Seriously thoughtful Dollar value of 1950s and 60s The Magazine of Fantasy & SF

[speedtouch]

Soon I may have the option of buying nearly 100 copies of The Magazine of Fantasy & SF printed in the 1950s and 1960s. I don't mean to say these are copies of the originals or reprints---these are the originals. I am trying to find the basic value in these magazines.

Are they very valuable collector's items? Or just marginal curiosities in the realm of fantasy and SF? Either I don't know how to use Google and Bing well, or there really are no sites out there that evaluate the monetary value of such magazines. Does anyone have any idea how much one magazine, let's say for 1955, would be worth? I'm trying to see if it's a good investment for me or not to move forward with this purchase.

Any help is great appreciated.

[ardeegee]

I wouldn't pay more than about 50 cents each for them in bulk. (I have many from the 50s and 60s from several titles, but I paid 25 cents each for them at a flea market.) If you want to read old pulp science fiction magazines, they would be a good buy IF they were 50 cents or less. In no way would they be an "investment."

You see many on Ebay being offered in lots for as much as $2.00 an issue or more-- but that doesn't mean people are paying that.

[speedtouch]

OK, thank you. I really didn't know how much they'd be worth. Doesn't seem like much of an investment. Thanks a lot for your reply on this. I just wish they were Amazing Stories or Astounding Science Fiction, those are the ones I *really* want. Ah well...

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by speedtouch

OK, thank you. I really didn't know how much they'd be worth. Doesn't seem like much of an investment. Thanks a lot for your reply on this. I just wish they were Amazing Stories or Astounding Science Fiction, those are the ones I *really* want. Ah well...

They are all available cheap-- Amazing, Astounding, Analog, Galaxy, If. Your best idea of the prices would be to look at the selling prices for ended Ebay auctions-- it looks like some types are getting a higher price. A lot of 46 from the 1950s went for $135. But then another lot of 50 from the 50s to 70s didn't sell with a BIN of $75. A lot of 31 from the 30s went for over $450! So it looks like "the luck of the draw" if your lot would attract competitive bidders or not. If you were willing to attempt to sell each one individually on Ebay, you might make some money, but then again it might not be worth the trouble when all the time and fees (and how much you paid for them yourself) is added up.

[ardeegee]

BTW, the term I searched for was "science fiction pulps", without the quotation marks.

[dsvick]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

They are all available cheap-- Amazing, Astounding, Analog, Galaxy, If. Your best idea of the prices would be to look at the selling prices for ended Ebay auctions-- it looks like some types are getting a higher price. A lot of 46 from the 1950s went for $135. But then another lot of 50 from the 50s to 70s didn't sell with a BIN of $75. A lot of 31 from the 30s went for over $450! So it looks like "the luck of the draw" if your lot would attract competitive bidders or not. If you were willing to attempt to sell each one individually on Ebay, you might make some money, but then again it might not be worth the trouble when all the time and fees (and how much you paid for them yourself) is added up.

There may also be specific issues in those higher selling lots that are more in demand. Perhaps an issue with the first printing of a story or by a specific author.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by speedtouch

Are they very valuable collector's items? Or just marginal curiosities in the realm of fantasy and SF?

Abebooks.com is the place to go for a rough guide to the value of books.

Cheapest copies (1960s) seem to be about $1+postage.
Most expensive is a (nearly) complete run from issue 1 through to April 1995. ($2400+)
It seems the issues with Stephen King's "The Gunslinger" are collectable (5 issues from 1978-1981, $675)
There were, apparently, some special limited editions (Isaac Asimov, Stephen King) which are worth up to $250 or so.

The first issue (1949) on its own is $150 or so.

And any serialisation of a famous novel might be worth more as a set.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Abebooks.com is the place to go for a rough guide to the value of books.

Remember, prices you see for used books at Abebooks.com or fetchbook.info or Amazon or Ebay are just what the seller wants for the book-- it doesn't mean that they will be able to sell it for that price. Used prices go everywhere from the steal to the robbery.

Just one example out of myriad-- I bought this book new while it was still in print-- then my copy was lost in storage for a long time, and when I finally found it had been somewhere that it had been exposed to humidity and mildewed. By that time, it was out of print, and used copies were selling for double or more the cover price. I waited, and then one day a cache of several "new used" copies showed up for less than the cover price (around $16), and I bought a replacement copy.

Today, I see all the cheap copies are gone, but there are still copies ranging from over $30 to one idiot hoping to get $137. For all I know, these may be the same high priced copies that have been there for years.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listi...&condition=new

And you'll see that same pattern everywhere-- a few moderately priced used copies that aren't selling, a few obscenely high priced copies that aren't selling, and the occasional cheap copy that you won't see long because somebody grabs it.

So when you see higher-priced used books sitting up for sale at Half or Amazon or wherever, all you really know is one thing-- nobody has bought it yet.

[speedtouch]

Great insight. Thanks a lot, folks. You've been a huge help. At work I can't go to eBay, or I would have been checking prices there.