007 book auction: cashing in collections can be tricky

First edition copy of 1953’s Casino Royale sold at auction

The first rule of collecting is a collectible is worth exactly what someone is willing to pay for it.

This week, 007 collector Gary J. Firuta’s collection of first-edition James Bond novels, page proofs and other items was sold by Heritage Auctions. The auction showed how prices for collectibles can vary widely.

For example, A U.K. first edition of Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale novel sold for $21,250. (The auction company takes a cut so the seller doesn’t receive the full price.) Heritage has auctioned a number of other first-edition copies of Ian Fleming’s first 007 novel and the Firuta sale is in the middle of a wide range.

In 2010, a first edition copy of Casino Royale was sold by Heritage for $11,950. In 2014, another copy was sold for $32,500. Then, there was a special case. In 2009, a first edition copy of the book, which included a Fleming inscription (“to M”) sold for $50,787.50.

The condition of the book can be a factor. The book sold in 2009 was described by Heritage as a “stunning example of the first Bond novel in fine condition.” The book sold in 2010 was described as a “very good copy of the first Bond novel.” And the copy sold in 2014 was described as “a fine copy of a very rare title in dust jacket and much better than usually seen.”

Meanwhile, with the Firuta sale, the first edition Casino Royale did not generate the highest price. Instead, an uncorrected proof of From Russia With Love sold for $40,000.

Here’s part of the description from Heritage:

London: Jonathan Cape, [1957]. Uncorrected Proof. One of 75 copies printed, though few have survived. Octavo. 249, [7, blank] pages. Publisher’s printed wrappers (with “Uncorrected Proof” at the bottom of the front wrapper.) Some toning and wear to edges of wrappers, front wrapper with crease at lower corner and faint ink notes with erasure marks, spine slightly sunned, some rubbing to spine, hinges starting, title-page a bit loose, page 249 with small hole (very little loss to text). With a Jonathan Cape advertisement for From Russia With Love (“Spring List 1957”) affixed to the inner front wrapper. A very good copy of an extremely rare item.

With a textual change to page 94, in the final paragraph, changing from “In all respects. She is very beautiful. Naïve but obedient.” to “The woman said grudgingly ‘She is very beautiful. She will serve our purpose.'” This was done by Fleming to tone down the lesbian overtones of the passage. Moreover, the published novel features a significant expansion to the novel’s closing paragraphs. (emphasis in original)

What follows are some other highlights of the sale.

–A Moonraker first edition that included a letter by Fleming to G. Wren Howard, a co-founder of publisher Jonathan Cape. The letter concerned a would-be title for the novel, The Infernal Machine. Price: $15,000.

–A first edition of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service that was No. 205 of a set of 250 signed by Fleming. Price: $10,312.50. However, another regular first edition of the novel went unsold.

–A first edition of Live And Let Die, price: $10,000.

–Three first edition copies of Fleming’s final Bond novel, The Man With the Golden Gun. Price: $8,750. Here’s a description:

One copy is the rare first edition, first issue, first state (trial binding) with the gilt-stamped gun on the front board; the other two copies are first editions, second state bindings, one with the first issue green endpapers, the other with the second issue plain white endpapers. Spines lettered in gilt, dust jackets.

Firuta’s collection of posters and related items will be auctioned later this month by Heritage.

007 collection, including first edition novels, up for auction

First edition copy of 1953’s Casino Royale that’s up for auction

A large James Bond collection, including first-edition copies of Ian Fleming’s novels and short stories, is now up for auction at Heritage Auctions.

Collector Gary J. Firuta is selling off his 007 properties, which also include vintage movie posters.

Firuta’s collection includes both U.K. and U.S. first editions of Fleming’s originals, including a U.K. first-edition copy of the author’s first novel, Casino Royale.

As of Thursday evening, that copy of the novel had an opening bid of $12,500. Heritage describes it as “a near fine copy that shows well.”

The major auction for the books is underway and is scheduled to conclude Nov. 5. The auction for posters (and other items) will begin around the end of the month and conclude Nov. 22.

Among the posters being auctioned are a 1965 U.K. Thunderball quad poster.

To track down the items being auctioned, you may want to go to Heritage’s website and search for both “Ian Fleming” and “James Bond” because Heritage apparently doesn’t cross promote merchandise.

If you CLICK HERE, you’ll get the results of a search of “Gary Firuta” on the Heritage website. There are four pages of results.

Full disclosure: Firuta is a friend of the blog and has supplied copies of his 007 film scripts, which we’ve used for a series of posts.

UPDATE (Oct. 16) If CLICK HERE, you’ll see 83 books and related items (it’s from using “Ian Fleming” for the search). If you CLICK HERE, you’ll see 214 posters, lobby cards and related items (using “James Bond” for the search).  Most of the Firuta collection material can be found somewhere in these searches.

Writer Lorenzo Semple Jr. dies

Lorenzo Semple Jr. scripted the Batman pilot and 1966 feature movie

Lorenzo Semple Jr., a writer best known for the 1960s Batman television show but who also did spy-related scripts including Never Say Never Again, has died at 91, according to an obituary in THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER.

Semple wrote the pilot for the 1966-68 Batman series as well as the quickly made 1966 feature film starring Adam West and Burt Ward. When executive producer William Dozier decided on a less-than-serious take, Semple devised a simple format for other writers to follow.

The opening of Part I would establish a menace. Batman and Robin would be summoned by Police Commissioner Gordon. The dynamic duo proceeded on the case, ending with a cliffhanger ending. Part II opened with a recap, the heroes escaped and eventually brought the villains to justice.

Among Semple’s memorable lines of dialogue: “What a terrible way to go-go,” and “Some days, you just can’t get rid of a bomb!”

Never Say Never Again’s poster

Semple always was drawn more than once to the spy genre. In the 1950s, he worked on drafts of a script based on Casino Royale, the first 007 novel, but nothing went before the cameras. Decades later, he was the sole credited writer on Never Say Never Again, a Thunderball remake not produced by Eon Productions but starring Sean Connery. Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, writers brought in by de facto producer Connery, did uncredited rewrites.

Between Semple’s Bond work, he scripted films such as 1967’s Fathom with Raquel Welch (featuring a Maurice Binder-designed title sequence), 1974’s The Parallax View with Warren Beatty (a movie about a conspiracy to assassinate political candidates) and 1975’s Three Days of The Condor, a serious spy film with Robert Redford.

In The Hollywood Reporter’s obituary, Semple is quoted about the ups and downs of film production. Here’s a passage involving Never Say Never Again:

Semple met with Sean Connery in Marbella, Spain and sold him on his 70-page treatment for Never Say Never Again, which saw the aging actor return as 007 in the much-litigated Warner Bros. film based on Thunderball. But when some action scenes were cut as a cost-saving measure, the producers pacified an angry Connery by blaming — and then booting — Semple.

“I was quite relieved; I really didn’t want to go on with it,” he said. “I also agree a human sacrifice is required when a project goes wrong; it makes all the survivors feel very good.”

To read the entire obituary, CLICK HERE. There’s one mistake. It says Semple only wrote the first four episodes of Batman. He wrote or co-wrote 10 episodes during the first season, though he penned fewer in the final two seasons.

RE-POST: Happy 60th anniversary, Mr. Bond

Casino Royale’s original cover

Originally posted April 1. Reposted for the actual anniversary.

Sixty years ago, readers sampled the start of a novel by a new author. “The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning,” it began. The world hasn’t been quite the same since.

The novel, of course, was Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, published April 13, 1953. About 5,000 copies of its first edition were printed and it sold out quickly. Fleming combined the skills and experiences of two lives: his work as an intelligence officer during World War II and his experience as a journalist in spotting the right, and telling detail.

Casino Royale was a short novel. But it had an impact on readers. The story’s hero, British secret agent James Bond, first loses and then wins a high-stake game of cards with Le Chiffre, the story’s villain. Later, Bond is helpless, the victim of torture by Le Chiffre. But before Le Chiffre can finish the torture, he is dispatched by an operative of Smersh for being “a fool and a thief a traitor.” The Smersh operative has no orders to kill Bond, so he doesn’t. But he carves up the back of Bond’s right hand. “It would be well that should be known as a spy,” the killer says.

What seems to be novel’s climax happens less than three-quarters of the way through the story. But the new author had some other ideas to keep readers turning the pages until the real resolution. Bond is betrayed Vesper, a woman he had fallen deeply in love with. She commits suicide by taking a bottle of sleeping pills.

Bond, after all this, doesn’t collapse. He emerges more resolute, determined to “attack the arm that held the whip and the gun…He would go after the threat behind the spies, the threat that made them spy.”

Writer Jeremy Duns in an essay PUBLISHED IN 2005 argued “there’s a strong case to be made for it being the first great spy thriller of the Cold War.” Toward the end of his article, Duns writes, “Before Casino Royale, the hero always saved the damsel in distress moments before she was brutally ravaged and tortured by the villain; Fleming gave us a story in which nobody is saved, and it is the hero who is abused, drawn there by the damsel.”

For Fleming, Casino Royle was just the start. More novels and short stories followed. He lived to see two of his novels, Dr. No and From Russia With Love, turned into movies in 1962 and 1963 (following a CBS adaptation of Casino Royale in 1954). The author visited the set of the third film, Goldfinger, but died in August 1964, just before 007 became a phenomenon, spurring a spy craze.

Six decades later, the 23 movies of the Eon Production series (plus a couple of non-Eon films) are what most people think of when the name James Bond is mentioned. 2012’s Skyfall had worldwide ticket sales of $1.1 billion.

Oh, the Fleming books remain in print. Ian Fleming Publication hires a continuation novel author now and then (William Boyd, the latest continuation author, is scheduled to disclose his novel’s title on April 15). Periodically, there’s a new book about some aspect about the film series.

Fans can fuss and debate about Bond (and do all the time). But there is one certainty: without Casino Royale’s publication six decades ago, none of that would be possible.

UPDATE: Other 007 blogs and bloggers are noting the anniversary today, including THE JAMES BOND DOSSIER, BOND BLOG, MARK O’CONNELL, JAMES BOND BRASIL, FROM SWEDEN WITH LOVE and THE BOOK BOND You can also read an article in the Express newspaper by CLICKING HERE.

Finally, Spy Vibe, part of the COBRAS group of blogs, has a post including a graphic of various Casino Royale covers. You can check it out by CLICKING HERE.

Happy 60th anniversary, Mr. Bond

Casino Royale’s original cover

Sixty years ago, readers sampled the start of a novel by a new author. “The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning,” it began. The world hasn’t been quite the same since.

The novel, of course, was Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, published April 13, 1953. About 5,000 copies of its first edition were printed and it sold out quickly. Fleming combined the skills and experiences of two lives: his work as an intelligence officer during World War II and his experience as a journalist in spotting the right, and telling detail.

Casino Royale was a short novel. But it had an impact on readers. The story’s hero, British secret agent James Bond, first loses and then wins a high-stake game of cards with Le Chiffre, the story’s villain. Later, Bond is helpless, the victim of torture by Le Chiffre. But before Le Chiffre can finish the torture, he is dispatched by an operative of Smersh for being “a fool and a thief a traitor.” The Smersh operative has no orders to kill Bond, so he doesn’t. But he carves up the back of Bond’s right hand. “It would be well that should be known as a spy,” the killer says.

What seems to be novel’s climax happens less than three-quarters of the way through the story. But the new author had some other ideas to keep readers turning the pages until the real resolution. Bond is betrayed Vesper, a woman he had fallen deeply in love with. She commits suicide by taking a bottle of sleeping pills.

Bond, after all this, doesn’t collapse. He emerges more resolute, determined to “attack the arm that held the whip and the gun…He would go after the threat behind the spies, the threat that made them spy.”

Writer Jeremy Duns in an essay PUBLISHED IN 2005 argued “there’s a strong case to be made for it being the first great spy thriller of the Cold War.” Toward the end of his article, Duns writes, “Before Casino Royale, the hero always saved the damsel in distress moments before she was brutally ravaged and tortured by the villain; Fleming gave us a story in which nobody is saved, and it is the hero who is abused, drawn there by the damsel.”

For Fleming, Casino Royle was just the start. More novels and short stories followed. He lived to see two of his novels, Dr. No and From Russia With Love, turned into movies in 1962 and 1963 (following a CBS adaptation of Casino Royale in 1954). The author visited the set of the third film, Goldfinger, but died in August 1964, just before 007 became a phenomenon, spurring a spy craze.

Six decades later, the 23 movies of the Eon Production series (plus a couple of non-Eon films) are what most people think of when the name James Bond is mentioned. 2012’s Skyfall had worldwide ticket sales of $1.1 billion.

Oh, the Fleming books remain in print. Ian Fleming Publication hires a continuation novel author now and then. Periodically, there’s a new book about some aspect about the film series.

Fans can fuss and debate about Bond (and do all the time). But there is one certainty: without Casino Royale’s publication six decades ago, none of that would be possible.

EARLIER POST: CLICK HERE to read a March 17 post about events at the University of Illinois to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the publication of Casino Royale.