PAN Fans Club

Let's talk about PAN paperbacks, the blog for those that do judge a book by its cover. Main site is at www.tikit.net or www.panfans.club

PAN Fans Club - Let's talk about PAN paperbacks, the blog for those that do judge a book by its cover. Main site is at  www.tikit.net or www.panfans.club

Model Railways and John Le Carre

Still rescanning in covers and sorting the piles that got moved into the library while waiting for the drawers which are now all in place. I’ve put in a order for some track for the railway which will now go all around the top of the shelves because my wife said she thought that was what it was going to do as seen in some well known bookshops. Unfortunately most of it was out of stock but promised for next week when I will include more pictures.

I’m trying to remember bookshops that we’ve visited with model railways which have included ‘Barter Books’ in Northumberland, I seem to remember one in ‘The Book Shop’ in Wigtown but could be false memory and one in a redundant station in Norfolk, anyone got a name?

I rediscovered my limited edition copy of ‘The Little Drummer Girl’ by John Le Carre put on one side as it was supposed to be signed by him but appeared not to be. Now on having a better look I can see a very faded red scrawl on the front cover which does indeed say John Le Carre. It was limited to 739 copies (mine is 000421) and when I asked a Facebook group if anyone had any idea why Jules Burt suggested that was the number of booksellers but since then I’ve found a copy someone was trying to sell on eBay for £400 but didn’t. The interesting part was it also had a photo of a sales order saying there was no charge and it was for the “Home Buyer (Samples)” Click HERE to see the page.….. and finally another version of the cover by Terry Oakes, the hardback edition of ‘Arbitrage Martien’ although he is not credited this time.

Gino D’Achille and Recycled Artwork

As promised last week I’ve scanned in my artwork by Gino D’Achille and although not PAN, Panther is close! Click HERE to see it.

I also bought a copy of ‘Anticipation’ about the French mainly sci-fi series of books published by Fleuve Noir. Some sellers are asking over £50 for a copy so when I saw it at 12 euros on Amazon I ordered a copy. I then got a message from the seller asking where the price came from as it should be 25 euros? I said that was the price shown and then expected the order to be cancelled but it wasn’t and honoured at the price quoted. The postage was also 12 euros but turns out it was sent from a publishers here in the UK so maybe a bit step. Could be the postage and book price got mixed up but I’m happy.

Many of the covers were recycled from the ‘Young Artists’ group in the UK some starting out as PAN covers.. When I mentioned this on Facebook Jean-Daniel Brèque commented  “ALL of them were recycled. I know at least two writers who worked for Fleuve Noir at the time and who regularly went to the office of the publisher to pick their covers in advance. My friend Michel Pagel, who was working on a tetralogy, specifically picked up four Les Edwards covers featuring a skull in order to make his books stand out”

To see a couple of Terry Oakes covers click HERE. Jean-Daniel also mentioned a website which shows many examples, click HERE to go to the page for Terry Oakes then maybe use the search and go to the Les Edwards page.

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step”

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step” was supposedly said by Lao Tzu and I feel a bit like that with “The scanning of a thousand plus books starts with number one” I’m embarking on the task of rescanning all my numbered titles which would be 2,391 if they only had one edition but some have several different covers such as “Lost Horizon”. I’m also using it as a chance to rebuild my spreadsheet. So far I’ve done all of numbers 1 and 2!This is the spreadsheet so far, still deciding if this is all the columns I’ll need? I’ve got thumbnails images as comments so they appear when I hover over plus hyperlinked to the image so I can edit them easily if need be.

I came across this newspaper article which seemed to be particularly pertinent after talking about the above.

I had to get a copy of Justin Marriott’s new publication “Hot Lead” (available from Amazon) as the cover features ‘Hart’ draw by Gino d’Achille although he now appears to be left handed. I’ve show all the ‘Hart covers’ before but HERE is the link again.I have looked for some affordable original Gino artwork for a while and only this week realised I’ve had one for years. While sorting non PAN books I looked on the back of a Panther title of which I have the artwork and it is credited to Gino, something I’ve missed before. When I locate the artwork I’ll put it on a blog.

More Exhibitors Campaign books, a couple of photos and the library

I’ve added four more scans of Exhibitors Campaign books that also show PAN titles issued to go with the film releases. They can be seen with the previous two HERE

On Facebook recently there have been a couple of photos from Australian trade journals featuring PAN. I just love the book stand and I am tempted to go through all the titles and put ‘hotspots’ to my webpages for them all but then again maybe not.


… and as promised last week some pictures of my ‘Library’ but unfortunately my camera, which has stood me in good stead for many years, decided to play up. Click HERE to see some slightly out of focus shots of work still in progress hence some untidy bits!