The Great Gnome Press Science Fiction Odyssey

I hate it when that happens.  I forgot about an auction last Friday.  Actually, I remembered it about 15 minutes after it finished.  The book in question was a copy of The Porcelain Magician, a collection from Frank Owen.

I normally don’t forget these things, and usually set an alarm to remind myself about them.  My iPhone gives me an alert shortly before auctions finish in any case..  On Friday however, things were a little hectic.  Being the native-speaking English teacher at my middle school here in Seoul, I run the speaking tests for the students at the end of each semester.  I develop a test for each class and organize their prep and test classes – it’s a very hectic couple of weeks (two in each semester), and probably my busiest time of the year.  Well, that and developing the English vacation class programs.  But anyway, last week was preparation week and on Friday morning I happened to be running around like a blue-assed fly (a term my dead grandfather used to use…) and the alerts went off in my pocket, but I didn’t notice them.  At least not until I took small break and checked my iPhone.  So I was a little annoyed with myself after that (to say the least) and I still haven’t gotten completely over it.

The reason I was (and are still slightly) upset is that this particular book was in pretty good condition.  There are several GP books that for some reason seem to be notoriously difficult to find in even VG condition, let alone Fine.  This is one of those titles.  Many thanks to the seller who let me use his images here.

You can see that it’s a bit worn and has a couple of small tears.  Foxing and discoloration are quite visible.  Probably in Good condition at best.  It is all in one piece though, and a Brodart (or similar) cover would make a huge difference to the appearance.  A slightly faded spine was mentioned, and though not entirely visible here, from what little is, it doesn’t look to be too bad.  Just on the spine thing, is it just me or have any other collectors out there noticed that a few GP titles have a chronic problem with faded spines?  I mean it’s next to impossible to find a copy of either this, Castle of Iron, Pattern for Conquest or Minions of the Moon without at least a little, if not significantly faded spines.

Anyway, I would have been prepared to go as high as about $50, but there was only one bid, and it went for the starting price of $19.50.  This is, I think, an excellent buy for this title in this condition.  Congrats to the winner.  But it would have been mine if not for my lapse in attention….

This entry was posted on June 30, 2010 at 2:37 am and is filed under Uncategorized with tags Frank Owen, The Porcelain Magician. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.