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THE PROBLEM WITH PULPS
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28 posts in this topic

4 minutes ago, Senormac said:

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Arthur Sparks takes a dart in the forearm just for the chance to fulfill #27 of his fetish longings.  

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33 minutes ago, kav said:

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Arthur Sparks resisted the urge to lift his left arm and fulfill # 54 on his list  lol

Arthur Sparks hated that they made him wear Batmans utility belt second, before they hooked up the "floater" (:

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If pulps have missing pages, they tend to fall into two categories.  (1) The pages most likely to be missing are in the front where the greatest stress is... this often means the contents page, so it's pretty easy to spot.  (2)  Sometimes the owners would cut out their favorite story and bind it in a notebook.  This leaves a fairly significant gap, and generally you can tell something's not quite right about the pulp when you hold it... flipping through it quickly will generally reveal what is missing.  But there can be exceptions.  I once bought 1,000 pulps at an estate sale that appeared to be in very nice condition... paid well into 5-figures for them.  Hauled them back from Long Island to Ohio.  Only later did I discover that about 1 in 3 had things cut out of them... often a page, but sometimes just a paragraph or even a sentence had been sliced out with a razor.  Turned out the original owner was probably some sort of whacko... when I compared what was missing to other copies, it was all stories, paragraphs, or even a few lines of philosophy centered around how horrible mankind was.  It took weeks to go through the pulps, and yes, I had to look at every single page of every single pulp before I could put them out for sale.  One of the worst purchases I've ever made.  But this is a rare event.  It's generally not feasible for a dealer to count the pages of every pulp.  However... for expensive pulps... certainly $100 and up... then yes... I believe the dealer should put in the effort to insure that everything is as it appears.

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12 hours ago, Kelmonster1 said:

So...lately you have seen auction sites such as HA...CL, ComicConnect offer PULPS for auction....So....Does that mean someone goes through every page of a pulp to make sure there are no missing pages? If you have a PULP with 500 pages do you assume they are all there? What if you win a PULP and it is missing one page,,,,,

Most pulps have either 128 or 112 pages, talking 1930's and 40's, though there are exceptions. It always pays to do a page count, just like you would do when purchasing a comic. I've been collecting pulps for at least 25 years and have had very few with missing pages, though it has happened. The auction houses don't count pages as I can attest. I bought a Spicy Mystery from 1935, the classic cover with the redhead in lingerie discovering a lynching victim, from one of the major auction houses. I paid over $1000 which was a lot of money at the time. The first thing I did was a page count  and sure enough it was missing a story page, rendering it it complete and therefore worth much less. I contacted them and returned the pulp for a refund. If you're paying a few bucks for a pulp, not a big deal, but if you're investing serious money, do yourself a favor and count the pages to avoid later heartaches, especially when selling down the road. 2c

Edited by misterrmystery
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Pulps are pretty easy. All the pages are numbered. Since they are perfect bound, the centerfold is not a problem like comics. The glue can dry out and cause pages just inside the covers to detach sometimes. 

Like comics and other magazines, I always check the pages in all the pulps I get. Not to do so is sloppy and irresponsible. It's a huge part of the grading process. 

The real problem with pulps is finding them in nice shape or finding them at all. They are way harder to find than comics. Putting together full runs of many of them can be all but impossible. 

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Spoiler

 

Pulps are pretty easy. All the pages are numbered. Since they are perfect bound, the centerfold is not a problem like comics. The glue can dry out and cause pages just inside the covers to detach sometimes. 

Like comics and other magazines, I always check the pages in all the pulps I get. Not to do so is sloppy and irresponsible. It's a huge part of the grading process. 

The real problem with pulps is finding them in nice shape or finding them at all. They are way harder to find than comics. Putting together full runs of many of them can be all but impossible. 

Edited by Robot Man
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I've only bought and sold a few dozen pulps over the years, and confess I've not always done an exact page count. As Bookery mentioned, missing/loose pages tend to be in the front, so I check there, and will flip through to make sure there are no obvious cut outs, tear outs, or other damage, checking for brittleness at the same time, which is a much more frequent problem, and not always mentioned when an item is sold.

I've not come across missing pages, but I did buy an inexpensive pulp for the cover once, only to find insects had eaten a big hole through about 40 pages in the middle of the book, none of the damage visible from the outside. This would have been easy to spot had the seller even opened the book.

I guess I figure pulps are similar to used paperbacks. I've probably bought several hundred of those over the years to read, and unless the spine is so dried out, that dozens of pages are loose, which is easily spotted with a simple thumb through, missing pages have never been a problem - certainly less common than the missing center wraps and tornout/clipped coupon pages that tend to be the main culprit with incomplete comics. 

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