Tag: Field Report

Winter Paperback Haul

Behold my haul from the weekend!

A past customer or site-visitor (thank you unknown benefactor) gave my contact info to a woman who wanted to clear out her Dad’s collection of well-maintained 1960s-early 70s paperbacks.

There’s some great stuff in these bins which I’ve just begun to sort, including: Bonfils Rader and Maguire covers, Jim Thompson Dave Goodis and Lawrence Block pbos, lesbiana, and non-book novelties like African-American pin-up calendars, Playboy centerfold jigsaw puzzles and a backlit 3D slide-viewer.

 I feel like a fat squirrel with an acorn stockpile to last through the winter. Watch for these to start appearing in the shop this coming week (and for many new additions to the Pulp Fiction Cover Gallery).

Photo Catch-up

In my state of blogging lethargy, I’ve accumulated a number of miscellaneous photos that haven’t found a post of their own. Here’s a big photo-dump to bring myself up to date.

One for my Book CSI series analysing book abuse, neglect…and here just ineffectual good intentions:

This message was jotted–with the enthusiasm of a 10-year-old girl–on the outside of a package that was folded in half in my mail box. You can’t rile a postman like that. In the time it took to write this cutesy and pathetic plea, the seller could have cut a piece of cardboard and reinforced the book so that it would actually be inconvenient to pound it into taco shape.

Here’s one of my favorite grafitti tags (after “Neckface” and “Backfat”) that appeared near my subway stop on the Q train:


An edifying message, diluted a bit by the appearance of the classic “upsk*rt”, but still I’d like to see this one go city-wide. Really curious what kind of crap this building is stuffed with. Didn’t notice the mountain of clutter until I processed the photo.

My folk art, big rig toy chest in its new home:

That’s Mego Spock riding shotgun, with Scotty at the wheel. I found this at a stoop sale back in June and I couldn’t part with it. I think I’ll use the trailer as my time capsule for stashing hi-grade books that’ll be rare in 10 years.

Jug City:

We pass this establishment every year on the way to camp. I love a “Postal Outlet” with signage like an off-brand Hooters. Last time I saw Jug City, some other–relatively jugless–business had taken over the space but thankfully they kept the name. One day I hope to retire to Canada and open “Jug City Books” and the window display at least will be up to snuff.

…keeping to the theme. My favorite bad break (one of the quiet joys of proofreading) in recent memory:

Amazon suggested this “pay phrase” to my demure wife (“…embly” was after the break). She passed on that one for some reason. Previous to this my favorite BB I discovered in a book catalog I was proofing was:

The most feared weapon in Hitler’s arse-
nal

And lastly a haul from a month or so back that I forgot to post:

All from the GOB sale of an estate/storage liquidator. My best one-time cartridge score until the World’s Largest Garage Sale earlier this month. This photo is part of the “Junk in Your Trunk” photoset on Flickr documenting garage sale and thrift finds.

All right, caught up. And until I replace my scanner the Hang Fire Blog will likely be a bit image light. So does anyone have any particular aspect of bookselling, pulp fiction (or whatever) they’d like to see me write on? The brain is a bit scattered lately and I wouldn’t mind some outside imposed direction.

World’s Largest Garage Sale Haul, 2010

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Junk in My Trunk: October 3, 20010, originally uploaded by Hang Fire Books.

My epic haul from the annual World’s Largest Garage Sale in Warrensburgh, NY. Not a bad last hurrah for the 2010 garage sale season.

Favorite moment from the sale: Receiving a text message from the wife saying “This booth has Sega games AND machetes.”

As usual you can see this photo with notes/annotations in the Junk in Your Trunk pool on Flickr.

Weekend Stoop Haul

Had 14 promising sales mapped out for this past Saturday, but I overloaded twice; misread my map (mistaking one sale for another that started later); and had to leave the bike locked-up while I lugged a huge armload of items 2 miles home (then myself back to the bike). Ended up with bruised arms, a red neck and only four sales crossed off my list by the time it was too late to bother. Frustrating but did well on the ground I covered.

Picked up an original George Romero Season of the Witch poster, a lobby card for Eegah, the press kit for Radley Metzger’s “Dirty Girls” and 50-60 higher grade vintage paperbacks. The above items (and more) were great but bittersweet finds as they came from a local eBay seller I’ve bought from before who seems like he’s closing up shop. Most of my sunburn can be blamed on this sale as I went through every item he had.

Also picked up a “Young Architects” kit which allows you to create a 3D floorplan and a set of 100s of colored pencils. Think I’m going to use the floorplan to strategize bookshelf space. $1 each for these sets.

A cool “Rokenbok” construction toy that gives you an SNES style remote control and 8 receivers which you can place in a series of construction vehicles. Then you can switch–on the fly–between any of the vehicles and run a whole construction site by yourself! I’m afraid the Playmobile union is gonna shut us down though.

Lastly I picked up a great oldschool change dispenser that requires the double-safe belt and suspenders to hold up.

As always click on the images above to view in Flickr (w/ thrift-o-vision annotations). These are part of the “Junk in Your Trunk” pool devoted to documenting yard sale and thrift hauls.

Stoop Sale Haul, 2 Weeks Worth

Saved up a couple of weeks of stoop sale treasures to mix up the posts a bit. These hauls were the result of two beautiful weekends of warm, clear weather. Perfect for stoop sales because the sellers want to quickly get rid of their crap and hit the beach or go to BBQs.

Some highlights:

  • My second Da Vinci Code 1st after looking at 1000s of CR pages. Sadly the price has tanked and I need to bury them for a few decades
  • A beautiful Enzo Mari Animal puzzle (images here, here, and here) that I bought from a consistently triple fair-priced estate sale. The sale runners were supposed “pros” and priced at the highest realized final values on eBay (regardless of condition, or the fact that this was a Wednesday morning in Bushwick). I paid $5 for this since they had no idea what they had. Realized $275 at auction. Nyaaah. NOTE: This was the resin edition from ’72. The original wooden version from the 1950s must fetch thousands
  • Crumb’s Book of Genesis
  • Get Tough! 1st Edition of hand-to-hand fighting manual, “as Taught to the British Commandos, and U. S. Armed Forces”. Wartime issue paperback in original HTF dust wrapper
  • A selection of Hot Rod and Big Daddy Roth titles

  • Handmade big rig toy chest! 52″ x 18″. Working wheels, removable trailer, detailed open cab. I f***ing love this thing!
  • Large pile of 100% wool and marino wool yarn, some handspun. According to the wife–for whom these were a bribe–yarn like this fetches $8-10 a skein. I paid $.50 each (don’t tell her)
  • Tubful of Warhammer 40k Space Marines and LOTR miniatures. These can go for decent coin but it will require extensive undercover 21 Jump Street-style geek research.

If the summer keeps up like this, I’ll be one happy camper.

As always click on the images above to view in Flickr (w/ thrift-o-vision annotations). These are part of the “Junk in Your Trunk” pool devoted to documenting yard sale and thrift hauls.

Last Weekend’s Haul


Two glorious sunny days full of bike-riding, stoop sales and a street fair. Good times.

Here’s my haul from the weekend. (click on the image to view in Flickr w/ thrift-o-vision annotations). These are part of the “Junk in Your Trunk” pool devoted to documenting yard sale and thrift hauls.

Best find was the 1941 yearbook from the “Dutch Treat” social club filled with fantastic girly art and even a pop-up. I’m going to break this out into a separate blog post, it’s so nice.

The cupcake tin and shawl are for the Missus.You have to bring a few of those home if you want to get away with the smut and video games. It’s a yin-yang thing.

Stoop Sale Report


My haul from the last two weeks of stoop-saling (click on the image to view in Flickr w/ thrift-o-vision annotations). These are part of the “Junk in Your Trunk” pool devoted to documenting yard sale and thrift hauls.

Not one but TWO Bang & O turntables, a great selection of LPs and DVDs, a book on cock-fighting, Aleister Crowley’s Thoth tarot and more.

Not too shabby considering I’ve been coughing my lungs out for two weeks straight from some disgusting lung affliction.

Favorite sale moments: The guy selling the first B+O table said he was clearing stuff out due to anxiety induced by cable hoarding shows (I heart A+E). We discussed the finer points of collect-o-mania and I gave him my informed opinion that you are only a hoarder when you stop inviting people into your home and “stuff” starts to displace your sleeping/eating/showering space. Until then you’re a connoisseur.

Other favorite moment was trying out a compound bow outfit and talking jazz at a sale held by a chatty ex-cop, private investigator.

Very excited that the season has begun.