The Top Ten Collectible SF Magazines

Click the pic to watch the original movie.

Skiffy Tube ups its purity rating this week with a WHOLE DAY! devoted to MOrk & Mindy reruns!

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Housekeeping First. There are now some 220+ authors and well over 500 novels, novellas, novelettes and short stories up in the literature section of the Classic Science Fiction Channel. This section of the site contains both the printed and audio word, and there are some VERY fine authors and stories cataloged there. I’ve taken the liberty of highlighting (actually, a colored asterick) favorite authors and stories of particular note. They may be historically significant (Edison’s Conquest of Mars, for example) or personally significant (such as Ted Sturgeon’s The Girl Had Guts: if you want to see a master craftsman at work, let Ted pull you by the nose through this humorous, snappily concluded story…) As usual, all stories are (so far as is ascertainable) legal.

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The various selections of pulp magazine covers that I’ve published here over the past several months have been amongst my most popular entries. Particularly the ones that mention sex. As if that were any surprise.

I’d really like to witness the reaction of some pubescent who’s snuck onto the internet and is feverishly looking for the modern day equivalent of Dad’s Playboy hidden-under-the-mattress. What happens when they hit the blog entry for The Top Science Fiction Sex Slaves? Are they disappointed or thrilled? Do those covers now inform their fantasies, or do they curse me to this day for having wasted their ‘personal’ time with drawings of women (and men) who are best described as ‘mostly clothed’? Will some poor soul now grow up with a fetish for robots and rayguns? (“Honey, will you for once put the damn Buck Rogers water pistol down and look at ME!”)

One wonders, one does.

This morning I came up with another subject (not nearly as sexy as SF Chicks with Whips), but something that is important to those who do fetishize the pulp magazines – the collectors. I’ve put together a list of the top ten collectible SF pulps – magazines that because of rarity or historical signifigance are the objects of desire for those of us who love the smell of pulp and dust.

If you want to see them though, you’re going to have to click on through to the self-hosted version of the blog. Which brings me to another housekeeping point: will you people PLEASE update your feeds to at least include the new version? I’m still getting twice as many visits on the old blog as on the new. If I’m missing some easy way to get you all to do this, please slap me upside the head with the information.

Thank you.

And now – The Top Ten Collectible Science Fiction Magazines:

Weird Tales – 1923. Because it is arguably the first such magazine, has gained such a following over the years and is nearly impossible to find outside the hands of a collector who wants an enormous amount for it – if they’d even think of letting it go.

Amazing Stories – 1926. Because it is THE first regularly scheduled magazine devoted entirely to scientifiction. This one isn’t all that hard to find, but you’ll pay a decent amount of you want a really good copy.

Amazing Stories Annual – 1927. Because it’s a scarce commodity. Only a single issue was published before it was turned into a quarterly.

Astounding Stories of Super Science – 1930. One of THE most desireable first issues because of what it would go on to become – the home of John W. Campbell and the Golden Age of science fiction.

Scoops – 1934. Because it is arguably the first British Science Fiction magazine and despite the fact that it’s juvenile lit. Despite some British historian’s claims that a an early Christmas Special deserves this title, I disagree – to qualify, the magazine has to be entirely devoted to the subject AND a regular publication.

Miracle Science and Fantasy Stories – 1934. Because it is SOOO rare. Only two issues of this magazine were published, but it had an impact on collectors, most likely due to a small print run. And the cover art.

The Magazine of Fantasy – 1949. Another historically significant title, most because of what that title would change to with the very next (1950’s) title – The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Science Fantasy Series – 1949. Desireable because of scarcity. I only recently managed to track down an image of it, which, despite its plainness, was still very exciting. Only a single issue, featuring a LeGuin story, was ever published.

Brief Fantastic Tales – 1950. Perhaps its brevity is due to its scarcity… I can’t find an image of this one, and no one else seems able to either! BFT reprinted stories from Uncanny Tales, a Canadian pulp. Pulps that originated in Canada (rather than being US or UK reprints) are themselves fairly scarce. If anyone has a source for an image of this one – you know who to get in touch with.

Galaxy – 1950. Because Galaxy is probably THE seminal 1950s SF magazine. Cover art would improve greatly with time, and Galaxy would go on to become one of the premiere titles in the field.

If you’ve got all ten of those up on the wall (in hermetically sealed, acid-free, inertly nitrogenous environments), you’re doing pretty good in the magazine collecting department.

If you’d like to see these and some 260+ other SF pulp magazine titles, feel free to visit my Volume 1, Number 1 SF&F Magazine Checklist page.