Another bargain purchase:
Bear, Greg. Sisters. Pulphouse, 1992. First edition hardback, #48 of 100 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy, sans dust jacket, as issued. #26 in the Short Story Hardback series. Chalker/Owings (2003), page 272. Bought off eBay for $16.
When this first came out, I thought it was an odd item at a bit too high a price point and too large a limitation (though I think it sold out anyway). But since then, I’ve collected just about every other signed Ellison edition, and this one finally showed up at an attractive price.
Ellison, Harlan (Rick Berry, illustrator). “Repent, Harlequin!” Said The Ticktockman. Underwood Books, 1997. First edition hardback, #851 of 1,000 numbered copies signed by the author and illustrator, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket and a Fine slipcase. Oversized (13 1/4″ high) illustrated version of Ellison’s classic story. Richmond, Fingerprints on the Sky, page 116. Chalker/Owings (2002), page 894. Bought for $32 off eBay (original list price was $45).
Note: The book is about an inch too long for the scanner, so the bottom is chopped off.
An eBayer auctioned off a number of signed Vance and Matheson PBOs. I bid on several, but this is the only one I won.
Vance, Jack. The Palace of Love. Berkley Medallion, 1967. First edition paperback original (60¢ price and October, 1967 on copyright page, as per Currey), a Near Fine+ copy with 1/4″ closed tear at top front spine join and slight edgewear, signed by Vance (typical late overlapping Vance signature). Third book in the Demon Princes series. Hewett, A31. Cunningham, 62.a, Currey, page 499. Bought off eBay for $18.
This is the second volume from that Dark Harvest sell-off on eBay.
Asimov, Isaac (Martin H. Greenberg, editor). The Asimov Chronicles: Fifty Years of Isaac Asimov. Dark Harvest, 1989. First edition hardback, #317 of 500 numbered copies signed by Asimov and illustrators Ron and Val Lakey Lindahn, a Fine copy in a Fine- dust jacket with touches of edgewear at points and a Fine- slipcase with with one thin 2″ scratch to rear. Career retrospective collection. Supplements a trade edition. Chalker/Owings, page 121. Bought off eBay for $75.
Another signed Bradbury first:
Bradbury, Ray. That Son of Richard III: A Birth Announcement. Roy A. Squires, 1974. First edition chapbook original, #LXIII of 85 the signed “Autograph Edition,” a Fine- copy with just a trace of wear at tips, in a Near Fine+ original Autograph Edition publisher’s envelope with slight age darkening at edges and slight bumping at tips. Chalker/Owings, page 589. Bought for $50 (marked down from $80) on eBay.
Unnoted in Chalker/Owings is the fact that two of my three copies have a “PZ” glyph inscribed on the lower right side of the introduction page, just barely visible in the scan.
This is my third copy of this Bradbury chapbook, following an association copy inscribed to Lord John press founder Herb Yellin and an unsigned copy of the “ordinary” edition. The ordinary copy has this, but the one inscribed to Yellin doesn’t. Bit of a mystery…
Edited to add: Mystery solved! I checked with fellow bookseller (and Old Earth Books publisher) Mike Walsh to see if he could solve the glyph mystery, and he directed me to bookseller Terrance McVicker of Bats Over Books, who had the answer:
The “PZ” you note in your query is actually “ZN,” printed on top of each other, if you turn it sideways. It stands for “Zerkall Nideggen.” Nideggen is a Japanese paper, but Zerkall was the German manufacturer. I think what Zerkall did was buy the pulp paper from Nideggen, then process it in their factory.
What your seeing is the Zerkall Nideggen watermark. The sheet before cutting, measured 24″ X 36″ and there was a watermark in the lower right-hand corner of the full sheet. Which meant that, when the sheet was cut to quarto size, only one out of eight pages would have the watermark. Printers usually try to get one watermarked page per book/booklet, but it doesn’t always work out that way.
Thanks for the info!
Three more very cheap purchases from that storage locker sale:
Not a bad haul for $1.50…
Three used books, two of which were bought extremely cheaply.
This is one of the few Jack Vance titles I lacked.
Vance, John Holbrook. The Man in the Cage. Random House, 1960. First edition hardback, a Near Fine copy with slight bumping at head and heel and a few small, mild abrasions to topstain on pageblock, in a Very Good dust jacket with bumping and shallow loss at head and heel, with associated creasing at heel, 3″ scratch to rear panel, slight dust staining to white portions of dust jack, tiny, partial, thin abrasion line down middle of spine, spine possibly very slightly faded, small stamped “49” in a circle next to the (unclipped) price on front dust jacket flap, mild spotting to top and outer edge of rear flap, and mild foxing to blind side of dust jacket. Hewett, A10. Cunningham, 54.a. Levack/Underwood, Fantasms, 29.a. Currey, page 499. Bought from a customer who saw this on my Want List for $35.
Another Borderlands Little Book:
Doyle, Arthur Conan (Mark W. Whitback, editor). A Little Orange Book of Odd Orchestrations Borderlands Books, 2024. First edition hardback, #463 of 500 copies signed by the editor, a Fine copy, sans dust jacket, as issued. Fantastic stories, several of which are covered in Bleiler’s Supernatural Fiction, pages 159-161, and Bleiler’s Science Fiction: The Early Years, pages 203-209. Part of their “Past Masters of Horror and Fantasy” series, focusing on late 19th/early 20th century writers.
I will have a small number of copies available in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog.
Another Dragonstairs Press chapbook:
Swanwick, Michael. Brief Lives. Dragonstairs Press, 2024. First edition chapbook original, #7 of 50 signed and numbered copies, a Fine copy. Brief non-fiction essays on writers who died young, including Octavia Butler. Bought from the publisher at the usual discount.
I will have a small number of copies available in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog.