Caulfield Racecourse Vintage & Modern Toy Fair

This morning I visited the Caulfield Racecourse where a Vintage and Modern Toy Fair was held.  I'm a regular attendee of these collector fairs as I'm always interested in what James Bond items might be out there.  In the past I've purchased a couple of scale model vehicles from The James Bond Car Collection.

As usual the event was extremely busy.  There was a vast array of vintage and modern collectables displayed for sale on each vendor's trestle table, although I didn't notice too many from the world of Bond.

Of the few I noticed there were several vehicles from the Bond Car Collection but I didn't take any photos.  Also these three carded Corgi Junior vehicles, shown below, which were released around 1977 and 1979 for "The Spy Who Loved Me" (Lotus Esprit and helicopter) and "Moonraker" (space shuttle) respectively.  I rarely see these nowadays still on their cards so they definitely caught my interest, even if I didn't purchase them.

There was also this "Thunderball" board game which I suspect was released around the year of the fim's release in 1965.  The box looked in great condition too for its age.

No purchases from me today, but it's good to see some rarer Bond collectables still out there.

New 'Australian Editions' Page

A fellow James Bond book collector, Jochem G., contacted me late last year to propose adding a new page to PizGloria.com featuring Australian editions of Bond publications.  Personally I'd never thought of doing this as I believed there were only a couple of Pan Books "Special Australian Editions" released back in the 1960's, plus the Penguin "Casino Royale" movie tie-in from 2006 featuring a full head silhouette of the woman on the cover which is only partly shown on the UK edition.

So he sent me an email with a spreadsheet and images attached, and it was then I realised how many other Aussie publications actually existed.

So here's a link to the new Australian Editions page with all images provided by Jochem from his own extensive James Bond collection.

Just a note too, if you complete reading this page and want to visit more of the website, click [Previous] instead of [Next] as next will just take you to the home page.

Happy 12th Birthday Piz Gloria Website

Today is the 12th anniversary of the launch of PizGloria.com, the website dedicated to collecting James Bond paperbacks.  Normally I'd add some statistics from Google Analytics here however I'm currently unable to access my history so I'll have to skip these details this year.

I'm still regularly updating the website.  Recently I started working on a new page for what I've termed Australian Editions with all the details and images contributed by fellow Bond book collector, Jochem G..  I'll promote this new page soon on this blog once the page is complete.  

There are also some book covers awaiting scanning which will be added to the site in the near future, so the current number of 674 covers displayed will be out of date.

As always I'd like to thank everyone who has supported my website, visited it or just contacted me over the last 12 years,  

Cheers Baz

One Bond Hunt Ends

I've been searching for the edition of Kim Sherwood's "Double Or Nothing" (shown below) for several months now.  I knew it was available in Australia but strangely there were few copies in book stores around Melbourne.

I first encountered a physical copy at Dymocks in the City, however only one copy existed on the shelves and it was damaged in the top left corner of the front cover.  So I visited many, many more book stores on the hunt for another elusive copy.  When I finally found one at Robinson's Bookshop in Frankston I was disappointed to discover it too was damaged in the top left corner of the cover.  I suspect the books were damaged in transit from the UK.

Tired of travelling book store to book store without success I decided it was time to take an alternate course.  Now I'm well aware I could order this book cheaper online but I'd rather go through the traditional methods when possible.  So I asked Robinson's to order another copy... and it arrived yesterday with a perfect cover.

Here's the existing copy on their shelves.  The cover damage (top left) really is very minor but as I've no plans to read this edition I'd prefer my copy to be in as perfect condition as possible.

Inside Robinson's Bookstore...

And a Bond related title in the sport's section...

I was pleased to finally knock this book off my wants list.  Another Bond hunt ends.

The Last Parcel

Today is a sad day after the news late last night of the passing of a fellow James Bond book and memorabilia collector.

Back in 2012, the same year I launched PizGloria.com, I received an email from a fellow book collector, John F., who lived in New Zealand.  He sent an image of an edition of Ian Fleming's "From Russia With Love" that he owned as part of his extensive James Bond collection that was missing from my site.  From that point on the two of us frequently kept in contact, and traded / purchased books from each other.  And when I finally managed to acquire that missing edition I was quick to remind him of his first email to me.

A few months ago I received a parcel from John containing some items I'd purchased from him.  I delayed opening this parcel simply because I wanted to include photos of it's contents on this blog and I'd gotten a little behind in my posts.  Last night I learnt that John had passed away on New Years Eve, just 6 days ago.  This morning I opened the parcel knowing it would be the last contact I would ever have with him.

The items I purchased from John included 7 collectors cards released to accompany the Charlie Higson - Young Bond novel "Blood Fever" in 2006.  Also a small "bookmark" released as part of the "Choose a Title" promotion for the 2007 Young Bond novel which ultimately became Charlie Higson's "Double Or Die".

Finally, I received a copy of John Gardner's movie tie-in "Goldeneye" published in 1995 by Coronet.  This is the rarer paperback cover that features three script writers on the front cover instead of two.  I already had this edition but it was a lovely copy and very scarce.

These items may now reside in my collection, but they will forever be John's.   I shall miss our message chats and collection updates, as well as his interesting and informative contributions to the book collectors world in general.

Vale John.

Latest IFP Editions Arrive

James Bond is alive and well at Ian Fleming Publications (IFP).   On October 5, 2023 IFP published and re-released three Bond novels.  They were Raymond Benson's "Zero Minus Ten" first published in 1977, Kingsley Amis' "Colonel Sun" first published in 1968, and John Pearson's "James Bond: The Authorized Biography Of 007" first published in 1973.  

I think all the books look great.  They have uniform cover designs, the quality of the books is first class and most importantly it's great to have these three titles in print again.  I'm hopeful IFP will release more titles in the same series.

As an added bonus this copy of "Zero Minus Ten" was signed by the author too with a limit of 250 copies.

On a personal note I have to thank Tim from the great Pan collectors website Tikit.net who sent me these books from the UK.  Thanks mate.  Much appreciated.

"James Bond Is Missing"

"James Bond is missing" it exclaims from the cover of this trade paperback size copy of Kim Sherwood's "Double Or Nothing" published by Harper Collins in the UK.  The reason the novel's title is absent from the cover is due to this being an uncorrected proof released in September 2022.  I was fortunate to purchase this copy over a month ago and it arrived in the mail last week.

The publisher details/copyright page contains the ISBN's for both the future hard back and trade paperback versions.  The final cover for the trade paperback edition looked like this which is certainly similar:

I don't own many uncorrected proofs or advanced reading copies, but here they all are.

Sun Theatre Bondathon Film Festival

Last night I attended the 1983 James Bond film "Never Say Never Again" at the Sun Theatre in Yarraville with another Aussie Bond fan.  The cinema is currently screening all the James Bond films as part of a 'Bondathon' from November 30 to December 3. 

Yesterday afternoon they also screened the Climax TV episode of "Casino Royale" from 1954 starring Barry Nelson and the comedy spoof film of the same name from 1967.  My friend attended these screenings and commented to me they were much better than he remembered.  For me though, I was only interested in "NSNA".  I wanted to see it at a cinema again for the first time in 40 years.

And what did we both think of "NSNA" ?  Obviously some scenes involving computers are a bit dated, and the soundtrack in places isn't great, but overall we felt the film still holds up very well.  And Sean Connery in his last performance as Bond redeems himself from his "Diamond's Are Forever" sleep walk.

If last night was any indication I definitely recommend attending other films in the festival.  Plus there's this great passport the cinema is giving away to people which they'll stamp for each film attended from the Bond programme.

Just one thing though, be sure you know the way back from Yarraville to Melbourne with all the roadworks and detours currently occurring, otherwise you could end up visiting Coode Island on your journey home like I did !

The Hunt For James Bond Continues...

This afternoon my wife and I were in the City to experience the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra perform the soundtrack to "The Empire Strikes Back" while simultaneously screening the film.  It was fantastic !

Afterwards we visited Dymocks on Collins Street where I discovered the new paperback print of Kim Sherwood's "Double Or Nothing".  Unfortunately one cover corner of the book was slightly scuffed, and they only had one copy in store, but at least I know this printing is now available on Australian book shelves.  The hunt continues...

Here's some photos from my visit, including the new Ian Fleming biography by Nicholas Shakespeare, and some other James Bond related titles:

A Tale Of Two Cities - Sydney

Part 1) Sydney

My wife and I have just returned from Sydney after participating in the Sydney Marathon.  The weather was very warm and the City looked great as usual.

During our trips interstate/overseas we always set aside time to visit a few book stores.  My wife actually does all the hard work, she creates the list of stores to visit.  And when we finally had a spare morning to investigate the addresses on the list we realised the closest secondhand book store from our hotel in Circular Quay was at least 20 minutes away by public transport.  We couldn't find a single secondhand book store in the Sydney CBD.

With limited time we decided to only visit two book stores, both of which sell new books.  

The first was Kinokuniya Sydney.  The last time we visited one of these chain of stores was in Singapore a few years ago.  This store in Sydney was just as large, and it was great to find copies of the 70 Years Of 007 series on the shelves published earlier this year by Ian Fleming Publications.

The second store we visited was Dymocks.  The chain of Dymocks bookstores is probably the largest bricks and mortar seller of new books in Australia.  My wife and I spent almost an hour in this fine store.  The only Bond novel I could find was Anthony Horowitz's "With A Mind To Kill" which was released in a new paperback size a couple of months ago.

And finally, here's some more random photos from out trip: