Mystery Scene Community

General Discussion => Welcome and General Discussion => Topic started by: Kate Stine, Editor on May 29, 2019, 05:31:43 pm

Title: Collecting? Watcha got?
Post by: Kate Stine, Editor on May 29, 2019, 05:31:43 pm
I don't qualify as a real collector although I have a few nice first editions tucked away. (L.A. Confidential complete with a signed pornographic shark drawing by James Ellroy, for one. Why, who knows?) But what I really like to collect are oddball bits and pieces associated with writers. I have a brick from the Edgar Allan Poe House in Greenwich Village, New York, a drawing of Peter Falk as Columbo by the actor himself, and bookends with ESG engraved on them that once belonged to Erle Stanley Gardner. (They're holding up a nice selection of Perry Mason hardcovers in our living room.) What does everyone else collect? What are your biggest treasures?
Title: Re: Collecting? Watcha got?
Post by: Brian on June 10, 2019, 09:19:15 am

I was very happy to get a first edition copy of The Detective Short Story, by Ellery Queen, inscribed to Clayton Rawson.

I normally only buy reading copies, but I'm a fan of both Rawson and Queen and had to have this. It was listed in a bookseller's catalog for a very inexpensive price. They must have made a mistake, because when I called I was told it was "no longer available." Then the next edition of the catalog had the same listing at a much higher price.

I was still happy to get it though.
Title: Re: Collecting? Watcha got?
Post by: ocogdill on June 10, 2019, 12:39:39 pm
I am actually trying to find a market for my first editions. These are not current ones but those 10, 20 years old.
Title: Re: Collecting? Watcha got?
Post by: JRob on June 10, 2019, 05:32:05 pm
I'm not really that much of a collector when it comes to books. I simply like to keep the books I buy after I've read them.

However, I do end up passing some on to other reader friends of mine, or donate them to the library.

Rare stuff or treasures? Nope, not really. I do like my signed copies of books when I go to book signings however. Those stay with me.

About the only thing I have that would qualify as OLD is a complete book of Sherlock Holmes stories that my dad had and gave me. The book is at least 50 years old but it is more of a sentimental treasure because it was my dad's rather than a potential financial windfall.
Title: Re: Collecting? Watcha got?
Post by: nyscrivener on June 12, 2019, 04:47:41 am
I was once a more vigilant collector, shall we say. But, having moved any number of times over the years, I've acquired and disposed of several libraries and stick to reading copies. I too like objects connected to the writers I admire---I have the playwright and screenwriter Samson Raphaelson's Elsa Peretti-designed sterling silver felt-tip pen, for example, and I'd love more of these items.
Title: Re: Collecting? Watcha got?
Post by: Kate Stine, Editor on June 12, 2019, 08:06:19 am
Some items in my collection are just plain weird.

One of the oddest promotional items we were ever sent was a full size canoe oar. On the side was wood burned Agatha Christie “And Then There Were None” It was a strange thing to send a reviewer I thought. Still around here somewhere, we kept it in case the waters rise….
Title: Re: Collecting? Watcha got?
Post by: TeriD on June 12, 2019, 08:34:01 am
Thought it might be nice to reshare the wonderful Mystery Scene series on book collecting penned by Nate Pedersen(https://natepedersen.com/ (https://natepedersen.com/)), "Building Your Own Book Collection."

https://www.mysteryscenemag.com/article/79-building-your-book-collection-part-one-choosing-a-topic
Title: Re: Collecting? Watcha got?
Post by: JRob on June 12, 2019, 09:22:40 am
Thought it might be nice to reshare the wonderful Mystery Scene series on book collecting penned by Nate Pedersen(https://natepedersen.com/ (https://natepedersen.com/)), "Building Your Own Book Collection."

https://www.mysteryscenemag.com/article/79-building-your-book-collection-part-one-choosing-a-topic

Bookmarked this to read later.
Title: Weird promotions
Post by: ocogdill on June 20, 2019, 07:30:41 pm
Kate, I will raise the ante on weird promotions sent to reviewers,
i have two to share.
An author whose character loved peanut butter cups sent candies along with her novel—not a pretty sight when that package sat on the loading dock for several days in the Florida heat.

The worst was a huge package—I remember the postage alone was more than $20—that included a small cardboard casket in which nestled the novel. It was beyond creepy.
Title: Re: Collecting? Watcha got?
Post by: KiwiCraig on July 04, 2019, 03:59:33 am
Over the past decade I've been collecting out-of-print and hard-to-find New Zealand crime novels. Even keen booklovers in New Zealand who like mystery fiction often think the history of the genre in our country is basically Dame Ngaio Marsh, one of the Queens of Crime of the Golden Age (wrote early 1930s-early 1980s) then Paul Thomas shaking up the local genre in the 1990s with Elmore Leonard-esque hardboiled tales, a few other one-off books here and there, then the recent surge post millennium.

But in fact I've discovered over the years that we had many other Kiwi mystery writers over the decades, some who wrote 10-15 books (even 30+ in one case) that were popular and well-reviewed at the time but have fallen out of print and been forgotten. So I keep my eyes out whenever I'm home and browsing secondhand bookshops, and nab any such books when I can. I probably have over 200 now from 1950s-1990s.

I also like collecting crime fiction from the places I travel, grabbing local stuff that may not be as widely distributed elsewhere.



Title: Re: Collecting? Watcha got?
Post by: Becke Davis on December 06, 2019, 01:17:59 am
I don't qualify as a real collector although I have a few nice first editions tucked away. (L.A. Confidential complete with a signed pornographic shark drawing by James Ellroy, for one. Why, who knows?) But what I really like to collect are oddball bits and pieces associated with writers. I have a brick from the Edgar Allan Poe House in Greenwich Village, New York, a drawing of Peter Falk as Columbo by the actor himself, and bookends with ESG engraved on them that once belonged to Erle Stanley Gardner. (They're holding up a nice selection of Perry Mason hardcovers in our living room.) What does everyone else collect? What are your biggest treasures?

I recently saw a rerun of a Columbo episode that featured a portrait of Columbo, and I think in the credits it said that Peter Falk painted it. Is that the painting in your collection? If so - WOW!
Title: Re: Collecting? Watcha got?
Post by: Kate Stine, Editor on December 10, 2019, 10:26:44 am
Hi Becke,
Nice to see you on the board! The Columbo artwork I have is a lithograph by Peter Falk, not a painting. I'm trying to attach a jpeg here so you can see it.
Title: Re: Collecting? Watcha got?
Post by: JRob on December 10, 2019, 01:01:05 pm
Kate, that is pretty cool!
Title: Re: Collecting? Watcha got?
Post by: Kate Stine, Editor on December 10, 2019, 03:09:39 pm
I really love that Columbo print. I had it framed and it's on our mantel in the living room.  If anyone ever hears of more collectibles like this be sure to let me know!
Title: Re: Collecting? Watcha got?
Post by: Becke Davis on December 10, 2019, 05:10:02 pm
I really love that Columbo print. I had it framed and it's on our mantel in the living room.  If anyone ever hears of more collectibles like this be sure to let me know!

I LOVE your picture!

I Googled the portrait featured on a Columbo episode - it wasn't painted by Peter Falk after all, but the story is pretty cool:
https://columbophile.com/2018/07/22/how-you-could-own-the-columbo-portrait-from-murder-a-self-portrait/
Title: Re: Collecting? Watcha got?
Post by: Becke Davis on December 10, 2019, 05:19:00 pm
I'm not really that much of a collector when it comes to books. I simply like to keep the books I buy after I've read them.

However, I do end up passing some on to other reader friends of mine, or donate them to the library.

Rare stuff or treasures? Nope, not really. I do like my signed copies of books when I go to book signings however. Those stay with me.

About the only thing I have that would qualify as OLD is a complete book of Sherlock Holmes stories that my dad had and gave me. The book is at least 50 years old but it is more of a sentimental treasure because it was my dad's rather than a potential financial windfall.

When my parents died fairly recently, I called dibs on their books - to my husband's dismay. We already have enough books for a small library, but isn't that the secret wish of all mystery readers? To have a British-style library with a fireplace, leather chairs and floor to ceiling books? Well, it was my not-so-secret wish. I ended up sharing Mom and Dad's books - even the mysteries - because there were just too many and some were not to my taste. I passed on Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu mysteries, for instance. I never saw either of my parents read them so they might have been from my dad's father's collection. I did claim a lot of my mom's Ellery Queen and Mary Roberts Rinehart books, even though I don't really collect them. My mom and I both collected Agatha Christie's so I was able to fill a few gaps and passed the duplicates on to my sister, who has just discovered Christie.

What it boils down to, is my collection is old and new favorites - books I would read again - more that valuable books. But they are treasures to me!