Thu 5 Nov 2009
Heading for Bordentown (NJ).
Posted by Steve under Collecting , Conventions , Personal Notes[6] Comments
As I usually do before heading out of town, I’ve been busy packing up and getting some reviews posted that I wanted to squeeze in before I go. Rich Harvey’s Pulp Adventurecon #10 is an all-day show on Saturday in Bordentown NJ, and I’ll be there:
Saturday, November 7, 2009
10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
LOCATION:
Ramada Inn of Bordentown
1083 Route 206, Bordentown NJ
(Just off NJ Turnpike Exit 7)
I’ll be leaving tomorrow morning with Paul Herman. We’re planning on doing some bookhunting along the way, then staying tomorrow night with noted paperback collector Dan Roberts over in nearby PA. (What’s really neat about Dan’s collection is that it’s all out on shelves where you can actually see it, and he has a lot of shelves. Unlike having four do-it-yourself storage areas that you can’t get into all four of, since right now the door on one is busted, and even for the other three, it has to be during regular business hours. Sometimes I feel as though I have to make an appointment several days in advance to see my own stuff.)
As for the Bordentown show, I always have a great time, and I’m looking forward to it.
November 5th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
I’ve been to all these shows and this is the 10th anniversary convention. If you live in the NJ/NY/Pa area, then it’s worth a trip. Almost 50 tables full of mystery items in book, pulp, paperback format. Also thousands of old movie dvds.
If you are a reader/collector, then it’s important to attend these shows such as Bordentown, Windy City, PulpFest, because it’s important to revive your interest in collecting and keep in touch with old friends. Steve and I first met 40 years ago at a book convention in the NYC or Boston area.
November 6th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Steve,
“make an appointment several days in advance to see my own stuff” – you crack me up. At least if you have to make an appointment, you can be reasonably sure you’ll get back to yourself.
Enjoy the trip!
November 7th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
Thanks, Bill!
I’ve just returned and I did indeed enjoy the trip, just as I expected. Walker and I compared notes, and we agreed that we first met in 1970, although we’ve both forgotten which city that SF convention we both attended was in.
Two days of non-stop activity is more than I’m used to. It’s off to bed, and I’m sure I’m going to sleep until sometime late tomorrow morning. The phone will be left off the hook, that’s for sure!
November 7th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
Yes, a fun time was had by all. Unfortunately there were less of us in attendance than usual. So much so that the organizer gave us a discount on the dealer’s tables. Sales were down at many tables and Rich Harvey must figure out how to increase attendance if this show is to survive.
I tried to convince Steve to have a blog entry on the men’s adventure magazines. I picked up over a hundred for very little money. But he did not seem very receptive to my suggestion because the only mystery element we could find was on the level of one cover story: GI GUNS DOWN NAZIS AS THEY PARTY WITH NUDE GIRLS!
Needless to say these magazines from the 1950’s and 1960’s are just about unreadable. But the insane covers, interior art and crazy blurbs are funny as hell.
November 8th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
I slept 10 and a half hours last night and had to take an hour nap this afternoon.
I am slowly recovering!
If there were only 65 paying customers yesterday, as Walker has posted elsewhere, then dealers and their assistants (one of whom was me) may have outnumbered their clientele by a small margin. This is Not Good.
Luckily the dealers at the convention are also fans, so it was still easy to have a good time, but more than one fan-dealer was wondering whether it was really worth the effort it took to get up early and lug all of their merchandise in, only to have to trundle it back home again.
(Or dump it off on someone else, not wishing to ever see their former stock in trade again.)
As for those men’s adventure magazines, Walker, they were popular enough in their day — there must 100s of different titles — and in fact there was a time not too long ago when they were considered hot collectibles.
That boom busted, I think, when buyers of these magazines made the fatal error of actually trying to read their possessions.
Those “true fact articles” about Nazis, party girls and the like and the occasional short stories that fill their pages are really dreadful, dreadful stuff. (I say this even though Walker and I and a few others standing around admiring his new purchases came across one story by a very young Lawrence Block.)
Walker’s right about the “insane covers, interior art and crazy blurbs,” but the rest of these mags no longer pass the age test. Nor the smell test.
— Steve
November 9th, 2009 at 11:12 am
I notice the PulpMags yahoo group had a post about another pulp show that also was held on November 7 in Lansing, Michigan. Ray Walsh, the organizer and bookstore owner, has held these one day shows many times over the last 20 or so years.
It appears the attendance on this show was even lower than Bordentown with only a couple non-dealers present during 12 noon to 2:00pm. Only 5 dealers present with Ray Walsh filling up the rest of the room with his large stock of pulp type collectibles. More attendees may have been present during 10 am to noon and after 2:00 pm, but it appears to be mainly Ray Walsh offering some of his bookstore stock for sale outside the store.
I remember previous shows were reported as having alot more dealers and attendees.