If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
Ads |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
On Wed, 14 Jul 2004 16:13:34 -0400, "RWF"
wrote: "rcbsam0131" wonders: Has anyone recently completed, or is close to completing, a collection? I don't know if any book collector ever regards their collection as truly complete. There is always that copy in better condition that would sure look good on the shelf... I don't forsee that I'll ever be "done". Much of my collecting has moved into the realm of authors whose work was not ever comprehensibly collected in book form. Current project is Robert F. Young, who wrote nearly 200 stories... My attempt to get a signed Arkham House example from every possible author took a huge blow this weekend when teh Vincent Starrett book I'd intended to order vansihed over the weekend, To make matters worse, a friend confirms the existence of a volume previously not thought to exist in a signed state... Cheers, John |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
On Wed, 14 Jul 2004 16:13:34 -0400, "RWF"
wrote: "rcbsam0131" wonders: Has anyone recently completed, or is close to completing, a collection? I don't know if any book collector ever regards their collection as truly complete. There is always that copy in better condition that would sure look good on the shelf... I gotta go with Bob on this. I'm lacking one Conklin paperback and one hardcover-with-jacket to complete a set of firsts; but whereas I've been extremely fortunate to find very fine copies of a lot of the 41 anthologies Conk did, there will *always* be a few I need to upgrade - and this leaves alone for the moment the question of foreign editions. I have most of the UK reprints, but I may never have the Spanish or Japanese issues. And, as Conk signed very few books, I may never have more than the single autograph I have now. Add to that the fact that I'm an amateur bibliographer, and....Nope, the collection is never quite completed. |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
I am fairly close to completing my collection of books about the
Vietnam conflict. How do you decide it's complete? (I presume you haven't got /every/ book referring to the conflict.) Did you start out with, or at some point make, a list? Or is it just a feeling that you have a reached a point where adding more titles won't improve the collection? There are thousands of books about Vietnam. Some are government publications with reprints of letters, memos and cables. Others are comic books or paperback action stories. Some have (IMHO) no redeeming literary value or are unreadable. Collecting them may not add anything (except variety) to my collection. I started with Ken Lopez's list of the 50 best fiction books about Vietnam and expanded on that. For example, Robert Olen Butler wrote several books about Vietnam, but I ended up collecting almost all of his books because I liked his style. How did I decide my collection was complete? First, using the opinion of other collectors and dealers about what was worth colleting. Second, my own opinion about the literary value of what is left. However, I recently purchased four books to add to my collection. Two were written by Michael Lanning who was a company commander in the 199th LIB in Vietnam. I purchased those because of a pesonal connection with his unit. Another was a history of the 199th LIB; again a persona connection. And David Maraniss's book, "They Marched into Sunlight", non-fiction about concurrent events in Vietnam and Wisconsin in 1967. What would I like to add? Better copies of Bernard Fall's two books. A copy of Wolff's book, "Ugly Rumours", though at $1000+ not likely. And Wolff has repudiated the book! I would like to add books written by Vietnamese authors, but not those approved by the communist bureaucrats in Hanoi. If anyone is interested in a substantial bibliography for Vietnam, please go to http://people.clemson.edu/~eemoise/bibliography.html Art Layton Stamford CT |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
|
#6
|
|||
|
|||
"rcbsam0131" wrote in message
m... Hello again - let's try it this way: is it possible to ever stop collecting? Or, if one could complete a collection, what then? Thanks to all who have responded - Ron Bishop No - I don't think *I* will ever stop collecting. I limit my collecting to a relatively small genre (ghost/horror fiction), but even within this there's a massive amount of collecting to be done. I started with a single signed Clive Barker book & started collecting those. Since Mr. Barker is very generous to his fans, autographed copies are very easy to come by. Then I got a copy of Night Visions 3, which is an anthology that Mr. Barker contributed to. That got me started on trying to get all of the Night Visions books, which in turn led to collecting signed anthologies in general... somewhere in the mix I started in with all of the Bram Stoker Award winners. And who can collect horror books without including Stephen King? And so on... So even if I complete a portion of my collection (all the Night Visions books, for example), I still have so many other areas to fill in, I doubt I'd ever be done. If by some off chance I suddenly found myself a very rich (let's say I won the lottery), and within a couple of years had completed all of my collections, then I would probably just increase the scope of what I'm collecting. Include older books, lesser known authors, etc. Perhaps even switch to an entirely new genre. I think part of the facination with collecting (for myself, anyway) is that there's ALWAYS something else to find; there's never an end to what's out there. Even if I had a copy of every known book ever published, there are sill thousands of new books published every year. So I suppose the only reason I'd stop collecting is if I lost interest. |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
Elston Brooks, a now-deceased columnist for the _Fort Worth Star-Telegram_,
covered this topic back in the 1970's when, as an adult, he decided to collect the complete set of Big Little Books. "I had 250 of them which I let my mother give away to an orphanage when I went into the army." He asked readers to help him, and they did. Then he asked on radio and TV shows. Slowly, but constantly, people began giving him their old Big Little Books. That wasn't quite enough, so he took ads in book publications across the country. Soon they arrived from distant states, and even Great Britain. Since Brooks was an entertainment reporter, he got to travel a lot, and used that advantage to scour used book stores all over America. One New York City book dealer reamed him with this: "If I had any Big Little Books, I'd burn 'em up. They cost 10 cents back in the 1930s and guys like you are driving the prices crazy. They're too much trouble at those inflated prices. Bale 'em for waste paper, I would." On the positive side, Brooks said that there was no greater thrill than to arrive home each night and find an oblong package with an out-of-state postmark waiting for him on the porch. "I had the collector's monkey on my back. In six months I had whittled the want list down to only 19 missing books. I found the mother lode in Chicago." Somebody gave Brooks the name of a book dealer in Chicago, along with a warning: "I wouldn't advise going. The dealer's a little eccentric." Fat chance. Brooks walked into the place nonchalantly during his next business trip, and Gosh! Seventeen cartons of Big Little Books piled on the floor!!!!!!!! "It was the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life, but I stayed away from the cartons for several minutes, pretending to browse in other sections of the shop. Casually, I said to the owner, 'Oh, what are these? I think I might have had some of those little books when I was a kid. What are they called?'" The owner said: "Let's not con-around. Let me see your want list." Defeated, Brooks pulled the list out of his pocket. Later that day, he flew home with his want list of "gotcha's" at 248 Big Little Books. After 14 months of this, he had only two books to go. A prominent Fort Worth publisher gave him one of the missing ones at a business luncheon. "They wanted me to have it because they couldn't stand the thought of a big boy crying." Only one more to go! Then, came the Big One. A woman phoned Elston Brooks and said she had the prized book he'd been looking for, "Gentleman Joe Palooka." That would make the grand total of 250 books, and it would all be over. She said all Brooks had to do was come and get it, free. "I was a collector too," she told him. "I was after a certain kind of tea cups. I know what it feels like to finally find the last one. But now it's over, and the thrill of the hunt is gone." Brooks wrote: "She was right. I had special book shelves built, and there the 250 Big Little Books sit today. Unread. I'm always afraid someone will phone and ask what I'm doing, and how can a grown man say, 'Oh, just sitting around reading "Flash Gordon in the Water World of Mongo"?'" ******* Speaking personally at last, I've been sorta/kinda collecting _Doc Savage_ books. These are the reprints published by Bantam during the 1960's and 1970's. I seriously doubt they'll ever be republished, since the stories were originally written at least 70 years ago and some topics they cover would have a very difficult time getting past the Politically Correct Nazis today. I'm told that these reprints are difficult to locate, and very expensive when they are found. So I just trip over them occasionally at thrift shops and garage sales. Besides, I like to actually *read* the things, and sometimes Life just gets in the way. But it's still a lot of fun! When a book dealer tells me she won't take anything less than ten bucks for a paperback copy of "Man of Bronze," the first book in the series, it's a flush of great joy when I find the same book at a Salvation Army store for only a buck. You know that feeling, right? Of course you do! |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
Speaking personally at last, I've been sorta/kinda collecting _Doc Savage_
books. These are the reprints published by Bantam during the 1960's and 1970's. I seriously doubt they'll ever be republished, since the stories were originally written at least 70 years ago and some topics they cover would have a very difficult time getting past the Politically Correct Nazis today. I'm told that these reprints are difficult to locate, and very expensive when they are found. Most of the Bantam Doc Savage reprints are readily available on eBay. The 2 in1 editions and Omnibus editions are a little harder to find. I put together a set a quite while ago (pre-eBay) and it took me less than a year. -- Bob Finnan The Hardy Boys Unofficial Home Page http://users.arczip.com/fwdixon New & Out Of Print Books, Books-On-Tape, Videos, DVDs, CD-ROMs For Sale http://users.arczip.com/fwdixon/hbsale.htm .................................................. .................... |
#9
|
|||
|
|||
"Art Layton" wrote in message
om... I am fairly close to completing my collection of books about the Vietnam conflict. Interesting posts--I'm always intrigued to hear about military history collections. Today, making my usual rounds I found for $1 a signed copy of Robert McNamara's *In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam* (1995). The book is in pretty rough shape (VG-/G+, both book and jacket), but there don't seem to be a lot of copies for sale with McNamara's signature directly on the title page. Seems like a good addition to a Vietnam collection, were I assembling one. William M. Klimon http://www.gateofbliss.com |
#10
|
|||
|
|||
"Matt J. McCullar" wrote in message
. .. Elston Brooks, a now-deceased columnist for the _Fort Worth Star-Telegram_, covered this topic back in the 1970's when, as an adult, he decided to collect the complete set of Big Little Books. "I had 250 of them which I let my mother give away to an orphanage when I went into the army." He asked readers to help him, and they did. Then he asked on radio and TV shows. Slowly, but constantly, people began giving him their old Big Little Books. Funny, just today I picked up a copy of Bill Borden's *The Big Book of Big Little Books* (1997). I don't collect 'em, but I liked the graphics. Here's an example of another collection being brough to conclusion: the last individual to assemble the Zamorano 80: http://www.dsloan.com/Auctions/A12/A12Contents.htm William M. Klimon http://www.gateofbliss.com |
|
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Has Anyone Recently Completed a Collection? | rcbsam0131 | General | 1 | July 14th 04 01:13 AM |
FS: "Star Trek" Limited Edition Collector Plates | Jim Sinclair | General | 0 | October 5th 03 08:10 AM |
Has Anyone Recently Completed a Collection? | rcbsam0131 | General | 0 | October 4th 03 03:07 AM |
Has Anyone Recently Completed a Collection | rcbsam0131 | General | 0 | October 4th 03 03:06 AM |
Has Anyone Recently Sold a Collection? | rcbsam0131 | General | 0 | August 8th 03 08:15 PM |