The last few days have been devoted to the glory and the grandeur — and the morass — of that old hobby, collecting Arkham House ephemera items.
Paul Dobish, the book dealer who helped with some dope for my article on the subject in Firsts magazine back in 2002, popped up, checking to see if I had any dupes to put against his Want List.
So, I dove in. You have to go through, step by step, item by item. Brutal.
But I discovered that I had in hand an item that wasn’t even on the list in Firsts, and I had not even noticed. I was thinking it was Item 92, because the title was the same, the first line was identical — but no.
Best I can figure at this moment, it comes after Item 93 — a.k.a. the Wandrei catalog — and before Item 96. Where exactly, that may never be determined.
Such is the life of an ephemera collector.
To get an insight into the hobby, see if the link below works for you — but if it does, be warned: you too might be drawn irrevocably into this collecting game:
