Ham On Rye - ugly design. (1 Viewer)

Is it just me thinking that Ham On Rye is the ugliest offering from the BSP? I'm not talking content - just the way the thing looks: the lurid colour & all that.
 
personally, i like the ham on rye cover. ones i have never cared for are "bone palace ballet" and the black sparrow editions of "hank" by cherkovski and "run with the hunted". not, mind you, the harper collins editions....
 
I dislike ECCO's Ham on Rye and I'm fond of BSP'S.

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BSP's Ham on Rye was my introduction to Bukowski,
so I will always have a special relationship with that cover.
 
I think the cover for the City Lights edition of The Most Beautiful Woman In Town is hands-down my favorite. The bar on the cover -- the image has been reversed -- is the infamous Saloon on Grant Street in San Francisco's North Beach, a mere two block stroll from City Lights. When fire consumed San Francisco in 1906, an after-effect of the devastating earthquake, a squad of firemen surrounded the Saloon to protect it from a fiery destruction.
 
Bone PB. I like - luminous & cartoonish: funny. The Most B. Woman in Town is a photo, right? (City Lights edition). Like most, I naturally put Buk with BSP, & I get odd feelings when I see them in book shops (rarely, now). The closed Compendium Books in Camden (London) was stacked with Bukowski, & that's where I first read & saw BSP books. So it sticks.

Otherwise, You Get So Alone I love & hate in equal measure - though the blue-&-other-colour swirly spine edition looks edible. The Horses Run Away is my favourite: orange on mushroom & clean but filthy. I quite like The Night is Torn, but I didn't for a long time. It looks vulgar & classy. Last Night of the Earth looks like a newsflash. Hollywood is piss, though the paperback editions have the heaviest spines of BSP Bukowski paperbacks. Women is pocked with grain & heavy looking.


In comparison to Ecco's, I agree - it looks beautiful.
 
Otherwise, You Get So Alone I love & hate in equal measure - though the blue-&-other-colour swirly spine edition looks edible.

Ha!

All the multi-coloured cloth backstrips look edible to me.

None of the images/graphics age very well in my opinion.
Give me Mockingbird, The days run away and South of no north, any day. Timeless.
The Dorbin bibliography is beautiful too.
 

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ROC,
Are those yours? Holy shit they are beautiful. I have Bone Palace in the lettered, but that is it. That is one impressive bunch of books.

Bill
 
Yeah, they're mine.
They are beautifully made books, aren't they.
Still, I don't have any of the 4 books I mention above in special editions.
 
ummm, wow! i thought those spines were photoshopped or something. that is until i noticed that the spine of "shakespeare" was like the one i have. good lookin' collection ROC!!! i'm officially jealous.
 
Yes.
I've been collecting for a few years now.
Most of my stuff is on chronics website; http://collectingbukowski.com/
Which is a great idea, well executed.
Between this site and that, there's everything a Buk nut could want.
I wish I'd had these resources when I'd started out.

As an aside... I keep a catalogue of all my stuff that includes the buy price and a (regularly updated) estimate of what things are worth now. I get the later from ABE mainly... sometimes ebay.
So far I've spent 27,000 USD and the estimated current value is roughly 42,000 USD.
That does not include books on Buk by others and many miscellaneous items.

Holy fuck... it's a good thing my wife doesn't visit this site!
 
42,000 USD using what as a price? If you are using Fogel, they you should jump that number up. Really, it is hard to value those lettered copies. If you look on abe, there are less than 5 lettered copies of Buk books total (not including New Years Greetings), so the value is pretty hard to determine.

IF your wife ever visits this site and sees this, she should know that if something ever happens to you, then she has quite a little nest egg in books. The value on these books, especially lettered copies, will only go up. They are certainly a better investment than a 401k retirement account. My retirement account lost 10% of its value in the last quarter...

Bill
 
Oh no Bill, not the Fogel guide.

I visit abe regularly (say once every three months) and go through my catalogue, comparing each book and its specific edition to those available for sale.

You are right though, there are a great many books not available on abe now, so I have either used past editions that have popped up there or elsewhere or I just give a conservative estimate of my own. The estimate is based on the percentage increase I see in other similar Buk books with the variable being the scarcity and desirability.

Some of the lettered copies are 'A' so there is a slight difference in value there.
Some presentation copies I have have great handwritten inscriptions to those in Buks 'inner circle'.

And yes, my wife is aware that if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, she can sell my stuff. I have given her specific instructions to list one book at a time and allow a week or two between them so as to maximise the possibility of success.

I'd actually prefer they go to another collector... someone with a solid collection to which these could be added.
 
I'd offer to take them, but then I would join you in the grave as my wife would kill me....

Yes, my wife knows not to garage sale my books. I told her who to go to for a fair deal on them, or to ebay them over time and not flood the market...

Bill
 
This begs the question about protecting books. I buy those clear page protectors that you can get at office supply stores and fully seal the books with them. They are acid free and archival safe, plus I use acid free clear scotch tape to seal them for good measure. I have heard that it is good to have the books breathe, but am not sure about that (and know that comic books go in those mylar "bags" with the board (which may or may not be acid free...) My books are sealed nearly airtight and fully protected against the elements (or if I had a minor leak, not submerged, mind you). I know that once they are in the plastic, they are safe, but when I want to read them, it only takes a few seconds to get them out. Counting the little magazines that I have and all of the other non-Buk items, I probably have sealed 5,000 books this way, so if I'm doing something wrong, I'm pretty fucked.

I noticed on ROC beautiful books that it looks like they are sitting naked on the shelf (although that may be the picture).

I guess I'm asking any other collectors what they do to protect their books.

Best,
Bill
 
I guess I'm asking any other collectors what they do to protect their books.

Most of my books (at least the valuable books) are in cases with glass doors. The Black Sparrow books are protected by their usual acetate covers, particularly fragile items are in home-made jackets made of acetate or cora-lene (at least I think it's called cora-lene... a stiff vellum-like archival graphic arts paper) or, in the case of books with a dustwrapper, brodarts. The rest are naked, protected only by the glass cases. For a few small fragile items I've made little portfolio style covers from heavy acid-free art papers that fold closed into an envelope style configuration.

Most of my broadsides are in an Itoya Art Portfolio binder.
 
I bought a few inexpensive bookcases (IKEA) with doors and glass panels, so you can still see everything, but it keeps most of the dust out. and I have a couple of of those little silica desiccant bags in each bookcase to keep things relatively dry. But I live in a dry part of town these days, so that's not much of a worry anymore. In my experience, sun is the biggest enemy of the Black Sparrow spines. Finding a paperback first of Post Office or Burning in Water - just to name two prime examples - without at least a slightly faded spine is nearly impossible.

I never thought of "bagging" any books. I like being able to pull them down and open them right up when I want to find something. But I have a couple that probably should be bagged. I just wouldn't want to bag a whole shelf of first editions or anything. People who see the bookcase full of Bukowski already think I'm insane ("Um...it's none of my business, but why do you have 3 or 4 copies of some of these?"). I think if the books were all wrapped in plastic they would just slowly back out of the room and find an excuse to leave ("oh, would you look at the time!"). ;)
 
I'm not much of a collector. (a money issue)
My regular Buk-books (mostly cheap paperbacks) just sit on the bookshelf, that goes also for some German first-editions.
My 'Crucifix' is not among these books, as I don't use it to read. But still it sits on a shelf uncovered. My only covered item is the wonderful ed of Hot Water Music with a tipped in oil-painting, that I bought at PBA last year. It's wrapped in the same package in which they sent it abroad. That's all.
 
Humidity and sunlight are the real dangers. I've never considered dust to be a hazard but still I keep my valuable books in glass cabinets. I'd like to display my collection and have never considered "bagging" my books, but keep broadsides and periodicals in Itoya portfolios.
 

Thanks for uploading the pic, Father Luke! It's weird that the seller chose to show a pic of a book about budgerigars when he's selling a Bukowski book. I guess when he tries to sell the budgerigar book, he'll show a pic of a Bukowski book..:D

Jezuz! It's my 2000 post!
 
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I noticed on ROC beautiful books that it looks like they are sitting naked on the shelf (although that may be the picture).

I guess I'm asking any other collectors what they do to protect their books.

All my books are behind glass, protected from direct light and, in some cases, hermetically sealed in archival acid-free boxes that can withstand a direct nuclear strike.

Well... almost.

Those photos were for a now defunct website.

All of my books can be accessed and opened within seconds though. That is important to me.
 
i was being kind. I think that they are worth about $500, which is what, 300 British Pounds. That wine stain may add $100 at the most., so 350 British Pounds s fair and he is asking what almost 700 (or almost $1300)?

Yes, at least twice the price that it should be.

Bill
 

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