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Los Angeles Vintage Paperback Show 2026 in Review

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       This is the third year in a row that I've flown out to LA from Tampa to the biggest Vintage Paperback show in the country at the Glendale Civic Auditorium. I continue to come out here because I've had such a good time hunting down rare books for my collection and meeting other collectors and dealers. I'm not going to type too much but will try to post lots of pictures that capture the feel of the show and hope it inspires collectors to give it a shot in the years to come.      The trip started out great with a dinner last night with an "Old School" collector, Pat Lee and his lovely wife, Sheila. I met Pat online in a Facebook Paperback Group and could always tell that he was a swell guy and boy did he sure live up to that preconception. He had some great stories about vintage paperback collecting, including attending Lance Casebeer's legendary "Lance Cons".       He knows my colleague Bruce Brenner, who helped greatly in asse...
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The Killer Inside Me - Robert Maguire Cover art CONFIRMED!

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         When you start to root around the internet more and more looking for art and facts, you may tend to run into more and more interesting stuff!      I encountered Lynn Maguire recently posting on a Facebook group where she was selling original posed photos taken and/or used by her father, legendary PB cover artist Robert Maguire, as studies for his original paintings sold to the paperback publishing houses for use as their cover art.        Ms. Maguire has confirmed something that I have long suspected - that the cover art to one of the hobby's most famous books, Jim Thompson' s "The Killer Inside Me", Lion Books No. 99, was indeed painted by Robert Maguire.          She mentioned that to me that she confirmed this when she found pose photos of the woman lying dead in the foreground of the cover, and several poses of her father as the man in the painting. She indicated that her father very o...
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Sin Pit by Paul S. Meskil

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       Sin Pit by Paul Meskil Lion Books No. 198 1st and only Lion Edition March 1954   Sublimely skanky cover art, uncredited but I believe it is by Lou Marchetti.   This very nice copy is probably the greatest one-hit wonder in all of noir. Regarded as a top noir crime/mystery novel and one of my favorite vintage paperbacks. The back cover blurb is so good.          James Reasoner gives it a good go at a review here   Some interesting factoids about Meskil's true crime career here   This copy came from the Vintage Treasure Chest collection, which was a large collection out of Southern Connecticut that came to market on eBay in 2022-2023. I bought a ton of these mostly high grade books at auction and ended up buying out the remainder from the seller when he got tired of listing individual books.
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Victor Seach - The "Falcon Junkie" Cover artist

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     There is a certain segment of the vintage paperback cover artist cadre that fits in as "one shot wonders". Victor Seach (1912-1990) may be at the head of the class for that segment of illustrators.       The Falcon Books 1st Edition of "Junkie" by Jonathan Craig is one of the most iconic of vintage paperback covers, and its creator is a bit of a cool odd hipster - as you'll see in in a minute.  Junkie by Jonathan Craig. Falcon Books No. 36 1952. Cover art signed Victor Seach.        The Falcon "Junkie" (Not to be confused with the Ace Double Novel containing "Junkie" by William Burroughs, another rare vintage paperback) is a rare digest, certainly rarer than the Burroughs Ace "Junkie". The cover art just oozes 1950's Drug Book goodness. The ever present blonde floozie with a cigarette of unknown contents, her blouse straps fallen off her shoulders, casting a glance back at a conflict in the making as she props herself with...
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From Lovecraft to Tight, Tight Pants... Rex Weldon - Paperback Writer

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     Being a part time book dealer and vintage paperback historian of sorts can lead you down some funky roads.      I was cataloguing a sleaze book entitled "Babe In Blue Jeans" for sale and had to do an internet search for the author "Rex Weldon" because I had never heard the name before and I always do a little bio search on books and/or authors I am selling in order to add a little extra oomph to the sales ad.      Babe In Blue Jeans by Rex Weldon. Cover artist uncredited        Well, it took only a second or two to come across the Wikipedia page of one "Duane Weldon Rimel" who wrote novels under the pseudonym "Rex Weldon". I won't go much into his bio as the Wiki page is sufficent reading unto itself, but it just got me to thinking of how odd that such a well respected man about town (Newspaper Editor, Commissioner of the Housing Authority etc.), who was an early fan and correspondent of H.P. Lovecraft in the 1930's,...
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Sins Of The Fathers - Re-acquiring grails you once had.

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     When I got back into collecting vintage paperbacks 9 years ago, a distant, yet seemingly reasonable goal was getting back the 3 rarities I most regretted selling back in the 1990's       With the addition of the Studio Pocket Edition of Jim Thompson's "Sins of the Fathers" a year or so ago, the trio is back in the fold.       All three of my original copies were pulled out of the ceiling-high stacked boxes in the "store" of Mike, the Greenwich Village beatnik who sold his collection out of his basement apartment, many to me, in the early 1980's when I roamed West 4th Street in search of paper treasure.       I'll muse poetically a bit about Mike's Book Store in a dedicated post soon.           Sins of the Fathers by Jim Thompson (Studio Pocket No. 4, 1952), The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson (Lion Books No. 99, 1952), Reform School Girl by Felice Swados (Diversey Romance Nov...
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The Three Printings of Avon No Number #38 - The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

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      The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler  Avon NN No.38, 1943. Cover art by Paul Stahr.        I've had many discussions with other collectors about early Avon printings - which ones had globe endpapers, which were later printings, and how to identify them, since they have never been codified anywhere.       This article will identify the 3 printings of the Paul Stahr "Skull & Poppies" cover classic, The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, issued by Avon during the "No Number" on the cover period (No. 1-41), for which the numbering can be gleaned from the highest re-order numbers located in the back of the book. usually on the last page or back cover.      The first printing, issued in 1943, is distinctive in two ways, it has a highest reorder number of 40, for Dorothy Sayers' "In The Teeth Of The Evidence" on the inside back cover.   Inside cover of the First Printing with HRN of 40.      The f...
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