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Comics, Pulps, and Paperbacks: Why such a discrepancy in values?
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6,529 posts in this topic

So a few days ago I found a modern reprint of Black Angel by Woolrich.  I read it in two days which is something I never do. I understand what the fuss is about. There was one plot hole that needed to be smoothed but it was otherwise great. I enjoyed seeing how similar our culture was for people in the 40’s compared to today.  I was interested in how “clean” the story was.  There was room to make it more lurid, cheap, or dirty,  but maybe by 1940 standards it was. This was one of the books that the author wrote in his real name. Makes me wonder if the William Irish pen name books go deeper into the dark side. 

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16 hours ago, Surfing Alien said:

Christmas to New Years turned into a buyers paradise for me while I was away on vacation. Few bidders and lots of discounts offered out there, so I pulled the trigger a bit in my spare time. I've got a bit of unboxing to do but here's a wonderful Nappi cover on a tough book. 

 

Cool book.  When you posted this, my first thought was "I know Surfing Alien knows his stuff, what's the deal with that book?"    What I mean is that I know you're chasing only the best stuff, so I was trying to figure out what (besides the better art) sets it apart.  So I researched it.  The artwork on that book looks so familiar to me because the artist who did it also did covers for Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys! And then the book is rare too.  Quite an interesting pickup.

Couldn't agree with you more on holiday purchases.  I bought so many books that it's not realistic to do "NEWP" posts anymore.  I'll probably just wait for them to come in and do a group shot and call it good.  Over the holidays, I found that making an offer worked on most everything as long as my request was reasonable.    I find that it's not worth looking for things in the wild because I can find as many bargains from my couch due to lack of competition.  I can't decide if that's good or bad, but right now I don't care.

As I continue to plummet faster and faster down the rabbit hole of the book collecting genre (I think I need help!), I find that my tastes are changing day to day and I'm dabbling in everything.  But I'm definitely gravitating toward what's rare.  The problem is that the more I learn, the more I see bargains, (sometimes on stuff that's nice to look at, but not so rare). How do you not pull the trigger on a book for $7 that popped onto ebay a few hours ago when everyone is asking $30 or more for it?   I really like the rare stuff though...it's so amazing to be able to buy a cool book that might be the only one listed anywhere (that I can find) on the internet for less than $20.  It's crazy!  I bought a book for $3.75 that has only 5 listed on the internet with the next cheapest one going for $75...and it's a skull cover from 1943.    At this point, I'm finding things that I want that aren't available for sale anywhere at all!   I'm reluctant to divulge what I'm waiting for because I NEED those books.   I've always enjoyed the thrill of the hunt, and this is great sport.

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Lesbian themed books have been "hot" in more than one sense for quite a while. This one also has the great Nappi art and Eton's are generally pretty scarce so it's a great combo.

The holidays are the best time to buy because most people are buying gifts and generally doing other things, plus the sellers are discounting more than they usually do to raise holiday cash. It's a win win for buyers.

I don't usually do auctions because the stuff I go for always seems to get jacked up but bidding was sparse on many of the ones I looked at - many people just aren't in the market in December - so I won some prizes, as well as getting some great discounts on BIN's 👍

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On 12/31/2019 at 11:29 PM, Westy Steve said:

So a few days ago I found a modern reprint of Black Angel by Woolrich.  I read it in two days which is something I never do. I understand what the fuss is about... (snip)

Finally received a vintage version of this book.  This Ace book seems to be kind of scarce in the marketplace so I bought it with the idea of upgrading later.  Seems that some of the later Woolrich books are hard to find but perhaps they are just not worth listing?

C641ADCF-5AC5-405C-9C00-0694FC0A5DF0.jpeg

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