About Cold Tonnage Books

Angela and I attended the 1989 World Science Fiction Convention in Boston, where I had tables in the Dealer’s Room. I was still working as a postman at the time, and had saved all my leave that year to have a three week holiday in the USA.

I had already been buying and selling books as a hobby for a few years and regularly attended and had tables selling books at our annual UK Science Fiction Conventions, Fantasy Conventions and Novacon. I had also been importing new books from the US for a few years, primarily from Underwood-Miller, Weirdbook Press, Zeising Books, Whispers Press, and later Dark Harvest and Scream Press. All this primarily to fund my own collection (I had discovered the magic number of three – order just three books from a publisher, and you could get 30% or more discount, sell two and the third you keep for free). Malcolm Edwards (editor at Victor Gollancz at the time) had put me in touch with Ralph Spurrier of POSTMORTEM BOOKS in the early 1980s (when he wanted us to export Gollancz books to the US market, which we did successfully for many years – I sold 400 copies of THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE when it came out) and Ralph became my closest colleague and best friend over here in the UK for 40 years or so, till he passed away three years ago.

Chicago 2019: Steve Jones, Greg Ketter and myselfBefore the Convention Angela and I visited Eric Kramer of FANTASY ARCHIVES in New York, with whom I had corresponded with, and in Boston I met Lloyd Currey and John Knott for the first time (though we had conducted business for a few years previously), the two US booksellers that I would be most closely linked with for the next…well till now, I guess. At the Convention, almost everything sold, I sold fifty signed copies of THE GREAT AND SECRET SHOW (Clive Barker) and fifty copies of THE MUMMY (Anne Rice) and other new titles from UK publishers, plus of course out of print, second-hand material. It seemed I was the first UK bookseller to attend a US World Convention for many years, and boy did it show.

After the show Angela and I flew to San Francisco (where my sister lived) and got married there in City Hall: then drove around California for two weeks, staying with Mark and Cindy Ziesing up in Shingletown, and then down south to LA where I met up with other customers and booksellers, including a visit to DANGEROUS VISIONS bookstore. Harlan Ellison (a customer for a few years, never paid cash but always wanted to trade his remaindered books, which was ok by me) had said to get in touch when we got to LA and the bookstore – and he came by to pick Angela and I up from DANGEROUS VISIONS and took us back to his house for lunch – at one point he opened a door to a room with a circular table with lots of manuscripts on it – “They’re the stories for THE LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS, I’ll be finishing it up soon” he said, or something like that).

Back to the UK and I promptly gave up the day job, quitting as a postman in early November 1989, just in time to attend our Novacon Convention and NOT have to drive back to London (it was – and still is - held in Birmingham) Sunday night to attend work next day. Bliss indeed.

And that set the tone for the next fifteen years or so, twice a year attending the World SF Convention and The World Fantasy Convention in the USA (and occasionally to Canada and Australia when held there), and even a few Boskone/NESFA Conventions in the early 2000s with Peter Weston. For many, many years it worked wonderfully, but gradually as the Internet and Amazon took over (and Americans became more confident about buying from abroad, ie. they didn’t need to wait for me to turn up to buy their books) the sales at these shows dipped a little more each year. It was always a massive undertaking to send 70-100 boxes of books to these shows, and cost thousands of pounds to just get the books (and me) there: by the early 2000s it was just about breaking even. The last show I did (quite fittingly) was Boston in 2005, and even then I didn’t actually attend myself but sent several people to man my tables for me.

Chicago 2019: John Knott, Doug Ellis, myself and Lloyd CurreyIn 1988 Maxim Jakubowsky had opened MURDER ONE in London, a crime bookshop: when he relocated a few years later to larger premises on the Charing Cross Road, he expanded into science fiction (and romance!) and asked me to supply second-hand sf and fantasy. The sf section of the store was in the basement (it always is) and Ralph Spurrier was supplying the second-hand crime/detective stock upstairs. This proved a lucrative business (for both of us) till the shop closed in 2009 – we were both able to “get rid of” (please don’t take it personally if there are any Murder One customers reading this) a lot of cheaper material that was not worth cataloguing and putting up on the internet (and, it must be added, wouldn’t be missed if stolen from the shop - again don’t take it personally, I don’t mean you!). My Cold Tonnage Empire even found a place out in San Francisco, where for a few years I was part of the Book Co-operative store TALL STORIES south of Market Street. And not to forget Fred Rennie up in Glasgow at his sf shop KOLLECTIBLES and THE BOOK PALACE in Crystal Palace, in both of which I had stock for a few years.

But gradually over the years it all shrunk down to just my website, no more Conventions, no more shops: that is until about seven years ago when John Knott and Lloyd Currey told me I should attend Windy City Convention in Chicago, which they said was the nearest thing to the early 1990s World Fantasy Conventions, always my FAVOURITE show by far. So for the last few years I have attended and sold there every April, for the first couple of years in the company of Alistair Durie and Malcolm Edwards. Gone are the days when I shipped over 70-100 boxes of books, for these shows it is just 7-8 boxes of high quality material (I sold $70,000 of WEIRD TALES pulps in the auction there four years ago).

Otherwise it is just me now (and Angela) and the website (just now upgraded in September 2026 and moved to a new Server) down in Devon in the Southwest, having moved nine years ago from Surrey.

And still buying books. A few years ago I bought Erik Arthur’s (co-owner of FANTASY CENTRE in the Holloway Road, London) personal collection (many years after buying most of the stock of FANTASY CENTRE when it closed down in 2009), two years ago I bought Mike Wathen’s book collection (several van loads) and one carload of books and art from Jim Pitts and separately a hardcover collection of 10,000 books, last year I bought Sandy Robertson’s collection (50 boxes) and this year a vanload of books from Marcus Preston.

Which I guess comes to the final observation that I AM still buying books, and if anyone has a collection out there that they want me to look at, appraise or buy, then do let me know.