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I'll pound you to a "Pulp" if you don't show off yours!
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9,006 posts in this topic

The more important pick-up, however, is this one.  It's the last pulp I needed to get the complete run of Pre-War stories Robert Heinlein did for John Campbell.  (The stories were actually published well into 1942.)  I don't think I'm being particularly controversial when I say those 23 stories are one of the most important and influential runs in the history of Science Fiction.  So very glad to finally put together that set of pulps.  Now to start beating my head against the frustrating wall that is the five pre-war stories for other editors that Heinlein did under the name "Lyle Monroe"; those are particularly hard since Heinlein actually prohibited 3 of them from being reprinted during his lifetime.

Unknown_1941_04.jpg

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And another one, adding a very important creator to my list of pulp writers I have examples of.

Featuring a story from one of the definitive writers of Pulp Fiction, but who was best known for Hardboiled Detective stories and only veered into fantasy a couple times...

Unknown, Nov. 1939, with "The Bronze Door" by Raymond Chandler.

Unknown_1939_11.jpg

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Hey, gang, question for you guys -- I'm trying to figure out which printing I have of The Night Master by Robert Sampson. (This is a book about the Shadow, for those who don't know.)

The indicia in my copy has no printing line. At the risk of being obvious, does the second printing clearly state "second printing," or am I missing a more obscure clue? 

Thanks!

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On 9/7/2017 at 1:53 PM, MisterX said:

Hey, gang, question for you guys -- I'm trying to figure out which printing I have of The Night Master by Robert Sampson. (This is a book about the Shadow, for those who don't know.)

The indicia in my copy has no printing line. At the risk of being obvious, does the second printing clearly state "second printing," or am I missing a more obscure clue? 

Thanks!

I have no idea; I wish I could help.  The only books I have about the Shadow are the Duende History and the Shadow Scrapbook.

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I'm not much of a pulp guy but got a new appreciation for them a year or two ago when I picked up some Shadow reprints and read them. Anyway I went over to a local car show today to stroll around and after looking at the cars went into a small antique mall and started to poke around the piles. Lots of junk piled high. I saw a stack of Argosy magazines and thought I remembered that's where Tarzan started so I thought I would look for an ERB tale. No luck there but then this issue caught my eye with a cover credit for the good Major before he started National. For $9. I thought I'd bring it home and read it someday.

 

 

tn_ArgosyJuly1930.jpg

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10 hours ago, 40YrsCollctngCmcs said:

I'm not much of a pulp guy but got a new appreciation for them a year or two ago when I picked up some Shadow reprints and read them. Anyway I went over to a local car show today to stroll around and after looking at the cars went into a small antique mall and started to poke around the piles. Lots of junk piled high. I saw a stack of Argosy magazines and thought I remembered that's where Tarzan started so I thought I would look for an ERB tale. No luck there but then this issue caught my eye with a cover credit for the good Major before he started National. For $9. I thought I'd bring it home and read it someday.

 

 

tn_ArgosyJuly1930.jpg

I would have dropped $9 for that one too!  It would also be fun to the the Erle Stanley Gardner story; I was never a huge Perry Mason fan but I enjoyed the handful I read.

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7 hours ago, OtherEric said:

I would have dropped $9 for that one too!  It would also be fun to the the Erle Stanley Gardner story; I was never a huge Perry Mason fan but I enjoyed the handful I read.

 

7 hours ago, OtherEric said:

I would have dropped $9 for that one too!  It would also be fun to the the Erle Stanley Gardner story; I was never a huge Perry Mason fan but I enjoyed the handful I read.

Yellow Kid also pointed out the Perry Mason connection which I was unaware of when purchasing. A bonus!

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And a nice handful of books in today.

Let's start with a couple of Astounding Science Fiction from 1943.  These are some of the very last pulp issues; the title went to pulp format from May to October of 1943 between a 16 issue run as a bedsheet and it going to the digest format it still has.  The September issue is interesting for a Ray Bradbury story; he didn't make many sales to Campbell that I'm aware of.

Astounding_1943_06.jpg

Astounding_1943_09.jpg

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Next up is the May 1940 issue of Super Science Stories, the 2nd issue of that title.  The key story in this one is "Let There Be Light" by "Lyle Monroe", better known as Robert Heinlein.  This is one of his earliest stories; and the only pre-war story in his Future History published outside of Astounding.  (In an earlier post I said there were 5 pre-war "Lyle Monroe" stories I needed to track down.  There was actually a 6th, "Heil!", published in Bradbury's Futuria Fantasia fanzine.  I've decided to not worry about non-pro publications for my own sanity.)

Super_Science_Stories_1940_05.jpg

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Sticking with Super Science Stories, here's the November 1941 issue.  This one has the other "Lyle Monroe" story published in that title, "Lost Legion".  It's much better known as "Lost Legacy".  Even more interesting is "Pendulum" by Ray Bradbury and Henry Hasse.  It's Bradbury's first professional publication.

Super_Science_Stories_1941_11.jpg

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The best book in today's batch, however, is a few years earlier than the others.  We go back to April of 1936 and Astounding, for part 3 of Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness".  Now all I need is the March 36 issue and I'll have all 4 of the Lovecraft Astoundings...

Astounding_1936_04.jpg

Edited by OtherEric
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A question for the group:  What are the key pulp issues?  I'm pretty sure the top 5 would be 1st Tarzan, 1st Call of Cthulhu, 1st Conan, 1st Shadow, and 1st Doc Savage; but beyond that I'm really not sure what the, say, key 20-25 or so books would be.  Or even if that's a meaningful question with pulps relative to comics.  To be clear, I'm not asking what the most valuable books are, necessarily; rarity can do really weird things on some pulps, even more than comics from what I've seen.

What would people put on that list?

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18 minutes ago, OtherEric said:

A question for the group:  What are the key pulp issues?  I'm pretty sure the top 5 would be 1st Tarzan, 1st Call of Cthulhu, 1st Conan, 1st Shadow, and 1st Doc Savage; but beyond that I'm really not sure what the, say, key 20-25 or so books would be.  Or even if that's a meaningful question with pulps relative to comics.  To be clear, I'm not asking what the most valuable books are, necessarily; rarity can do really weird things on some pulps, even more than comics from what I've seen.

What would people put on that list?

I don't even know what issue you're referring with first "Call of Cthulhu," but your other nominees are solid. The Tarzan All-Story is a no-brainer. So are the Shadow and Doc for importance. To that I would add the first Spider and Operator 5. If you're expanding the list to 20 or 25, a few other hero pulps like Secret 6 and The Octopus would vie for inclusion. WuFang and Dr. Yen Sin as well. First issue of Weird Tales for sure.

To some extent, the same thing is happening in pulps that happened in comics - the great, in-your-face covers are seeing huge price spikes, like the Saucy's and Spicy's. Contents be damned. Forty years ago pulp collectors cared 95% about what was on the inside.

I think the first Buck Rogers in Amazing Stories has to make the list for importance, and there are the Black Masks with firsts by Chandler and Hammett, etc. that some would justly argue for. The first appearance of Zorro could squeak in there as well.

And then there are the oddballs and esoteric pulps like Zeppelin Stories with the famous "Gorilla of the Gasbags" cover. That's going to make your top 20, and maybe the first Thrill Book.

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