Recent years have seen a massive upsurge of interest in vintage pulp-fiction magazines. Attracted to the outré stories and lurid covers that many such periodicals sported, a new generation of collectors has taken to "the bloody pulps." As a result, prices of these fragile collectibles have soared-especially at auction. In January 2024 Heritage Auctions sold a copy of the incredibly rare October 1912 issue of
The All-Story (which introduced Tarzan of the Apes) for more than a quarter million dollars. That's the exception, though: perfectly desirable pulp magazines in decent condition can be found for as little as ten and twenty dollars each. You just have to know where to look for them, what significance they have, and how much to spend on them. That's where the new
Bookery's Guide to Pulps and Related Magazines comes in.
Collectibles dealer Tim Cottrill, whose legendary Bookery Fantasy store has welcomed customers for more than 40 years, published his first pulp price guide in 2001. It was called
The Ultimate Guide to the Pulps. Some years later it was followed by
Bookery's Guide to Pulps, with two editions published under that title. He has steadily and rigorously continued to accumulate sales data on pulps, and the numbers you'll see in this latest edition reflect transactions made as recently as the summer of 2025. Cottrill carefully tracks prices realized at on-line auctions, transactions on eBay, and various book shows around the country.
The revised third edition of
Bookery's Guide to Pulps has been compiled from that data, and additional information culled from other sources makes this 410-page tome as much a reference book as a price guide. Even if you're not a die-hard collector of the things (yet), you'll find this information fascinating, to see the least. If you
are a die-hard pulp collector, the
Guide is a must-have.
