Comics, Pulps, and Paperbacks: Why such a discrepancy in values? 25 25

[Robot Man]

[HRCostigan]

The private life of Helen of Troy, do tell...

[Randall Dowling]

That's a great bunch of books, Robot Man!  Those laminated covers on the A. Merritt books are really frustrating.  I've had several only to watch them delaminate over time.  Had a very nice copy of Dracula that just separated in front of me.  

[moonpool]

Excellent group.Overboard was a top 10 want when i first got into paperback collecting.

[Bookery]

Here's a good-girl cover... with extras.  This is Ed Wood's "Orgy of the Dead", complete with pre-production unbound copy, 2 sets of galleys with corrections, and Wood's original manuscript, with numerous corrections in Wood's hand and the editors, plus Forrest Ackerman's original manuscript for the book's Introduction.

[PopKulture]

I've been revisiting many of my old paperbacks recently - sort of a bagging spree, more or less, after which I'm stacking them randomly in banker's boxes. I like digging through the boxes and finding the Avons and Populars mixed with the Ace doubles and Dell mapbacks. And to think I'm more or less organized with most of the other things I collect.

Here are some beauties I've reacquainted myself with:

Edited March 31, 2017 by PopKulture

[comicjack]

Murder in the mist 

[Doohickamabob]

On 3/29/2017 at 9:48 AM, Bookery said:

Here's a good-girl cover... with extras.  This is Ed Wood's "Orgy of the Dead", complete with pre-production unbound copy, 2 sets of galleys with corrections, and Wood's original manuscript, with numerous corrections in Wood's hand and the editors, plus Forrest Ackerman's original manuscript for the book's Introduction.

Whoa... WHERE did you get that? That's a keeper!

[Robot Man]

On March 31, 2017 at 3:52 AM, comicjack said:

Murder in the mist 

+1

Gotta thumbs up for that Madwoman too!

[Bookery]

20 hours ago, Doohickamabob said:

Whoa... WHERE did you get that? That's a keeper!

Many years ago one of my regular customers brought it in.  He was one of the panel speakers at the 1966 science-fiction WorldCon.  He won it as a door prize at the Con (probably asking himself what the heck is this, and who is Ed Wood?).  I have all of the mailing materials that came with it.  It came from the offices of Greenleaf Publishing (Earl Kemp) and was mailed directly to the WorldCon president.  The book was released at the same time as the movie, and maybe it was some sort of cross-promo thing?  My customer was a regional film rep at the time, and his job at the Con was to promote the new release of "Fantastic Voyage".  He passed away a few months ago in his late-'80s.  He rarely got rid of anything in his collection, and the fact that he sold this indicates of the many things he hoarded away, this apparently held little significance for him.

[Readcomix]

Is there an Overstreet equivalent for pulps? Are sales sufficient on eBay that sold listings are a good guide? And can I assume that I should grade them as I would a comic? I see some in antiques shops, but I have never bought any and know nothing about the going rate. Where do I get Pulps Pricing 101?

[ThothAmon]

EBay.  Cheap cheap.  Some nice covers.  Rampart Street stands out to me.

[Bookery]

On 4/2/2017 at 10:04 PM, Readcomix said:

Is there an Overstreet equivalent for pulps? Are sales sufficient on eBay that sold listings are a good guide? And can I assume that I should grade them as I would a comic? I see some in antiques shops, but I have never bought any and know nothing about the going rate. Where do I get Pulps Pricing 101?

I published a pulp price guide back in 2005... "Bookery's Guide to Pulps".  It's a bit dated now (though I'm working slowly on an update).  Though out of print, there are still dealers on ABE Books and Amazon that carry copies.  Pulps have historically been graded like books, with 3 grading tiers... good, very good, and fine.  The good and very good grades are actually pretty similar to comics, but the "fine" grade would be closer to a "very fine" in comics terms.  In a numerical system, the 3 main grades are probably close to comic equivalents of 2.0, 5.0, and 8.0.  Pulps grading higher than 8.0 are very rare (except for some digests), but some pedigree copies do turn up.  Keep in mind, the science-fiction pulps are what you will come across most often.  Many of these have spectacular covers, but they are also among the more common pulps... so be wary of over-graded and over-priced copies at flea markets, or from comics dealers who aren't overly familiar with pulps.  If you come across a copy of the pulp guide, in "general", SF pulps probably haven't changed too much in value over the past decade (except for true high grades), hero pulps are fairly stable except for rarities, and detective, weird menace and good-girl covers have risen since last publication.  Like comics, over-the-top cover art is in increasing demand.  Be prepared to be frustrated as a pulp collector... you can buy an Action #1 tomorrow if you have the money... but you may search for years for a $50 pulp to fill that gap in your run!  -- Tim Cottrill

[PopKulture]

13 hours ago, ThothAmon said:

EBay.  Cheap cheap.  Some nice covers.  Rampart Street stands out to me.

Nice lot. A few Popular Library's and the first Novel Library. Sinful Woman is a great cover and I've always liked Roadside Night.

[moonpool]

2 hours ago, Bookery said:

I published a pulp price guide back in 2005... "Bookery's Guide to Pulps".  It's a bit dated now (though I'm working slowly on an update).  Though out of print, there are still dealers on ABE Books and Amazon that carry copies.  Pulps have historically been graded like books, with 3 grading tiers... good, very good, and fine.  The good and very good grades are actually pretty similar to comics, but the "fine" grade would be closer to a "very fine" in comics terms.  In a numerical system, the 3 main grades are probably close to comic equivalents of 2.0, 5.0, and 8.0.  Pulps grading higher than 8.0 are very rare (except for some digests), but some pedigree copies do turn up.  Keep in mind, the science-fiction pulps are what you will come across most often.  Many of these have spectacular covers, but they are also among the more common pulps... so be wary of over-graded and over-priced copies at flea markets, or from comics dealers who aren't overly familiar with pulps.  If you come across a copy of the pulp guide, in "general", SF pulps probably haven't changed too much in value over the past decade (except for true high grades), hero pulps are fairly stable except for rarities, and detective, weird menace and good-girl covers have risen since last publication.  Like comics, over-the-top cover art is in increasing demand.  Be prepared to be frustrated as a pulp collector... you can buy an Action #1 tomorrow if you have the money... but you may search for years for a $50 pulp to fill that gap in your run!  -- Tim Cottrill

Definitely agree. A significant part of my paperback collecting operates on the premise that, while condition is great, if you see any copy of something your looking for, get it, because it may not come around again.

[Readcomix]

11 hours ago, Bookery said:

I published a pulp price guide back in 2005... "Bookery's Guide to Pulps".  It's a bit dated now (though I'm working slowly on an update).  Though out of print, there are still dealers on ABE Books and Amazon that carry copies.  Pulps have historically been graded like books, with 3 grading tiers... good, very good, and fine.  The good and very good grades are actually pretty similar to comics, but the "fine" grade would be closer to a "very fine" in comics terms.  In a numerical system, the 3 main grades are probably close to comic equivalents of 2.0, 5.0, and 8.0.  Pulps grading higher than 8.0 are very rare (except for some digests), but some pedigree copies do turn up.  Keep in mind, the science-fiction pulps are what you will come across most often.  Many of these have spectacular covers, but they are also among the more common pulps... so be wary of over-graded and over-priced copies at flea markets, or from comics dealers who aren't overly familiar with pulps.  If you come across a copy of the pulp guide, in "general", SF pulps probably haven't changed too much in value over the past decade (except for true high grades), hero pulps are fairly stable except for rarities, and detective, weird menace and good-girl covers have risen since last publication.  Like comics, over-the-top cover art is in increasing demand.  Be prepared to be frustrated as a pulp collector... you can buy an Action #1 tomorrow if you have the money... but you may search for years for a $50 pulp to fill that gap in your run!  -- Tim Cottrill

Thank you, Tim and I will look for it! While I don't see myself getting into them in a big way, I hate coming across them and not knowing a deal from overpriced common stuff. I think of this because there's one antique shop near me with a batch all priced between $8-$15 and in the mid to lower grades. One in particular struck me -- cover had a witch in black silk lingerie flying on a broom. So I guess from what you said that decent shape, low price GGA covers such as that are probably safe bets? I guess if it would make a good GGA comic cover its a good pulp cover?

[PopKulture]

Readcomix, was this the issue in question?

[Readcomix]

1 hour ago, PopKulture said:

Readcomix, was this the issue in question?

Yes! Thank you! Should I grab it?

[PopKulture]

2 hours ago, Readcomix said:

Yes! Thank you! Should I grab it?

The sci-fi pulps of the 40's and 50's are by no measure scarce,  but that doesn't diminish their appeal. IMHO you can't go wrong picking up something that "pops" when you prop it up near your desk at the prices you mentioned.

[Readcomix]

5 hours ago, PopKulture said:

The sci-fi pulps of the 40's and 50's are by no measure scarce,  but that doesn't diminish their appeal. IMHO you can't go wrong picking up something that "pops" when you prop it up near your desk at the prices you mentioned.

Thank you! Easy enough to decide it's a cool cover but I wasn't sure if it was scarce and/or particularly sought-after among pulp collectors. So it's like an off-the-radar comics cover that's cool but has not yet gotten hot (staying with GGA themes, I'll use Anthro #6 and Jonah Hex#87 as comparators.) I'm catching on! Thank you!