Pulp this!

Pictured is the cover the the Galaxy Magazine, October, 1952, my birth month. Except the cover to the copy I own is actually much more pristine that this. 

I'm on the verge of selling most of my pulp books and magazines. The deal may still fall through--the buyer is coming by the house this afternoon. But I'm hoping to find a home for these rare and beautiful books. I'm 70 years old, and while there is always a chance I might open a used bookstore someday, (I have all the fixings, books and fixtures, in case anyone is interested in starting a used bookstore for an extraordinarily reasonable price), it's looking less and less likely. 

I'll retell the story about how I got these books. Some guy came in the store a year or so ago, and wanted to know if I was buying books. I told him no. He told me the story of his father owning a market on the west side of Bend for over 50 years and telling his family that the books he was setting aside would someday be worth "a fortune."

However, the family couldn't find any buyers.

Then he said the magic words. "Pulps."

"Do you have any with you?" I asked.

"Oh, I can bring a box by if you want to see what they are."

He left, and I didn't think anything more of it, but somewhat to my surprise he came back with a box. And it was a treasure trove. Not only full of great covers, Bad Girl Art, Westerns, Science Fiction, but they were in great shape, anywhere from excellent to mint.

Let me tell you, that is truly rare. In the 43 years I've been at the store, I've been offered only a handful of pulps and most of them were in terrible shape.

So I agreed to go to their storage unit and check it out. 

Out of the 40 or so boxes they had, only about 5 or 6 actually had pulps in them. Most of the rest were pretty junky 70s and 80s books that would be very hard to sell. 

But the 5 or 6 boxes of pulps, to me, were worth what they were asking. It was also pretty clear to me that they were on the verge of chucking them all out and that would have been a tragedy.

I had them all moved to my garage and dipped into them a little more, looking them up online. By and large, the pulps were "worth" anywhere from $5 to $100. But I've done this long enough to know that is a very loose measure. What really counts is how much you can actually get.

Thing is, these books truly are a treasure, but I have no way of proving it except by a long hard process of establishing my reputation for quality online. Meanwhile, I'd spend half my time trying to find a price between what I'm being offered and the price I think their worth. Plus handling and postage and time spent online. 

I should probably say here, I'm very allergic to dickering. The sports card phase of my business was so unpleasant, I have a case of something very like PTSD. I don't buy collections from the street, which is a bit of a competitive disadvantage when it comes to owning a book/comic store. IF someone presents a collection to me at a reasonable price, I might consider it, but that almost never happens.

So back to the pulps. I was still thinking of someday opening a used bookstore, and have already having set aside about 20,000 books, so in my mind, I saw a "Wall of Pulp" behind the counter at this store. That would look spectacular.

As a lark, I grabbed a handful of pulps and took them to the store and put a $6 price tag on them. I purposely chose a random sample, because selling only the best or the worst doesn't establish a true value. 

Somewhat to my surprise, they sold. At first I sold about 10, and then a few days later, 5 more, and then all 30. I refilled and sold another 20 or so. 

Admittedly, most of these sold to one customer, but there were also a couple of other buyers. 

That one customer is coming by today. He has proven his bone fides to me, and I'm willing to let him have the books for a reasonable price. I won't let myself be cherry picked--I'm hoping he'll buy them all but about 20 I'd like to keep for myself. In my mind, I need at least a "retail markup" from what I paid, so I'll draw the line there. But anything he offers at or above that markup, and they're his. He seems a bit younger than me, and he's shown by purchasing the books that he values them. 

I really want these books to find a home with someone who appreciates them. 

LATER: He was really only interested in the Bad Girl covers, so I still have the SF and the Westerns. I told him he might be missing the most valuable stuff, but he isn't a speculator, but a collector. 

He bought a little less than I hoped, but combined with what he had already bought at the store, I probably hit keystone, with 90 of the stuff still mine. 

Fair enough. I don't mind still having those books and pulps. He also got tired looking through 60 big cardboard boxes full of books so started leaving some pretty good Bad Girl covers too. So I can continue to show them off in the store. 

The other stuff was worse than I expected. A bunch of 70s and 80s junk, hardcovers without covers, and so on. If I ever sell the entire backstock of books, I'm going to have to explain that the first 50 boxes of books or so are junk, the good stuff is in the back of the storage unit. Heh.