The noted book and pulp collector Kevin Cook just mentioned that the issue of Detective Fiction Weekly featuring the story “The Diamond Wager” by a “Samuel Dashiell” is offered in an e-catalog this week from a well-known pulp dealer for $700 — because it features a Hammett story.
I guess the word hasn’t reached the dealer as yet that Hammett didn’t write that story. Will Murray, an expert among pulp experts, revealed the truth in a June 30th article. I agree with Will’s deductions completely. Read his article, and pass the news around to the still uninformed.
Yes, a couple of the early, creaky Hammett bibliographies list it as a Hammett yarn. And unfortunately it got picked up in the 2013 collection The Hunter and Other Stories (no previous collection snapped it up — Frederic Dannay had at least 8 or 9 chances to paperback it, but you know, I’ll bet he knew that Samuel Dashiell was another writer altogether, which pretty much is the summation of Will’s thesis).
Kevin Cook states, “Believing in capitalism and all that jazz, I still would not sell — and rip someone off — my copy of the Detective Fiction Weekly issue with ‘The Diamond Wager’ — for $700, or even far less.
“What is the pulp worth now? $25 perhaps? I plan to just keep it in the collection as a curiosity rather than disposing of it.”
So, read Will’s article and spread the word, while keeping the time-honored dictum always in mind:
Caveat emptor, suckers.
