Vintage Paperbacks and More!

     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,...

     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...

      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...

       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 ...

 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 ...