangled with a sadistic nympho!"

I am all for it! Yes, please, do contribute once you get your collection up and going. Glad you appreciate the "Dancing Sandwiches." On name alone, that's of my favorites. (I need to get a copy of "Take a Lesbian to Lunch" to go with it -- just to complete the lunch-food theme.) I don't have any Jim Thompson books, and there seem to still be a lot of collectors who are very active and competitive to get them. I don't have an Ace "Junkie" either, and probably won't ever at this point. I won't say the names of a few of the authors I try hardest to find -- just because I don't want to give any potential competitors any ideas... That said, I did score one of my absolute grails the other day. I will post a photo after it's safely in my hands.

"My Flesh Is Sweet" ... ...indeed it is!

I have never seen most/all of these, and they're awesome!

Seems your gripe is more with eBay than the buyer. Unless the buyer is also an active seller, I wouldn't expect the buyer to understand all the ramifications of using eBay's standard return process to initiate a return. I'm not sure what you mean when you say "sellers are punished for accepting returns," since sellers do not really have any other option these days. The 20% discount on seller fees is a great perk, and I hate to lose it over egregious buyer misbehavior or "buyer's remorse" type returns. But losing it (temporarily) because a buyer doesn't want to go outside the guidelines that eBay itself has provided is a different matter, and again, the fault there is primarily with the way eBay set up the system.

Very cool. A lot of people might not recognize what those are. I know the Tarzan is a big deal, but I figure there are so many versions of those Tarzan books, I don't know which ones are early printings or later printings. The "Avenging Martian" book is a little bizarre! (I looked up both books in the Antique Trader Collectible Paperback Price Guide by Gary Lovisi, and they're not listed.)

What you say aligns with my observations. If that means I have a shot at some of the tougher books, then I'm all for it, though the books that are high on my wantlist tend to have the most competition. I have a number of duplicates and books that I don't really want to keep, and I'm sorry if the market drop means I won't get much for them when selling. But then again, I didn't spend much to get them, so it's not a headache like it would be if the comic book market imploded. P.S. I'm glad you enjoy the covers I posted! To all vintage paperback collectors: Please continue posting here, and share your collections if you can!

Just reading through these old messages, and wondering: Why isn't there more activity in here among collectors of vintage paperbacks? Is there another message forum where they are more likely to congregate? Here are some books from my collection. I took these photos a few years ago and probably already posted them somewhere in the CGC forums, but not this thread. Since then, I have added quite a few cool books. Eventually I'll get out the books and the camera and take some much better pics.

Hey there, I just made a guide to packing CGC comic books for mailing. I'll attach it to this message. Please look it over and tell me if you think this looks like a good way to package? I wasn't actually mailing anything, just taking pictures so I could make this guide. I thought it might be useful to people. (Thanks to Forbush-man and others here for the suggestion about which USPS boxes to order.)

It is customary to provide some sort of explanation for why an eBayer should be blocked.

It's amazing how petty people can be.

The last item in today's "Show and Tell" from the magazine box is this questionable S&M cover from an early 1990s Spy Magazine. In the days before Photoshop, the editors of Spy were ahead of the curve in re-imagining celebrities and controversial public figures in new ways. I happen to think Hillary Clinton makes a fetching dominatrix, and this image goes a long way to explaining the dynamic of her relationship with Bill. I hope this doesn't get me in trouble for a political post...

Also in movie-program/souvenir vein, this is an odd item I found a few years back, and it was only a few bucks so what the heck: This is the Japanese version of the Empire Strikes Back souvenir program. It's kind of fun to look at it now that the new movie is coming out at the end of this year (fingers crossed that the new movie doesn't suck!)....

Next up: Some movie programs, or more accurately I think they were sold as stand-alone souvenirs. I don't know if they were given out at the actual movies, though I distinctly remember buying a 1978 Superman the Movie program when I was a kid (and I still have that one, though didn't take a picture of it to post here). A few years back I snagged these James Bond oversized souvenir programs. They were very inexpensive so I think they might have been over-printed or under-distributed or something, sitting in a warehouse waiting for Gen-Xers to buy them up. They don't have prices printed on them, so I think they might have been promotional or....who knows. These are two Bond movies I enjoyed as a kid, and the full-page spreads loaded with Bond Girls are a nice touch. (I wish I had the foresight to get Richard "Jaws" Kiel to sign these.)

In a similar vein to the crime-GGA magazines, here's a female-fixated war magazine that I've only ever seen one issue of (not that I've been actively looking for others). The cover isn't a standout, but it's still pretty cool. The articles inside make the magazine a keeper.

Here's one of my favorite categories: True-crime magazines that double as lurid GGA sleazefests! I love this stuff, and the cover art has crossover appeal for fans (such as myself) of collectible vintage paperbacks from the same era.

Speaking of GGA, here are a few of the really pin-up style magazines, with their fantastic cover paintings. I would consider trying to collect these more fervently, but there are many, many titles and they often get a little redundant (if you've seen one half-naked woman in public with her panties accidentally slid down around her ankles, you've seen 'em all)...

On the "pure GGA" side of things, I enjoy occasionally picking up some of these GGA one-panel cartoon collections. The humor is predictably lustful and cheeky, to the point where it's almost embarrassing to own these. But they're fun, often have cool covers, and there seems to be an infinite variety of titles.

Next: A small assortment of "Men's Adventure" magazines. I find these fascinating, but can't bring myself to seriously pursue collecting a lot of them. They are such a strange cultural artifact in terms of the psychology of the market they were trying to reach... Gotta love the GGA, though it's a queasy mix with some of the sadistic situations on many of the covers. Case in point is the decapitation cover on the Man's Story magazine in the lower right. It's one of the tougher issues to find and my copy is pretty minty.