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Sold Full run of Bukowski in Wormwood Review (1 Viewer)

mjp

Founding member
Wow, a full run of Bukowski in Wormwood Review.

Talk about a once in a lifetime opportunity.

I'm told the opening bid is what the seller paid for the set. Even though he had to complete it himself with a few later issues.

Do the math. Most people sell the common, unremarkable issues for $15-$20 apiece, and considerably more for the rarer issues and the all-Bukowski issues. This auction gets you every Bukowski issue for $13.99 each. That includes the old and rare issues. If you try to put this set together issue by issue, it's going to take you years, and cost you considerably more than $13.99 per issue.

What a bargain. What a world!

A complete run of Bukowski Wormwoods might be the most rare Bukowski item there is. How many are out there? How many have you seen? When are you ever going to have another chance to get one?
 
If anyone asks, I'll tell them the truth; the bindings smell like a 19 year old girl's thighs on day three of Woodstock. Whether that's good or bad is open to personal interpretation.

Life is a crapshoot, man. You have to trust the postal service! They are on your side. Where is your patriotism?
 
I am seriously considering this, but am trying to weigh the chances of whether a rich Russian or Saudi Arabian will come across Buk in the next year and demand they have everything ever published. I'm betting on the Russian....

5:1

FREE PUSSY RIOT... even if they suck. No one deserves that....

I will sell the entire Wormwood collection to the Russian billionaire who frees Pussy Riot at cost... Oh shit, I do not own it yet....
 
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Okay.

But shipping will be $468.60.

Or you can wait until I relist it. I will continue to list it, but every time I relist the price is going to increase, not decrease.

I don't need to sell them, ever, and this isn't some chickenshit thing you can pick up just anywhere. The longer I have them, the more it's going to cost someone to get them from me.

:)
 
Wormwoods are set to relist tomorrow morning at 10:15 Pacific time for $1,568.60 ($100 more than last time).

I think it's kind of funny to increase the opening bid when relisting an unsold item, and I may just take it to an absurd length for a few laughs. Who knows, a year from now they could be up there with an opening bid of $5,218.60.

I'm not going ABEshit, I'm just amusing myself.
 
I wish I could sell my Wormwoods. I like them and all, but they're just sitting in a box, taking up space, and I could use the money a lot more than the magazines. Unfortunately it seems like the rare book market has never recovered and I doubt that it will for a long long time.
 
No... #1 is a copy that's signed by Marvin. I can't get to it right now but I think it was one of ten and was made up from the remaining original pages with a repro cover printed in black. #2 is one of 30(?) of the reprint and is signed and numbered, but it's numbered 40/30, so I have no idea how many there really were, and the signature looks nothing like the one in #1, so I'm not sure if it's signed by Marvin or by Christa..
 
Sounds like mine. I thought that they were each limited to 27 copies, but not sure exactly why I thought that.

My #1 and my #2 are 22 of 30 and is very much signed by Marvin in black ink. Both are completely xeroxed with NO original pages. This is how they are called out in the colophon (on the inside cover). I'd love to hear if there are any copies with original guts on a xerox cover.
 
Not sure if the cover of my #1 is a xerox, but it does have the original guts and, if memory serves, the cover is printed on card stock.
 
Unfortunately it seems like the rare book market has never recovered and I doubt that it will for a long long time.
The market as a whole may be down, but there will always be buyers.
They'll probably sell once you cross the $3,000 mark.
I assume you're being facetious, but there is a school of pricing psychology that would agree with that statement. Value is perception.
 
Please, if you have the opportunity before you box 'em. I noticed that your #7 is on white stock with red ink markings. Mine is on blue stock with yellow and green ink on the sunflowers, but no inscription. I didn't realize that Marvin inscribed any - were these repros of the very early issues? I've only heard about #1 and #2 having repros.

Good job on the sale!

P.S. - is it no longer possible to directly upload photos to a thread from my computer? Photobucket seems to be completely unusable these days, so that's no longer an option. I used to be able to upload photos directly to a thread, which is by far my preferred method.
 
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Looks like image upload works. Are you getting a specific error?

Malone inscribed the #7 in this set (it's not repro) because he put the set together for Sam Smith in 1984. And I take it Sam donated to Wormwood after that, since he also got the signed copies of subsequent issues (that you guys now have).

So the signature isn't called for, it's a one-off.
 
I'll scan it when I get home from work.

In the meantime, enjoy this Malone signature (or initials) on a Wormwood rejection slip addressed to me.
malone.jpg
 
Very interesting (and better than nothing!).

Look at the overleaf of the issue #1 cover I posted. It's clearly a loopy M | Malone (count the loops, with the first two double sets of loops the M's).
 
Looks like I found this place at the right time. MJP was kind enough to set me up with this collection for his original price. Someone'll have to experiment with the ebay price hike theory on another item.

Noticed that there's another lot of these going on Abe at the minute. Cept they're selling for $1,875 and only comprises of 89 issues. 'Complete run' must be open to interpretation...

Think this was a real good score, thanks again MJ!
 
It was a good score and you won't be disappointed.
'Complete run' must be open to interpretation...
89 isn't even close to being every issue!

Having said that, when I bought the set I just sold to you it was advertised as a "complete run" and it wasn't, so I had to pick up a couple issues to fill the holes.
 
Parading,
Now to do what I did and put together a full set, not just the Bukowski. You are 2/3s of the way there!

I have a full set and it is one of the few things (along with my own Bottle of Smoke Press Publishers copies) that I will never part with. They'll have to bury them with me or sell them when I die.

Bill
 
Wow, thanks! Look at that loopy sig above the actual sig in the second photo. That's the type of signature that's inside the front cover of my Issue #1 (see a few posts up).
 
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Parading,
Now to do what I did and put together a full set, not just the Bukowski. You are 2/3s of the way there!

Yeah, 3/4! Reckon I'll sit on these for a good while. Sounds like the early copies are pretty damn elusive.

Unfortunately it seems like the rare book market has never recovered and I doubt that it will for a long long time.

I really don't know anything about the rare book market. Looking over some of the threads here, I'm getting that collectable titles are listed on sites like Abebooks for unreasonably high prices. And a lot of these items sell by the looks of it. But then there are references like the above implying that it's hard to sell rare books etc. at good prices. I'm guessing, it's complicated?
 
If you are patient, you can do it. The 2 rarest ones are #1 & #2.

Some of the other really rare ones are included in the ones that you just bought. #71 (Legs, Hips & Behind) and #105 (for no particular reason) are extremely rare.

I probably have a couple here that you may need. If I do, I'll sell them to you at a very fair price. Well below the folks at abe.

Bill
 
Thanks Bill, I'll have to take ya up on that offer once this first wave arrives on my door step. I'm in Aus so I'm anticipating it'll be a few weeks. Much appreciated!
 
Christa has said that #92 and #138 are also difficult to find (they are in the Bukowski collection).
 

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