Welcome to the PulpFest 2024 Estate & Consignment Auction Catalog and Online Bidding page.
As of July 9, 2024, the PulpFest 2024 Estate and Consignment Auction had about 300 lots of material that will be up for bid.
The Charles Danowski Estate
The bulk of our 2024 auction will consist of approximately 240 lots containing several thousand science fiction hardcovers, paperbacks, reference books, and art books related to the genre. About twenty of the lots feature science fiction magazines published from the early 1950s through the early 2000s. Some of the titles included are Aboriginal Science Fiction, Fantastic Science Fiction, Galileo, Science Fiction Plus, and Vertex. There is also a substantial run of Locus numbering about 300 issues.
This collection belonged to Charles Danowski, a devoted family man and educator who passed away on August 2, 2023. A former superintendent of schools in Irvington and North Salem, New York, and a professor at SUNY New Paltz, Danowski was known for his infectious sense of humor, incredible compassion, and love of science fiction. In 2025, we hope to offer his extensive collection of science fiction pulp and digest magazines.
Member Consignments
The remaining 60 lots we have as of July 9 consist of material submitted by members of PulpFest 2024. These include several issues of Weird Tales, Doc Savage, The Phantom Detective, and The Shadow Magazine, the first issues of Unknown, Famous Fantastic Mysteries, Jungle Stories, South Seas Stories, The Skipper, and The Ghost Super-Detective, several Edgar Rice Burroughs first editions in dust jacket, and six bound-volumes of Everybody’s Magazine. There’s also an issue of The Thrill Book from 1919, a pulp rarely seen.
Consigning Material to the PulpFest 2024 Auction
If you would like to consign something to the PulpFest 2024 auction, we welcome large and small collections, from a single item to thousands of books, pulps, comics, fanzines, and related collectibles. If you’re ready to sell, give our auction service a try.
Although we will accept any submissions up through the day of the 2024 PulpFest auction, you are encouraged to submit your lots before the start of the convention. This will allow PulpFest to list your lots — including your submitted photographs and descriptions — here on our online auction page. Online bids will be accepted for all lots that have been submitted by 11:59 pm on Friday, July 12, 2024. Any material submitted after that date will not be added to the online bidding page.
The Ground Rules
All auction lots must have a value of $25 or more. The convention will charge a 16% commission based on the selling price for anything sold or the minimum value of any item that receives no bids. For example, if an item sells for $100, the seller will receive $84. If an item receives no bids, the seller will owe $4, or 16% of the $25 minimum value.
PulpFest reserves the right to reject any material that does not meet our standards. Sexually explicit material — including Playboy, Penthouse, and Oui — cannot be submitted to the auction.
The PulpFest 2024 Members Consignment Auction
As always, PulpFest will also accept consignments from members of the convention. All members, including our dealers, may submit material to our auction. All lots submitted to PulpFest by 11:59 p.m. on Friday, July 12, 2024, will be added to our auction photo catalog so that online bidding can take place.
During the convention, we will accept your auction lots during regular dealers’ room hours. The deadline to submit auction lots is 1 pm on Saturday, August 3, 2024.
If you have questions concerning the auction, please contact PulpFest auction coordinator Mike Chomko at mike@pulpfest.com or 2217 W. Fairview Street, Allentown, PA 18104-6542. Please enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope for his response.
How to Place Bids in the 2024 Estate and Consignment Auction
All attendees of PulpFest 2024 will be able to bid on the available material. There will be four auction preview sessions offered during the convention. These will take place from 3:30 to 4: 45 pm on August 1, 2, and 3. We’ll also have a brief session from 8:30 – 8:50 pm on Saturday, August 3.
During these sessions, all consigned auction lots will be available for examination by PulpFest attendees.
If you will be attending PulpFest 2024, the sessions listed above (and on our programming schedule) will be the only times that you will be able to examine the lots before the start of the auction on August 3.
The General Public May Attend the PulpFest 2024 Auction
People who desire to attend the PulpFest auction — but not the convention itself — are also welcome to attend. If non-PulpFest attendees want to place bids during the auction, they must register as bidders. There will be a $5 non-refundable registration fee to bid during the auction.
Non-PulpFest attendees will be able to register to bid during our 2024 auction at the convention’s front desk from 9 am until 4:45 pm on Friday, August 2, and Saturday, August 3. Non-PulpFest attendees will also be able to register to bid immediately before the auction begins on Saturday evening, August 3. You may register to bid from 8:30 – 8:45 pm.
The auction will be held in the PulpFest 2024 programming room at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry. It will begin at 9 pm on Saturday, August 3.
How to Place an Online Bid
For those unable to attend PulpFest 2024, the convention will accept bids placed through the PulpFest Online Auction Bid Page. The bid that you submit will be your final bid for the lot.
PulpFest will bid for our online bidders during the auction. We will continue bidding for each online bidder up to the amount of the person’s final bid. If no bid placed by the audience at the live auction is higher than the final online bid, the lot will be won by the online bidder.
To place your online bids, click the red button immediately above the auction lot photographs found below. Our online bidding form will open in a new tab.
When placing your bid, you will need to provide your name, email address, mailing address, and billing address (if different), your method of payment, the lot you are bidding on, and your bid amount. A separate form must be filled out for each bid.
Online bids can be placed on every auction lot in our photo catalog. Unfortunately, online bids cannot be placed on items submitted to our auction after 11:59 p.m. on Friday, July 12, 2024.
Online bids on all of the available lots that are less than $10 will not be accepted. The deadline to place silent bids through the PulpFest Silent Auction Bid Page is 9:59 am Eastern on Sunday, July 28. After that time, the silent bidding page will be shut down.
PulpFest will accept checks or money orders (in U.S. dollars), PayPal, or credit card payments for items won through silent bidding. A 5% fee will be charged for all credit card or PayPal transactions. There will be additional shipping charges for those who cannot pick up the lots they have won.
Maneuvering Through Our Photo Catalog
Click an image for an enlarged view. Click the right side (or arrow) of the enlarged image to proceed to the next image. Click the left side to return to a previous image. To start a slideshow, click “play slideshow” at the end of each description. You can stop the slideshow at any time by clicking “pause slideshow.” To return to the auction page, click the close button at the bottom right of the image box, or somewhere outside the image.
To download a PDF of our PulpFest 2024 Auction Catalog — including the Danowski Estate and member submissions — click HERE.
The Fine Print
The items in each lot have been graded by eyeball only. We have attempted to note both exceptional pieces and substantial defects, but are not responsible for anything that may have been missed. If you will be attending PulpFest, you are responsible for looking at the lots on which you plan to bid. It is up to the bidder to decide on each item’s condition.
PulpFest reserves the right to withdraw any auction lot at any time prior to its being sold at auction. All bidders are encouraged to review the lots before placing bids. ALL SALES ARE FINAL.
If you have any questions or concerns about participating in the auction, please contact PulpFest auction coordinator Mike Chomko at mike@pulpfest.com or 2217 W. Fairview Street, Allentown, PA 18104-6542. Please enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope for his response.
The featured image for our Auction Page has been excerpted from John Philip Falter’s cover art for The Saturday Evening Post, dated August 5, 1944. Born in 1910, Falter painted 129 covers for the popular magazine, as well as book illustrations, magazine ads, and a great deal more.
The Spring 1976 issue of Odyssey, featuring cover art by Frank Kelly Freas, is just one of the many fine books and magazines to be found in the collection of the late Charles Danowski. We’ll be selling many vintage science fiction hardcovers, softcovers, and periodicals from the Danowski collection in our 2024 estate auction.
The first issue of Street & Smith’s hero pulp, The Skipper, dated December 1936 and featuring front cover art by Lawrence Donner Toney is one of the excellent member submissions to our 2024 auction.
Our two auctioneer images are John Falter’s cover for the August 5, 1944 issue of The Saturday Evening Post and Norman Rockwell’s cover image painted for the April 29, 1922 issue of The Country Gentleman.
The images used to illustrate this page are representative of items included in our auction. They are not photographs of the actual items in the auction. You’ll find those in our auction photo catalog below.
PulpFest 2024 Auction Photo Catalog
Click the button below to place an online bid by 9:59 am Eastern on Sunday, July 28.
(Bid form opens in a new tab)
The following abbreviations have been used in the captions:
DJ = dust jacket / ed = edition / pr = printing / BC = Book Club / XL = ex-library
SC = softcover / PB = paperback / HC = hardcover
F = fine / NF = near-fine / VG = very good / G = good
Due to time constraints and the quantity of material, all grades are based on an eyeball examination and little more.
Descriptions of the auction lots can also be found in our PDF catalog.
