Collecting Pulp Fiction Paperbacks (U.K. Guardian article)

I wonder if paperback books will ever achieve that sort of value?
I've got shelves full of SF paperbacks that I bought for fifty
cents each back in the 1960s. Great cover art. I've seen them
selling for fifteen dollars or so at SF conventions, but that's
not much of a rise in value, given inflation. A new paperback
costs seven or eight dollars. They are very perishable items, so
maybe a value item for collectors in the not too distant future.



quote
__________________________________________________ ________________


Collecting

Extracting a pocket size profit from pulp fiction

Once these 1950s low-brow tales of the hard-boiled detective and the
sultry blonde were throwaway items. Not any more, says Dan Synge

Saturday April 16, 2005
The Guardian

[snip]

Nice article. Paperbacks are so impermanent, they are bound to be
bigger and bigger as collectibles as times goes on. That's what I
think, anyway.

On Mon, 18 Apr 2005 01:24:09 GMT, Al Smith
wrote:

I wonder if paperback books will ever achieve that sort of value?
I've got shelves full of SF paperbacks that I bought for fifty
cents each back in the 1960s. Great cover art. I've seen them
selling for fifteen dollars or so at SF conventions, but that's
not much of a rise in value, given inflation. A new paperback
costs seven or eight dollars. They are very perishable items, so
maybe a value item for collectors in the not too distant future.



quote
__________________________________________________ ________________


Collecting

Extracting a pocket size profit from pulp fiction

Once these 1950s low-brow tales of the hard-boiled detective and the
sultry blonde were throwaway items. Not any more, says Dan Synge

Saturday April 16, 2005
The Guardian

[snip]

Nice article. Paperbacks are so impermanent, they are bound to be
bigger and bigger as collectibles as times goes on. That's what I
think, anyway.


Great article, Michael, thanks for posting. I'['ve done a fair bit of
business with Maurice over the years and while it is amazing just what
he's able to turn up the items that remain elusive even for someone
with his connections are equally impressive. Al, you mention Jack
Vance's THE DYING EARTH as a rarity, it certainly is; but part of the
cachet is that it is the first book by a very popular author. Far more
difficult are British paperbacks from the years just prior to and
including WWII. What wasn't tossed into paperdrives or burned when
warehouses were bombed during the blitz were often as not just tossed
out with the rubbish. I'd venture that nice copies of many of the
titles issued by Modern Publishing and similar imprints are orders of
magnitude scarcer than the Vance.

(Al, this isn't to diminish your, it's a highpoint of any modern
SF/Fantasy collection, but to put it in perspective; I've owned five
copies and seen at least two dozen offered for sale in the last
decade... I've never seen a copy of DEMON OF HONG KONG by Ronald S.L.
Harding or THE DEATH EXPRESS by Arlton Eadie; nor do I know anyone
that has!

I'd imagine finding a complete set of Sexton Blake or Hank Janson
would be difficult if not impossible. You're quite right in suggesting
that a lot of paperbacks will reach fairly high values at some point;
I'd guess that the vintage referenced above would be a good starting
point, just in terms of scarcity.

Some of the interesting factors are genres that were not popularly
"collected". In SF, there's always been an active hardcore of
collectors that took pains to preserve books and pulps. In some of
your other areas, there were far, far more readers than collectors.
The low-budget thrillers I've alluded to above were not really
"collected" and subsequently have become difficult as have the story
papers of the 1920s and 1930s. One genre that puzzles me a great deal
is the seeming lack of interest in the Western. It's not my cup of
tea, but you'd think that there would be far more people seeking out
difficult titles in this genre, but over the years, I've met very few
that went beyond the big names in their interest...

Cheers,

John

Other recent articles on the pulps:

http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smi...3/pulpart.html

http://finebooksmagazine.com/issue/0203/torch.phtml


William M. Klimon
http://www.gateofbliss.com

Some of the interesting factors are genres that were not popularly
"collected". In SF, there's always been an active hardcore of
collectors that took pains to preserve books and pulps. In some of
your other areas, there were far, far more readers than collectors.
The low-budget thrillers I've alluded to above were not really
"collected" and subsequently have become difficult as have the story
papers of the 1920s and 1930s. One genre that puzzles me a great deal
is the seeming lack of interest in the Western. It's not my cup of
tea, but you'd think that there would be far more people seeking out
difficult titles in this genre, but over the years, I've met very few
that went beyond the big names in their interest...

I have a feeling cover art will play a larger part in what is
collectable in paperbacks. My impression is that early English
paperbacks don't have a bright and colorful covers as American
paperbacks. Also, I've noticed that the paper quality of English
paperbacks doesn't seem as good as the paper quality of American
paperbacks. The paper is browner, and generally thinner. Maybe it
will stand up better over time, however.

Some paperbacks have a very limited life. I bought a lot of Bantam
paperbacks in the 1960s, and now many of the spines of those books
are so brittle, it would be almost impossible to read them without
breaking the spines. My Doc Savage series, for example. Stiff
paper, and the glue goes to dust when the spine is flexed. But
maybe that's the sort of thing that will push up the value for
books in perfect condition.

Westerns have never appealed to me. I like mystery, SF and horror.
I've got the Flemming James Bond series by Pan. The Bond books
were originally in hardcover, I believe, so the paperbacks may
never be worth a whole lot, but the covers are fun.

On Mon, 18 Apr 2005 08:37:22 -0500, John A. Stovall
wrote:

On Sun, 17 Apr 2005 20:39:44 -0700, John Pelan
wrote:

snipped
papers of the 1920s and 1930s. One genre that puzzles me a great deal
is the seeming lack of interest in the Western. It's not my cup of
tea, but you'd think that there would be far more people seeking out
difficult titles in this genre, but over the years, I've met very few
that went beyond the big names in their interest...

Interesting observation on the Western genre and it's collectors or
lack there of.

I've run into come who collect early "Dime Novel's" on the west but
not the pulps from the '20's onward or paperbacks.

This is some food for thought.
************************************************* ***********

It's odd... I've met people that collect books with pictures of
skulls, gorillas, redheads, and drug references (to name just a few).
Even met a guy that collects books by authors named "Smith" (his logic
is that there will always be something else to buy and he's sure of
diversity in subject matter); but no comprehensive collectors of the
western... Odd...


Cheers,

John