Los Angeles Vintage Paperback Show 2026 in Review

     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 assembling the Raymond Johnson cover art checklist I got published in Illustration Magazine No.77. He even brought along a copy of the Magazine for me to Autograph! I was quite honored!

 

  

Pat Lee (Left) and yours truly

     I was the first in line this year :)  By the time they opened the chains, the line was out the door and all the way back to the garage! Quite the crowd this year - even bigger than last year, which the organizers told me was the biggest up until this year. 

 


     The action was pretty fast and furious for the first couple of hours

 

 

 



 
Pat and I ran into Chris and Eric, a couple of other collectors we know from the Facebook Group  
 
 

    Here's a sampling of the dealers there...
 

 
 
    Terry was there as usual - we had a great chat and I picked up a few cool books that he discounted nicely for me 







 

 
 



     I picked up about a hundred books. The dealers were all great - they had a lot of price-mercy on me when they knew I flew all the way from Tampa - my problem is gonna be getting all this stuff home! Good thing I brought an empty suitcase.

     Too much to post but here's a few Gems I picked up...

 
First copy I've ever seen of this Rudy Nappi classic cover Digest 
 

 
The first Very Fine copy of "I Married A Dead Man" I've seen in 40+ years of collecting.
  
    I'd show some more but I'm literally "spine blind" from looking at thousands of paperback spines in boxes! Although the hobby is still mostly mature age men, it was great to see a lot of younger collectors and dealers, male and female. I have hope for the future of Vintage Paperback collecting. 
 
 

 
 So long Glendale Civic Auditorium - I hope to see you next year!

 


 

Comments

  1. DouglasMarch 17, 2026 at 10:18 AM

    Thanks for sharing this, Lowell! Looks like a lot of great digests were in the room. Looking forward to catching up at Windy City!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lowell WilsonMarch 20, 2026 at 8:56 AM

      I was so zonked out traveling I missed your comment. Thanks Douglas - the Digest presence was real! I will see you in Chicago :)

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Welcome to Vintage Paperbacks and More

Image
 Hello World,      Yeah, we used to say that when first starting a website or program back in the 1990's. I don't know if the term is in use anymore, I'm not that hip.       I've been collecting vintage paperbacks for over 40 years now and it has gradually grown from an avocation to practically a vocation. That being the case, I've wanted to, and have been urged by friends to, create more content associated with vintage paperbacks, digests and magazines, which are the three main vintage paper artifacts I collect. So here we are, I am blogging for the first time in my life.       Blogs are supposed to be about Eye Candy so here's some pics of various moments in time of my collections...   A few of my copies of Reform School Girl by Felice Swados. Diversey Romance Novel No. 1  My favorite vintage Digest, and one of the rarest and most valuable books in the hobby.   An assortment of vintage 50's-60's Drug books ...
Read more

The Three Printings of Avon No Number #38 - The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

Image
      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...
Read more

Avon Books Canadian Printings

Image
       As I've mentioned in many places, Avon Books were my first vintage paperback love. The bright pulpy covers with great good girl art by Raymond Johnson, Bill Randall, Robert Crowl and other "Avon Artists" of the 1940's & 50's called to me as a burgeoning collector back in the late 70's and early 80's when I started collecting, even though at the time, I had no idea who these artists were.        I recently came into a copy of the Canadian edition of "The Blue Negro" numbered C792, which I had never seen before, so I delved a bit into the web and my own collection to write a little bit about the Canadian Avons.       Avon (Canadian) C792  The Blue Negro by Robert Payne. Cover art by Robert Hilbert. Released in the U.S. as Avon Books No. 373 in 1951            The other identifying features on the Canadian Edition are the lack of lamination (the American release was laminated) and the ...
Read more