He's a nightmare of the You Must Read This school🙂

I think Jules and I generally ALWAYS spend more than out budget on these trips, largely down to the quality of Bob's stock.

Guilty as charged!

@@outlawbookselleroriginal Wonder if it is a craft secret how Bob finds these collections? I'm guessing Bob is well connected within the collecting community.

Cheers Kenny, it was a joy to film, we had quite a day. The DAWs vary depending upon condition- which as you see was mostly tiptop. But just to give you an idea, the Tanith Lee I pulled out was £8, the Lin Carter 'Darya of the Bronze Age' £5-£6, the DAW Moorcock 'Stormbringer' bagged on the shelves at the start was £20. The price of Very Fine 'A Format' paperbacks is rising now with many authors, as many are scarce per se and in that condition very, very hard to find. Dealers have to offset against the hardcover market, which is not so buoyant, I'd say currently. But most of Bob's paperback stock is very, very reasonable and around £4-£6. A lot of the stuff on the shelves that's bagged- which both Jules and I show at the start of our respective videos is signed, so for example the Tanith Lee Birthgrave trilogy will set you back £75.

I watched both our videos on the plasma last night: I am now going to have to watch again, it was such fun.

That's my own thinking on the subject, but this week I'm actually going to look it up in a dictionary of etymology (you can't trust the internet on this stuff). It is, as we said in the video, quite an archaic usage now...

Yes, it was an amazing haul!

Yes, although I'm not a massive fan of the more generic Fantasy of the 70s-90s (I prefer the earlier Sword & Sorcery), I am a sucker for books in 'A Format' in superb condition from that period- it's partially nostalgia, but just as much about the beauty of the jacket art.

You said it, baby.

Jules and I are fast friends and always enjoy these expeditions.

You said it!

Yes, lovely books. Bob sold most of them at the Vintage Paperback Fair a couple of months back. There's a video of me at the fair on the channel, check it out.

'Pool' it is- Danish, you see!

'Beaters'- like that, will be adopting it and hopefully boosting it into the collecting nomenclature worldwide- you'll see how my 'Pan Lozenge' coining turns up everywhere now....

Thanks, very kind.

Good man!

Yes, apart from the odd 'Moon Pool' that pops up, I never see any Merritt, hence my grabbing those!

You MUST. Page through his backlist and you'll see we've done around 4-5 collabs like this. He's the best company you can have when collecting.

That's exactly what I'm going to address, be up in ten days or so here.

@@outlawbookselleroriginal Amazing

Well, you would, of course- but I think you'll agree that the condition is spectacular for old books, considering how many titles are here. As we say, the vast majority of these US editions were never distributed in the UK and some were not even licensed for publication via other publishers over here. Having been a bookseller myself for forty years and a reader for even longer, this stock brought back memories of visiting the SFF speciality import shops that were dotted around the UK until the early 1990s- there were never more than 6-8 such shops in the entire UK (and Wales, the country I come from, had none) so it's like stepping back in time for me. If you watch my backlist, you'll see lots of similar videos and loads of reflections on SFF over forty years of bookselling.

@@outlawbookselleroriginalYes. We have similar reactions when British editions wander in with covers that are new to us! It's nice to get a fresh perspective on titles I might disregard because of over-familiarity.

I need another runthrough myself and do watch Jules' video too.

Be good if you could make it. There will, of course, be bargains, as Maurice of Zardoz usually brings a ton.

Well, that camera I refer to in the video would have been good training for anyone aspiring to shift lead.

It will only get me into more, I fear! Thanks!

Yes, it's uncommon per se- but obviously condition is key re its value for resale.

@@outlawbookselleroriginal Its well read for sure

The fair? Yeah, get what you're saying. I'd love to get down under too, but don't know if I ever will...

Yes, American imports were their prime range alongside UK titles. If a book was not published in the UK and no UK publisher has bought the rights, then it was and is legal to import it. However, if a UK publisher held the rights (even if they didn't have it in print) then strictly speaking import shops were breaking the law (and of course this law held for US editions of titles available in the UK from UK publishers, though you saw fewer of these as it was more cost effective to stock the UK editions). Because the quantities being imported were small, however, the import shops usually avoided prosecution. These shops still exist -in theory- in the shape of the two chains called Forbidden Planet (two separate companies that split in half- Forbidden Planet UK (ironically the .com one) and Forbidden Planet International (ironically the .co.uk one- it's called FP International as they have a shop in New York). The former company still stocks imported SF & Fantasy, but books are now a tiny part of what they do, young genre fans now being more interested in toys, action figures etc- I recall FP when it was all books, magazines and comics and little else. I've not visited Transreal in Edinburgh yet - but will be doing so in October and filming there- but strictly speaking, the SF import shop died out in Britain in the 1990s with maybe one exception (New Worlds, the basement of Murder One in Charing Cross Rpad, London, which closed around 15 years ago). In the 70s and 80s, there were several -Unicorn in Brighton, Dark They Were & Golden Eyed in London (which became FP), Fantasy Centre and Fantasy Inn, both London, Andromeda in Birmingham and Forever People in Bristol. If you page back through my 'Videos' list to Oct/Nov, you'll see a video about Codex Books in Cirencester, but he has no imports, just UK SF. That culture is just gone, now.

I'm always wondering about this. My mate Jules Burt would say that with books, it's anything without an isbn number and/or barcode. I'd go with that, as he's talking about a late 60s cutoff- I don't consider anything 1970s onward vintage, though you could argue for the 1970s, but definitely not 1980s! People also use it as a synonym for 'second hand', 'used' or that charming epither 'pre-loved'.

@outlawbookselleroriginal That's the perfect explanation. Thank you.