Promoting Skyfall

My wife and I were invited to a free screening of "The Bourne Legacy" the other night through her work.  Here's some photos I took while we were waiting to go into the cinema

New Page Started On Piz Gloria

I started a new page on the website tonight.  It's titled Prototype Covers.  I've been wanting to add this page since I started the site, but somehow other covers have distracted me.  It's not finished yet, and I've got text to add, but there are 10 prototype covers to show and hopefully someone will get back to me after seeing it and say "That's not a prototype cover.  I've got an actual book with that cover on my shelf at home" (fingers crossed!)

Omega Watch Display

Last  night in the City my wife and I attended a Q&A with Sir David Attenborough titled "A Life On Earth".  It was very interesting and highly enjoyable.  On the way back to the car we walked past an Omega watch store and saw this display.  It's not often we have shop fronts here advertising Bond.

Piz Gloria Reaches 500 Milestone

Today I received more books in the post.  This is the third time in six days (including last Friday's entry) and totals 13 books.  My wife often comments "Every day is Christmas for you isn't it ?!" when books arrive.  She's probably right. These new arrivals bring the current tally of books on the website to 501.  The Signet "From Russia With Love" was the 500th scanned.  This completes the James Bond Thriller series, half of the There Is Only One Bond series and brings the total number of the Orion Dan Mogford UK 30th Anniversary series to 12 (of 16).  Here's some photos of some of the latest arrivals

New Books Arrive

I received 6 new Bond books today in the mail.  Hopefully I'll get a chance to scan them and add them to the website over the weekend.  Two are Fleming - There Is Only One Bond series and four are Gardner - Dan Mogford Anniversary series.

More Book Hunting

I visited two second-hand book stores today during lunch.  It was a race especially as I only get 30 minutes for lunch (I was late back to work!).  The shops are both in Caulfield South on Glen Huntly Road and are less than 30 metres from each other.  The first was Out Of Print Books and the second was one of the Syber's Books stores.  I don't think I've visited either of these stores for over a year.  No luck though.  One store had 3 Flemings and a Faulks, the other none.

Also... I forgot to mention a couple more book stores I visited on the weekend.  On Saturday I also visited Carlton Secondhand Books.  They had one Gardner Bond but no luck.

And on Sunday my wife and I went to the South Melbourne Market where The Merchant Of Fairness has one of their stores.  They had a couple of Fleming and a Faulks.  Again no luck.

Promoting Piz Gloria

Ok, so it's a bit wanky but I saw an ad a few weeks ago for some cheap business cards and thought I'd get some printed to promote the website.  I tell people about my website all the time and thought instead of  having to keep spelling out the name (not everyone is familiar with OHMSS) I'd just give them the card displaying the web URL.  So they arrived yesterday, a lifetimes supply of 500 for just $9.30 including postage.  They're not high quality, but they look Ok and the back of them is blank except for the web URL again.

Optimism Pays Off

For a while I've been considering writing a blog to accompany my website.  I'm not sure how often I'll update this blog, but since collecting, and especially collecting James Bond, is such a big part of my life I thought I'd give it a go and let others know what's going on in my world.

I'm going to start with the events of the past two days.

Last night my wife and I went to the shops.  While there I said "I'd like to drop in at Dymocks".  She replied "Why?  They never have any James Bond books you want".  So I said "Optimism... I always have to hope".  We walked in and both of us went straight to the Crime/Thriller section.  To my surprise there on the shelf were the first seven "There Is Only One Bond" books from Vintage. As an avid The Book Bond reader I knew that the first seven in the series had been published, but I didn't expect them in Australia so soon (more on this in a later blog).  I had to take a photo...

Ignore the Vince Flynn novel though, that's not part of the series!  Although I already have these books on order elsewhere I didn't expect to see them here in Oz so soon.  Amazing, and they look great.

Today was a book hunting day.  I know it's unlikely I'll find any books I don't already have, but I still have to check just in case.  I dropped my wife in the City (Melbourne) at 10am where she was meeting some friends to go shopping, and then went my merry way visiting three second-hand book stores in the City.  Unfortunately I discovered that one second-hand store, Flinders Books on Flinders Street, is closing.

Over the time I've purchased several Bond paperbacks from this store, so it was disappointing to see the signs up on the window.  At least their second store on Swanston Street will remain open.

No luck at Basement Books or the second Flinders Books/Kill City either, so I quickly had a look in Minatour (a very long-time haunt of mine) before driving to Northcote and Thornbury.  I'd last visited these suburbs about three months ago so I hoped they'd received some new stock since then.  No luck at Brown & Bunting or Fully Booked, but at Allsorts Books I noticed a copy of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" by Pan that had a misprinted cover (see link).  I haven't seen too many misprints like this so it was a very good find and I thought that would be the end of my luck for today.

 

I then visited Howard Bolton Bookseller.

Almost as soon as I walked in Howard recognised me, went out the back and returned carrying a full set of the Richie Fahey US Retro series.  At first I was thinking "got them" but then I noticed the Ian Fleming Centenary circle on the covers.  I always thought this was a sticker, but no it's imprinted on the cover.  Suddenly I knew I'd found more books for my website (see link). 

So my lesson for the past two days is as a collector you've always got to remain optimistic because sometimes it pays off.