[LA Bantams] were distributed mainly on the West Coast and sold through
vending machines in the late 1930s.
Thomas L. Bonn, Undercover: An Illustrated History of Mass Market Paperbacks, p. 123.
Bantam Books of Los Angeles was a perback [sic] series sold only [emphasis in original] from [vending] machines.
Piet Schreuders, Paperback U.S.A.: A Graphic History, 1939 – 1959, p. 103.
When I began researching my article (see Paperback Parade 76) on book venders (industry term for vending machines) I expected that the Bantam Publications of Los Angeles vender would be an important part of the article. Here I’ll explain why a LA Bantam vender was not in the article.
Five of the six American machines discussed in the book vender article were noted in Billboard magazine so this was an obvious place to start researching the LA Bantam vender. I looked through the December 1939 to July 1941 issues but found nothing on the machine. Next I tried Publisher’s Weekly which had articles from time to time about book venders but nothing again. I asked some long time LA Bantam collectors if they had ever seen a vender or heard of anyone having one. Neither of them had.
The first mention of LA Bantam vending that I found is an article by Paul Payne in Collecting Paperbacks? volume one, number three. He acknowledges the help of Bill Lyles for the information in the article. This is William H. Lyles whose book Putting Dell on the Map: A History of Dell Paperbacks was published in 1983. In a paragraph on page six about LA Bantam we learn that “the books were designed for sale in vending machines.” His source for this and other information about LA Bantam is a letter dated June 1978 from Lou Nielsen who is described as working on Dell Books from 1944 to 1951, editing humour books and assisting Lloyd E. Smith, the editor at Dell. Smith had also been the editor at LA Bantam. The only source that Bonn and Schreuders give for their information about LA Bantam is Shreuders mentioning Paul Payne. The article on LA Bantam in Allen Billy Crider’s Mass Market Publishing in America says “LA Bantams apparently were intended for distribution through the unusual medium of vending machines.” The article provides no sources. All the books mentioned here were published from 1981 to 1983, after the Payne article was published. The only clear source for the information about LA Bantam in the article and books is the letter from the now deceased (1979) Lou Nielsen.
LA Bantam 14
LA Bantam 15
LA Bantam 20
LA Bantam 21
LA Bantam 22
No comments:
Post a Comment