Any advice re moving on these old pulp magazines? Any thoughts greatly appreciated.

[Hugh]

I'm in the process of clearing my parents' house and yesterday excavated my father's old SF pulps from the late 1940s- 1950s. While some of them are a tad manky (basement flood years ago), most are battered but OK, much like most from that era.

Ideally I'd like to move them on, but I don't have any idea where to sell them. I don't have the patience for or trust in ebay , and don't know any specialist secondhand bookstores since that wonderful shop on the Holloway Road (London) closed. I haven't gone through them in detail yet, just piled them up by titles, but I know some must have value - when I was tracking down particular issues years ago, before everything could be found online, they weren't cheap.

Of course I may end up just hanging onto them and browsing through, but they'd create yet more clutter in the garage.

Can anyone offer any suggestions? Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated....

 

[Harpo]

Enlist the help of a trusted friend who does have the patience for eBay, and get them to do the eBay thing for you.

 

[Danny McG]

I'll take them off your hands for a tenner, no probs

 

[Harpo]

I'll take them off your hands for a tenner, no probs

Each

 

[Hugh]

Many thanks for your replies...

@Harpo: I hadn't thought of that one. Thanks, will give that a thought.

@Danny McG : good offer, many thanks. The cost of packing and shipping may be surprisingly expensive.....

My next visit, I'll itemise what's actually there and this should give me a better idea of value, and enable me to find out whether any issues are sought after.

The problem, as with so much of stuff like this, is that while these magazines have a certain value for the right person, in practice they may not be worth that much.

If anyone knows of any specialist SF second hand dealers, I'd be interested.

 

[hitmouse]

Just seen this thread. Lovely collection. I think I have at least 4 of the magazines visible in those photos.

If you haven't sold them already,I might be interested in some of those myself, but seriously:
I would use eBay, despite your misgivings. I buy and sell loads of stuff on eBay, without any problems in the majority of cases, via Paypal.
Have a look to see the going rates. You can always sell them in batches by title to make it easier.
Try to identify any particularly notable issues by cover artist or story: they often attract a bit of a premium.

 

[Hugh]

Just seen this thread. Lovely collection. I think I have at least 4 of the magazines visible in those photos.

If you haven't sold them already,I might be interested in some of those myself, but seriously:
I would use eBay, despite your misgivings. I buy and sell loads of stuff on eBay, without any problems in the majority of cases, via Paypal.
Have a look to see the going rates. You can always sell them in batches by title to make it easier.
Try to identify any particularly notable issues by cover artist or story: they often attract a bit of a premium.

"At least 4 of the magazines": impressive!
Many thanks for your advice. That's very helpful.
I've brought them home and will now get round to putting them in order, and making a list of what's there. Now that they've made it into the house, I'll probably spend a fair bit of time just tootling around with them. That may take a while.
Seriously, if you're interested, I'll let you know what I've got, before I start heading for ebay. The main thing for me is I want to avoid the scenario where they end up being stored in the garage.

 

[CupofJoe]

There is always HYMAG if you wanted to do something noble and generous, you could donate them to the archive.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Once you get into the rhythm of it selling stuff on eBay is a doddle. Keep it simple. Do a few at a time and list them as Buy-it-Nows. Include the postage price in the price you are asking so basically the headline price - that they see is what they will pay. It doesn't cost to relist so ask a fair price and let them sit there till someone finds it. I currently have about 500 items on. Yesterday I sold 6 comics, which I listed months ago, at a fiver each to the same person.

Let me know when you put that New Worlds number 3 on. The earliest I have is I have is number 4.

The bad news is that SF pulps - especially reader copies like I suspect a lot of these are - don't really sell that well.

 

[hitmouse]

If you look at the quoted prices on eBay, be aware that a lot of them are quite, shall we say, optimistic.

 

[JunkMonkey]

'Optimistic' is a very restrained way of putting it. Fecking daft some of them.

Always good to look at the Sold Items - Scroll down in a search result and it's in a tickbox on the left hand side. Restrict the search to the UK - because you really don't want to get involved in international shipping if you can help it - and it gives you a better idea what the local market is like.

This is a search of eBay UK for "Worlds of if" (it was the first obvious search that threw up fewest extraneous results) that sold in the last 3 months:

"Worlds of If" for sale | eBay

Find great deals on eBay for "Worlds of If". Shop with confidence.

www.ebay.co.uk

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

There's an auction house near me (in the UK) that specialises in all things toys called Vectis, but also handles books and comics and magazines

Here's a list of previous auctions related to Science Fiction

The UK's Largest Toy & Collectables Auctioneer

Welcome to Vectis Auctions, the UK's largest toy and collectables auctioneer, as seen on Scouting for Toys on TV

www.vectis.co.uk

For example, this collection looks similar to yours

Vectis Auctions | Upcoming

View the listings catalogue, register to bid and find out where and when our next auctions are with our online auction calendar.

www.vectis.co.uk

and this

Vectis Auctions | Upcoming

View the listings catalogue, register to bid and find out where and when our next auctions are with our online auction calendar.

www.vectis.co.uk

I've used them to sell off my various toys that I no longer play with - Action Men, Hornby Dublo, Airfix etc
I prefer using them to ebay because they handle all the postage and packing, which could be anywhere in the world
Obviously they charge a fee of something like 15% of the sale price (I think it varies)
And you would have to get the items to them somehow
But they are another option

 

[BigBadBob141]

You've got some lovely stuff there, I couldn't help but drool, now I've saliva on my tablet!

 

[Hugh]

Many many thanks for these various recommendations (and for the drool). Life has been busy and I have yet to sort through them (stacked in piles to my left as I type).