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Comics, Pulps, and Paperbacks: Why such a discrepancy in values?
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6,528 posts in this topic

9 hours ago, porcupine48 said:

Okay,dog walked and I got the images from Mlle Porcupine.

Nothing huge,but one persons trash and all that-this was a one stop find.I'm really happy with the Vonnegut.

The Deerslayer art just grabbed me.And I don't know why my fingers typed Verne when I meant Asimov :flamed:This isn't a series I've read,but now I've the whole thing in one shot it looks like!

 

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I looked up the David Starr series, it looks like is a "juvenile" series in the sense that Heinlein's juveniles are. In other words, a fun read read for young and old alike (thumbsu

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21 minutes ago, Pat Calhoun said:

Hey Surf- I got in a sweet copy yesterday of a sister cover to your Irish.
& Porci- Speaking of sisters: the similar look of the Deerslayer and Comet Jo is a joy to behold. 'Empire Star' is a little gem from Delaney's early and best work - a bravura performance.

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Very cool, Maguire was much more cinematic than the pulpy Popular library style ...  also, note the switch on the hair/dress color combo from the Irish cover to the Carr!

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Current state of my ManCave.. i've pulled all my boxes of vintage PB's out to sort through them. I really need to get rid of some doubles and extraneous stuff and focus more on the core of what I aimed to collect, JD & Sci-Fi. My aim always seems to go awry when I see a bargain and I end up with nice stuff that I didn't intend to collect LOL!

ManCave.jpg

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1 hour ago, Surfing Alien said:

Current state of my ManCave.. i've pulled all my boxes of vintage PB's out to sort through them. I really need to get rid of some doubles and extraneous stuff and focus more on the core of what I aimed to collect, JD & Sci-Fi. My aim always seems to go awry when I see a bargain and I end up with nice stuff that I didn't intend to collect LOL!

ManCave.jpg

Your Man Cave suffers from a similar problem as my Collectibles Annex: too much good stuff to sort and curate at any given time!  (:

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Question for the experts if someone doesn’t mind ...I stayed out of the first round of HA Yakima’s because I’m not comfortable with my knowledge of market prices and they looked pretty inflated to me.

From what I’ve gathered trimming of the overhang is a common but hard to detect issue with a lot of pulps?

Does HA catch/notate trimming with pulps, or is it generally not an issue with Yakima’s?

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13 hours ago, szav said:

Question for the experts if someone doesn’t mind ...I stayed out of the first round of HA Yakima’s because I’m not comfortable with my knowledge of market prices and they looked pretty inflated to me.

From what I’ve gathered trimming of the overhang is a common but hard to detect issue with a lot of pulps?

Does HA catch/notate trimming with pulps, or is it generally not an issue with Yakima’s?

I'd put that question over in the "I'll Pound You To A Pulp" thread as the heavier pulp hitters frequent there.

I've been studying up on pulps again and would hazard a guess that a) trimming is a concern b) not too hard to detect if you know what a regular copy looks like and  c) most of the Yakimas are probably not trimmed. No reason to as the overhangs look great on all the ones i've seen.

That said, I thought about it but the prices at the recent auctions were way out of my comfort zone. I'll take decent copies of later Planet Stories for $25-$75. There's lots of them out there for now.

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Yes, trimming is a concern, but a lot depends on the degree of trimming.  Pulp collectors are a little more forgiving of trimming than comic collectors, and part of the reason is because it was a common practice to trim pulps amongst some original owners.  Jack Darrow, noted pulp super-fan of the 30s, trimmed every copy of Weird Tales he had before they switched to factory trimmed editions.

I categorize pulp trimming like this:

  • Light - often undetectable.  Light trimming doesn't bother me too much because it rarely detracts from the pulp's eye appeal.  It's usually not noticeable at a glance.  I've seen a LOT of pulps where I suspect light trimming, but it's difficult to confirm even under close examination.  Sometimes covers were attached higher or lower, or mis-wrapped, which gives the appearance that one or more edges have been trimmed.  Usually if you suspect one edge has been trimmed, but the others obviously have not, you have to ask yourself why they would only trim one edge.  The answer is they probably didn't.
  • Moderate - standard trimming, usually where the overhangs have been trimmed back to align with the interior pages.  Very common.  It's worse if the overhangs have been trimmed so much that the interior pages show at the edges.  
  • Severe - Heavy trimming, possibly even the interior has been trimmed as well.  The pulp looks smaller, some of the text on the cover may be gone, and the book generally looks ugly.

Heritage does notate trimming and restoration when they spot them, but as I've given many examples of recently they often miss things.

The Yakimas are probably not trimmed.  

The prices were very high...but that doesn't mean they weren't warranted.  The Planet Stories #1 went for $1,800 I think, and I have some copies that look comparable and cost me far less, but if you put them side-by-side the Yakima would probably be superior, especially on page quality.  Yakimas are known newsstand freshness and extreme white pages, and before this auction it had been 20 years since a lot of them sold at once, so there's not a lot of comparable sales data.  

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4 hours ago, RedFury said:

Yes, trimming is a concern, but a lot depends on the degree of trimming.  Pulp collectors are a little more forgiving of trimming than comic collectors, and part of the reason is because it was a common practice to trim pulps amongst some original owners.  Jack Darrow, noted pulp super-fan of the 30s, trimmed every copy of Weird Tales he had before they switched to factory trimmed editions.

I categorize pulp trimming like this:

  • Light - often undetectable.  Light trimming doesn't bother me too much because it rarely detracts from the pulp's eye appeal.  It's usually not noticeable at a glance.  I've seen a LOT of pulps where I suspect light trimming, but it's difficult to confirm even under close examination.  Sometimes covers were attached higher or lower, or mis-wrapped, which gives the appearance that one or more edges have been trimmed.  Usually if you suspect one edge has been trimmed, but the others obviously have not, you have to ask yourself why they would only trim one edge.  The answer is they probably didn't.
  • Moderate - standard trimming, usually where the overhangs have been trimmed back to align with the interior pages.  Very common.  It's worse if the overhangs have been trimmed so much that the interior pages show at the edges.  
  • Severe - Heavy trimming, possibly even the interior has been trimmed as well.  The pulp looks smaller, some of the text on the cover may be gone, and the book generally looks ugly.

Heritage does notate trimming and restoration when they spot them, but as I've given many examples of recently they often miss things.

The Yakimas are probably not trimmed.  

The prices were very high...but that doesn't mean they weren't warranted.  The Planet Stories #1 went for $1,800 I think, and I have some copies that look comparable and cost me far less, but if you put them side-by-side the Yakima would probably be superior, especially on page quality.  Yakimas are known newsstand freshness and extreme white pages, and before this auction it had been 20 years since a lot of them sold at once, so there's not a lot of comparable sales data.  

Thanks for the veteran advice. It is much appreciated. I believe it when you say you think the prices probably were warranted. Especially considering the unavailability of pedigrees and how comic top pedigrees are bid up.

My comment about being out of my comfort zone, was just that, I'm a relative novice and am just seeing what I can accomplish on a modest budget right now. I'm a paperback collector so you know I must be cheap lol!  That said, it probably means my collection will remain small :( I'm just not ready to jump in on $500 auctions.... yet :)

 

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