Sat 2 Oct 2010
COLLECTING PULPS: A MEMOIR, Part Two – Dime Detective, by Walker Martin.
Posted by Steve under Collecting , Columns , Pulp Fiction[18] Comments
PART TWO — DIME DETECTIVE
by Walker Martin
In 1969 as I was in the process of writing many letters to dealers, collectors, bookstores and so on, in order to locate back issues of Black Mask, I naturally wanted to also collect the main competitor to Black Mask. Dime Detective was one of the early titles put out by the new publisher at the time, Popular Publications. It lasted for 273 issues during the period 1931 through 1953.
At first the new magazine looked like a combination of hardboiled detective, gothic horror, and weird menace fiction. The early issues had examples of these type of stories and I was puzzled to see horror titles like “The Shadow of the Vulture,” “The Devil’s Jackpot,” “The Phantom of the Porthole,” “The Chamber of Doom,” and “Horror House.” But I was relieved to see such favorite Black Mask writers as Frederick Nebel, Erle Stanley Gardner, and even the much maligned Carroll John Daly.
As the main competitor to Black Mask, Dime Detective paid higher than usual pulp rates, even going as high as four cents a word to tempt writers away from the other magazine.
In fact, by 1936 Black Mask was having circulation problems and editor Joseph Shaw even left the magazine in that year over some disagreement concerning money and the direction the magazine was going.
When Shaw left, Raymond Chandler switched to Dime Detective and its higher rates and published seven excellent novelettes during 1937 through 1939. These issues especially go for high prices, and I’ve recently seen copies sell for hundreds of dollars each.
I personally am sure that soon we will see nice copies going for over a thousand. Raymond Chandler, like Hammett, has claim to being among the very best of the pulp writers and in fact both writers are now routinely accepted as part of the great American literary tradition.
However, in 1969 and in the early 1970’s I had very little competition and managed to pick up just about all the issues for only $2.00 or $3.00 each. Even in those days I did not consider these prices a drain on my finances, and most other collectors continued to happily concentrate on SF and the hero pulps.
Instead of letting these guys continue on their wayward ways, I made the mistake of praising the magazine as being an untapped lode of great detective fiction, and before I realized it I had again created my own competition. As I think back on myself 40 years ago, it was almost like I was some sort of mad doctor creating my own Frankenstein monster.
This hideous monster turned out to be other collectors fighting me for Dime Detective and my other favorite pulp titles, that once were fairly unknown until I opened my big mouth.
Speaking of “mad doctors,” author Ron Goulart thought pulp collectors were so strange that he put several of us in novels, including the Avenger series of paperbacks that he wrote in the 1970’s under the Kenneth Robeson name. I appeared as the mad Doctor Walker-Martin in Red Moon (1974). Other collectors to appear in Ron’s novels were Bob Briney, Jack Irwin, Jack Deveny, Bob Weinberg, Bob Sampson, Richard Minter, and even Mystery*File honcho, Steve Lewis, among others.
Fortunately I managed to complete my set of 273 issues within a very short time thanks to Richard Minter’s mail order business and my letter writing scheme which unearthed all sorts of Dime Detective’s for little cost.
I say “unearthed,” and this actually happened when a collector from Ohio discovered stacks of the magazine in a basement of a house about to be demolished. By now in the early 1970’s, many collectors considered me the village idiot who would buy just about any pulp, as long as no one else was interested in the title. I was happy to let them continue to think this way as I started to amass a collection of pulps numbering into the thousands.
Other collectors who were smart enough to see that I was on to something by collecting Black Mask, Dime Detective, and other high quality pulps, began to visit me and listen to my rants and raves about how great these titles were.
Many ignored me until prices rose too high, but a few decided to also start reading Dime Detective, an so on, and I then no longer had a free field to leisurely buy issues at super low prices. I even had to resume my greedy plan of sending dealers more money than they asked in order to get my wants.
Before I knew it and shortly after Pulpcon started in 1972, it became a dog-eat-dog type of existence. Now, I have several friends among pulp collectors because I eventually reached my major goals and I’m not as hyper, but back in the early days there were some major misunderstandings and hurt feelings among collectors.
One collector was banned from attending Pulpcon and several others started to boycott the convention because of various arguments. During one so called “feeding frenzy” at some dealer’s table I even saw a minister elbow other collectors out of the way and take control of a box of pulps.
Another time, I kidded a medical surgeon about collecting weird menace pulps and Dime Detective’s with mad doctors on the covers, and he not only stopped coming to Pulpcon, but refused to answer my letters. And I once had a friend who proposed that we commit a criminal act in order to steal some pulp paintings. Fortunately I said no, otherwise my story would be completely different, more like “My Life of Crime as a Pulp Collector.”
By the year 2000, I had just about read all the good stories in my complete run of Dime Detective’s except for the early and mid thirties which had some lower quality fiction. So when a friend offered to buy the set I foolishly sold it to him, and within a very short time regretted my decision.
Even though I had read all I wanted to in the 30 years that I had the set, I found I wanted to reread my favorite stories. I checked with all my friends and other collectors but no one had another set to sell. I then began a project that lasted for a few years of buying copies one by one off eBay, the online auction site. I now have over 200 of the 273 issues, and I probably won’t bother with the early issues that I find less readable. The Chandler stories I have in reprint, so again there is no need to spend a lot of money to get those issues.
I’m making a point of mentioning all this because I want to stress and make clear that even today it is possible to collect pulps that are enjoyable to read. You don’t have to be an older collector who started way back in the 1960’s or 1970’s.
For Dime Detective, the thirties for the most part are more expensive, often over $100 in nice shape. Lesser copies can be obtained for below a hundred. The forties and fifties I find are the most readable and still can be obtained for $25 to $50 each.
I personally find it hard to believe but some collectors do not read and collect just for the covers. The covers are quite well done and I’ve owned six or more Dime Detective cover paintings by such excellent artists as Walter Baumhofer, Norman Saunders, and Raphael Desoto.
I’ve always been amused by the name Dime Detective because eventually the price went up to 15 and 25 cents but the name stayed the same. I imagine many a newsdealer was almost driven mad by customers complaining “but why do you want 25 cents for a Dime Detective?”
Despite the different names, Black Mask and Dime Detective were basically the same magazine during the 1940’s. Same publisher, same editor (Ken White), and the same policy concerning fiction. It is true, however, that Dime Detective did not publish serials and emphasized series characters even more than Black Mask.
To give you an idea of some of the authors and series, here is a list of some of my favorite characters from Dime Detective:
Inspector Allhoff — D. L. Champion (29 stories)
Bail Bond Dodd — Norbert Davis (8 stories)
Jim Bennett — Robert Martin (13)
Bill Brent/Lorna Lorne — Frederick C. Davis (16)
Cardigan — Frederick Nebel (44)
John Dalmas — Raymond Chandler (5)
The Dean — Merle Constiner (19)
Mr Maddox — T. T. Flynn (35)
Steve Midnight — John K. Butler (9)
Needle Mike — William Barrett (15)
Rambler Murphy — Fred MacIsaac (18)
Cash Wale — Peter Paige (17)
Jeffrey Wren — G. T. Fleming-Roberts (7)
There were other good series but the above will give an idea of the variety.
Many of these writers were getting very good rates, even as high as three to five cents a word. I had quite a collection of cancelled checks from Popular Publications and they showed for instance that Peter Paige (real name Morton Wolson) was receiving $500 per Cash Wale novelette. In the forties that was very good pay.
A couple of writers did not really specialize in series characters but should be mentioned: John D. MacDonald who also used the name of Scott O’Hara (39 stories) and Cornell Woolrich (31 stories).
Also several writers came to sad ends. Norbert Davis and Fred MacIsaac committed suicide. Max Brand and Robert Reeves were killed in WW II. Roger Torrey died an early death in his 30’s of alcoholism.
For further reading on Dime Detective, Ron Goulart has written three valuable books dealing with the magazine:
The Dime Detectives
Cheap Thrills
The Hardboiled Dicks
I recommend all three highly and I’m also pleased to say that Matt Moring of Altus Press will eventually be publishing the Dime Detective Companion by James L. Traylor. This will be a revised and expanded edition of his book Dime Detective Index published in 1986. This new book will not only be an index but also have several articles on the magazine and writers.
We indeed live in the Golden Age of Pulp Reprints and if you don’t have the money and time to find back issues I can recommend the following collections of stories from Dime Detective:
Hard-Boiled Detectives, edited by Weinberg, Dziemianowicz, and Greenberg.
Tough Guys and Dangerous Dames, edited by the above.
The Adventures of Max Latin, by Norbert Davis
The Adventures of Race Williams, by Carroll John Daly
The Adventures of Mike Blair, by Hank Searls
The Adventures of Cardigan, by Frederick Nebel
The Adventures of Paul Pry, by Erle Stanley Gardner
Footprints on the Brain, by D. L. Champion (Inspector Allhoff)
At the Stroke of Midnight, by John K. Butler(Steve Midnight)
The Compleat Adventures of the Dean, by Merle Constiner (Battered Silicon)
The Compleat Adventures of Bill Brent, by Frederick C. Davis (Battered Silicon)
Previously on Mystery*File: Part One — Collecting Black Mask.
Coming next: Part Three — Collecting Detective Fiction Weekly.
October 2nd, 2010 at 6:51 pm
In some ways DIME DETECTIVE felt livelier than BLACK MASK thanks to that mix of horror and weird menace giving it a nice iconoclastic mix in many issues — and as you point out some great covers.
Always nice when someone admits Daly is underrated. Critics have spent so much time complaining he wasn’t Hammett or Chandler I think they sometimes miss why he was popular. True, there are many sins to forgive in his work, but there is also a raw power is undeniable.
I was surprised when I started collectiing just how cut throat it was in many cases. Over the years it has gotten nicer — or at least everyone has learned how to pretend better, but I do recall early on the pulp collectors were the ones to watch out for.
Like you and Steve, I’m a character in one of Rex Miller’s books (no, not Chaingang!) — it’s sort of a dubious distinction isn’t it? On the one hand it’s an honor, and on the other — just what did they mean by that?
October 2nd, 2010 at 8:00 pm
OK, Walker. Now I know who to blame for the fact that when I started hunting these mags in the late 70s and early 80s, most issues from the 30s were already out of my price range. Curses.
October 2nd, 2010 at 8:09 pm
Walker,
I’ve commented many times to other collectors we both know well, that I’m glad I wasn’t around in the 70’s to compete with you on the buying floor. I can only imagine the fun of watching you running around the pulp con gathering your wants. Probably frothing at the mouth, I’d imagine!
October 2nd, 2010 at 11:07 pm
David, Evan, and Paul: yes, competition was so fierce at the early Pulpcons for instance, that the organizer of many of the conventions, Rusty Hevelin, had a rule about no selling before the official start of the convention. This was impossible to enforce of course and one dealer was almost banned because he sold out his entire stock in the hospitality room before the convention even began. I once sold an almost complete set of THE SPIDER in the hall while waiting for the doors of the dealer’s room to open, another offence that was enough to get you into trouble.
Since dealers were allowed into the huckster room to set up early, I used to buy a table just to get into the room, not to sell anything but to get a chance to buy pulps before the other collectors. One time I saw a dealer whisper to another that he would buy every thing on the table once the show started. We thought he was kidding but he came over with a check to pay for hundreds of ARGOSY, all of which were priced at only $5.00 each. The check later bounced! Fortunately a replacement check cleared the bank. I was the victim of many a bounced check, usually from long time collectors who had to have pulps even though they had no money. It got so bad that I had to start saying “cash only”.
I learned right away that I had to arrive early at least the day before the start of the convention. More than once I ended up spending all my money before the show even started, usually buying pulps in hotel rooms. I’m sure Steve did the same thing. Just about every year in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, I bought so much that the boxes would not fit into my car and I had to have dealers mail pulps to my home. Which then would drive my wife crazy twice, once with the car full of old magazines, and then a few days later when the mail delivered several boxes.
One collector thought he would beat me at my own game and arrived at the convention hotel several days before my arrival. However his plans failed when he made the mistake of carrying on a torrid affair with one of the room maids. She took him for all his money and again proved that you should not combine your vices(pulps and sex), and that women and pulps just do not mix.
I remember laughing and asking him why on earth would you go to a book convention and get distracted by women. Book collecting is one of the very strongest addictions and no other vice can compare to it.
October 2nd, 2010 at 11:19 pm
Walker, I thought you agreed to keep the juicy stuff quiet until the end.
— Steve
October 3rd, 2010 at 3:39 am
Comic book and science fiction conventions were a little tamer — most of them couldn’t get a girl — though you could always count on Harlan Ellison and Bill Gaines to show up with attractive women on their arm.
I did the same thing in regard to renting a table to get into the dealer room early, though I noticed many dealers in comics tended to hold their best stuff back until toward the end. Or maybe my taste was so eclectic they just held back the material I was looking for because no one else wanted it.
Pulps were usually the rarest things and the most closely guarded in the 70’s and early 80’s and you could have your choice of paperbacks for under a $1.
Things were still pretty intimate in those days too. I often found myself drafted to be on some panel or other with the guests because they were short a man and I didn’t think of an excuse quickly enough. I recall Harlan Ellison and I arguing with David Gerrold and Andy Offutt on one of them that Dr. Who was better science fiction than Star Trek — and you can imagine how popular that made me.
Steve
So what happened at Pulpcon should stay at Pulpcon?
October 3rd, 2010 at 1:47 pm
To David’s point: For the most part, I prefer the Race Williams stories in DIME DETECTIVE to those in BLACK MASK. Daly definitely got better after he left BM; whether that was a natural phenomenon or the result of editorial prodding by Ken White I couldn’t say. But the 1935-38 Williams stories in DD are, IMO, among the author’s better efforts.
Walker and I agree that DIME improved steadily in the mid-Thirties following those first few years with their weird-menace tinge. For me the magazine’s “Golden Age” begins in 1935, which not only saw the arrival of Race Williams but also the first appearances of several popular recurring characters (including William Barrett’s Needle Mike and John K. Butler’s Rex Lonergan) and some excellent non-series stories by Cornell Woolrich. From 1935 through the early WWII years DIME DETECTIVE is a consistently above-average pulp. My own arbitrary collecting cut-off for all of Popular Publications’ DIME titles is 1944, which the prices jumped to 15 cents. But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t excellent reading to be found in some of those later issues.
October 3rd, 2010 at 5:46 pm
After selling my DIME DETECTIVE set I immediately started to collect my favorite issues again and as Ed mentions, the mid-thirties into the mid 1940’s are definitely fun to read. But I wouldn’t stop at 1944. Go ahead and collect at least through 1948, the date that Ken White left his position of editor. There are plenty of good stories even into the 1950’s(for instance John D. MacDonald). Ed and I have argued this point more than once but he is sticking to his cut off date of 1944. I find these bookish discussions to be great fun, or maybe I should say “pulpish” discussions.
By the way, that reminds me that Ryerson Johnson once told me about what happened when he left as an editor at Popular Publications. This was in the mid-1940s and he was told he could take whatever original art he wanted. There was an enormous amount of cover paintings and interior illustrations from DETECTIVE TALES, DIME MYSTERY and the western pulps. Ryerson must have been involved with these pulps since Ken White was overall in charge of DIME DETECTIVE, BLACK MASK, and ADVENTURE. Ryerson took three western pulp painting and a couple of dozen interior drawings, some of them double page illos and quite large. He sold me many of these in the 1980’s. An amazing man, he lived into his 90’s and was a professional writer during the 1920’s into the 1990’s.
October 3rd, 2010 at 5:47 pm
I think some writers feel more relaxed writing for DD, whereas with BM some seem to have the sense that they are doing something ‘important.’ Much as I love Nebel’s Kennedy and MacBride stories from BM, his Cardigan stories for DD have more energy and a sense of fun about them not always present in his MASK stories.
I wonder if some of the writers who worked at both magazines felt that sense of constraint, or if I’m literally reading something into it?
I don’t know if Daly actually improved a bit or just relaxed and bloomed under an editor who offered him a bit more encouragment, but his DD stories are generally better than the MASK ones — at least in terms of professionalism and slickness.
October 3rd, 2010 at 6:35 pm
I definitely agree about Nebel’s Cardigan series being his best work. Very fast moving, hardboiled and energetic. I always found them fun to read and there were over 40 of them in DIME DETECTIVE.
It’s ironic that Nebel thought he would be remembered for his so called quality work in the slicks and his novels. Turned out that he was blind to the fact that his pulp work was his best. I think someday we will see a big collection of his Cardigan stories in reprint form.
October 3rd, 2010 at 6:43 pm
Anxiously awaiting your next installment Walker. Great job and do please keep up the good work.
October 4th, 2010 at 3:06 am
Re Nebel’s novels, it wasn’t until recently that I discovered FIFTY ROADS TO TOWN was filmed (1937) — a screwball comedy with Don Ameche and Ann Sothern, directed by Norman Taurog, one of those mistaken identity things with Ameche and Sothern both on the run for different reasons (I think Ameche is trying to avoid testifying in a pal’s divorce and Sothern avoiding a gangster boyfriend) snowbound together in a small inn, each thinking the other is out to get them.
I don’t know how faithful it is to Nebel’s novel, but with a cast that includes Slim Summerville and Jane Darwell and that director I’ll have to try and find it.
Of course his other book SLEEPER’S EAST was filmed in 1932 with Preston Foster and again as SLEEPER’S WEST with Lloyd Nolan as part of the Michael Shayne series.
The only one of his slick stories I know anything about was “The Bribe” which was filmed (reviewed here), and is, I think, one of only two slick crime stories he wrote.
But he wasn’t alone in writing off his pulp work. Lester Dent thought his work for The Post would be remembered long after Doc Savage was forgotten, and I imagine Norvel Page expected he would be remembered for his government work with the Hoover Commission and the AEC and not the Spider (and you aren’t alone if it bothers you that the author of the apocalyptic Spider saga worked for the Atomic Energy Commission …).
October 4th, 2010 at 5:20 am
I’ve read that both Nebel and Gardner refused to give Joseph Shaw permission to reprint their pulp work in his HARD-BOILED OMNIBUS. They both felt that such fiction was dated and did not represent their best. Time has proven both to be incorrect in their judgement. True, Gardner is still remembered because of his Perry Mason character and other hardcovers but Nebel would not be remembered much at all except for his pulp fiction.
October 8th, 2010 at 9:02 am
So Walker, when’s the next installment?
October 8th, 2010 at 9:15 am
Hi Laurie
Walker’s working on it. I suggested that he not rush it, since I’ve had all of these lists of “100 Best Mysteries” to post, which I hope everyone reading this has seen, even though they don’t deal all that much with pulp-related material.
Walker replied to say that that was fine. The bigger problem, he added, was how to summarize 700-plus issues of one magazine in only one column.
— Steve
October 8th, 2010 at 2:24 pm
Actually DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY(DFW), had over 900 issues Steve, as I’m sure you well know. You are just testing us.
I started off intending just refresh my memory by going through the 900 issues and as usual, I got captivated by the magazine. I now am happily reading a detective novelet by Fred MacIsaac. I just finished some stories by Cornell Woolrich and a Mr Strang story by Carroll John Daly(Are you reading this Evan Lewis? I know you like Daly.)
The only thing that stopped my reading marathon was the baseball playoffs. I was stunned by what may be the greatest game I’ve ever seen, Roy Halladay’s no hitter. I quickly ordered a dvd of Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series against the Dodgers.
Ok back to the many, many series characters in DFW.
October 13th, 2010 at 3:37 pm
[…] on Mystery*File: Part Two — Collecting Dime Detective. Coming next: Part Four — Collecting Detective Story […]
February 18th, 2013 at 10:45 am
Altus Press has published some excellent books recently that have a DIME DETECTIVE connection. Four collections have come out reprinting all the Cardigan stories by Fred Nebel. This is his best work and I review the first volume at https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=16157
They also have published the DIME DETECTIVE COMPANION by James L. Traylor. This is an index of the magazine and also a collection of essays.