Looking through old issues of Xenophile makes me wish I had known about the pulp fanzine back in the 1970s.
The late Nils Hardin‘s zine ran for 44 issues from 1974 through 1980. Some issues featured a mix of articles on the pulps and advertising aimed at pulp collectors, while other issues were wholly devoted to ads.
This was around the same time that I was discovering the pulps. Had I known about Xenophile, I may have started my collection of physical pulps earlier than I did. But, back then, a teenager didn’t have a whole lot of expendable cash.
It was fascinating looking back through the ads from 1974 for pulp magazines. Science fiction and fantasy pulps seemed to be the most common, then westerns. There were hero and detective pulps, too, but not as many as I expected. But there seems to be a much more varied mix of pulps available for sale today than were being advertised 40 years ago.
I’m sure the rarer pulps were being bought and sold among collectors. These days a seller might get a higher price selling on an online auction site such as eBay, Heritage or Heartwood, than simply through fixed-price sales as the old ads were. And, the sellers are reaching a much wider audience of potential buyers.
I was a bit surprised — though I probably shouldn’t have been — to noticed that a number of the folks advertising in those old Xenophiles are still selling pulps today: David T. Alexander, Ed Kalb and the Curious Book Shop. Robert Weinberg was in there then, though he’s out of the business now.
Thinking back to 1974, it’s a shame I didn’t have access to Xenophile and more spending money. Even accounting for inflation, pulp prices were much lower then — for the most part.
Using the U.S. Bureau of Labor’s Consumer Price Index Inflation Calculator, $1 in 1974 was equivalent to $4.74 today.
Here’s a sampling of pulps for sale in 1974, all rated good or better:
| Pulp | Number | Then | Adjusted | Today | Reference |
| Argosy | April 9, 1938 | $6.00 | $28.47 | $50.00 | Heartwood |
| The Avenger | Sept. 1939 | $40.00 | $189.79 | $100.00 | eBay |
| Doc Savage | Feb. 1937 | $12.00 | $56.94 | $85.00 | eBay |
| Golden Fleece | Nov. 1938 | $6.00 | $28.47 | $62.50 | ABE |
| Golden Fleece | Dec. 1938 | $6.00 | $28.47 | $50.00 | ABE |
| The Lone Eagle | Aug. 1933 | $50.00 | $237.00 | $300.00 | Alexander |
| Mammoth Detective | Jan. 1943 | $2.00 | $9.48 | $37.50 | eBay |
| Mammoth Detective | April 1947 | $3.00 | $14.22 | $40.00 | eBay |
| Operator #5 | Dec. 1934 | $12.00 | $56.94 | $65.00 | ABE |
| Planet Stories | Winter 1939 | $6.00 | $28.47 | $299.00 | Heritage |
| The Rio Kid Western | April 1947 | $1.25 | $5.93 | $20.00 | eBay |
| The Shadow | Dec. 1933 | $20.00 | $94.89 | $175.00 | eBay |
| The Shadow | Dec. 15, 1933 | $5.00 | $23.72 | $57.50 | eBay |
| Spicy Western Stories | Sept. 1942 | $2.50 | $11.86 | $382.00 | eBay |
| Weird Tales | June 1929 | $40.00 | $189.79 | $450.00 | eBay |
| Weird Tales | Sept. 1931 | $30.00 | $142.34 | $275.00 | eBay |
(Pulps listed were being advertised in 1974 and also available for sale online at the time of my search.)
Of course, if you had been around during the pulp era, you could have picked up any of these pulps at cover price, which even with inflation would be a steal compared to today’s prices. (A 1930 $1 bill was worth $15.39 in 2014 dollars; a 10-cent pulp then would have cost the equivalent of $1.54 today.)
And the condition would be about as close to perfect as was ever available.
Ah, well. Time to browse through the online auction listings.
Unfortunately some of the pulps I was collecting back then like Astounding 1937-1942, Thrilling Wonder 1937-1950 and many other of the SF pulps are worth about the same today as what I paid back then. On the other hand I was also buying Weird Tales and the Weird Menace pulps at the same time.