On August 6, 2022, PulpFest 50 will be offering 227 auction lots of pulps, digests, vintage paperbacks, men’s adventure magazines, and more from the collection of the late Carl Joecks. A retired television cameraman, electronic equipment repairman, and carpenter from Vermont, Carl became enamored of science fiction, comic books, radio, and astronomy as a boy. He was soon collecting all of the things that he loved.
Over the past weekend, we added 42 lots of vintage science fiction paperbacks to the Joecks estate auction. Included are a pair of Dell science fiction mapbacks, the first American paperback edition of Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, L. Ron Hubbard’s Return to Tomorrow — an original Ace paperback originally published in 1954 — the 1944 Bartholomew House edition of H. P. Lovecraft’s The Weird Shadow Over Innsmouth and Other Stories of the Supernatural, the first edition and first printing of Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth, and more.
Also featured in the auction are six lots of Ace science-fiction doubles and six lots of non-science-fiction doubles published by Ace Books, including the very first double paperback issued by the company.
At the end of this post, you’ll find a gallery of images showing select items from our 42 additional auction lots, together with brief descriptions of the items included in each lot.
Click on an image for an enlarged view. Click the right arrow to proceed to the next image. Click the left arrow to return to a previous image. To return to the auction page, click the escape key on your keyboard or the refresh button on your screen.
For a PDF catalog featuring the 227 auction lots from the Joecks estate, please click here. You’ll find a gallery of images featuring select items from all 227 auction lots on our auction page. Simply click the auction button at the top of our website to learn more.
All attendees of PulpFest 50 will be able to bid on the available material. There will be auction preview sessions offered at the convention. During these sessions, the Joecks Estate Auction Lots will be available for examination. Viewing times are from 3:30 to 4:30 PM on August 4 through 6.
The auction will be held in the PulpFest 50 programming room at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry. It will begin at 8:15 PM on Saturday evening, August 6.
People who desire to attend the PulpFest auction — but not the convention itself — are also welcome to the Joecks Estate Auction. If non-PulpFest attendees want to place bids during the auction, they will have to register as bidders. There will be a $5 non-refundable fee to bid during the auction. However, the $5 fee can be applied toward a single winning bid.
Non-PulpFest attendees will be able to register to bid in the Joecks Estate Auction at the convention’s front desk from 10 AM until 4 PM on Friday, August 5, and Saturday, August 6. Non-PulpFest attendees will also be able to register to bid before the auction begins on Saturday evening.
For those who are not able to attend PulpFest 50, the convention will also accept bids placed through the PulpFest Silent Auction Bid Page.
To learn more about this year’s auction — including how to place an online silent bid — please click the auction button at the top of our website.
For any questions about our 2022 auction, please contact PulpFest auction coordinator Mike Chomko at mike@pulpfest.com.
Although both of the items pictured are part of the Joecks collection, the displayed images are not photographs of the actual copies found in the collection.
H. P. Lovecraft’s The Weird Shadow Over Innsmouth and Other Stories of the Supernatural was published by Bartholomew House in 1944. The cover art is not credited.
Ace Books number D-1 — the first of the Ace Doubles — features the complete and unabridged novel “The Grinning Gismo,” by Samuel W. Taylor. The flip side of the book is an original novel by Keith Vining, “Too Hot for Hell.” Both covers are by Norman Saunders.
Additions to the PulpFest 50 Carl Joecks Estate Auction
