Not too long after I picked up that nice copy of the February 1951 issue of Galaxy with Bradbury's pre-Fahrenheit 451 "The Fireman," I happened to see an auction of books and comics and whatnot that contained, among many, many other things, the March, April, and May 1954 issues of Playboy that serialized the full novel after its original 1953 printing...
Hmm, thought I, these might be nifty things to pick up... Still, trying to be a responsible shopper, I poked around the internet to see if any other copies were for sale and if real money was being asked for them. The answers were Yes and Definitely yes. I approached the auction with a bit of trepidation, though. That is, the first few bids were lowish, tantalizingly suggestive of a possible bargain. In an auction, however, it's easy to see something that starts out as a deal rapidly become a hole into which you suddenly realize you threw, ahem, maybe a little too much money. This is doubly the case when it's not a single item you're after but two or even three related ones...any single one of which rather falls flat when purchased alone. What happens if you get #1 for a decent price, after all, but someone else really wants #2 and the price on that one doubles or even triples...?
The opening of the final stage of the auction was nerve-wracking, but bidding was not too bad, and I was able to get these three magazines for a sum I thought was at least halfway tolerable. I mean, I wouldn't want to spend that much on books every week, but sometimes you have to splurge a little on a really nice piece of literary history, don't you? Don't you...?
In any event, I received these three great pieces of Bradbury history, and now the apropos artwork is scanned to the "Pulp Magazines" page of my "Other SF Art" archives.
Enjoy!
Rafeeq
Hmm, thought I, these might be nifty things to pick up... Still, trying to be a responsible shopper, I poked around the internet to see if any other copies were for sale and if real money was being asked for them. The answers were Yes and Definitely yes. I approached the auction with a bit of trepidation, though. That is, the first few bids were lowish, tantalizingly suggestive of a possible bargain. In an auction, however, it's easy to see something that starts out as a deal rapidly become a hole into which you suddenly realize you threw, ahem, maybe a little too much money. This is doubly the case when it's not a single item you're after but two or even three related ones...any single one of which rather falls flat when purchased alone. What happens if you get #1 for a decent price, after all, but someone else really wants #2 and the price on that one doubles or even triples...?
The opening of the final stage of the auction was nerve-wracking, but bidding was not too bad, and I was able to get these three magazines for a sum I thought was at least halfway tolerable. I mean, I wouldn't want to spend that much on books every week, but sometimes you have to splurge a little on a really nice piece of literary history, don't you? Don't you...?
In any event, I received these three great pieces of Bradbury history, and now the apropos artwork is scanned to the "Pulp Magazines" page of my "Other SF Art" archives.
Enjoy!
Rafeeq
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