Some of Mike's Collection

[bsaenz24]

Those are wicked! Wicked awesome! Totally!

I'm going to have to be content with my Folio Society purchase. Bradbury can get pretty expensive.

This is one of my favorite Bradbury limiteds I have.

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[RonClinton]

Very nice!

[jeffingoff]

Those are wicked! Wicked awesome! Totally!

I'm going to have to be content with my Folio Society purchase. Bradbury can get pretty expensive.

[Ben Staad]

Those are sexy...and this is why my library card was revoked. LOL LOL

[mhatchett]

So how many editions of the same book can you get LOL!! I know some of us had talked about that with the Folio edition of Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked this Way comes being released. Here’s all the hardback copies I have. I’ll post the paperback editions later. I have a great book club edition, from when book club editions were still well done. I have the American first, the British first, The William Morrow, the PS edition and as Ron Mentioned, the fabulous Gaunlet edition signed by Bradbury, Joe Lansdale and Peter Crowther. The one I’ve had the longest and read the most is the book club edition which has sentimental value, but not much value otherwise LOL!!
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[mhatchett]

It's never too late to start or go back. Up until about ten years ago, I used to fight a fair amount of full contact karate. I train much differently today, arthritis, injuries, age, have taken their toll. But I still work out, 4-5 times a week. I'm currently working on an article about martial arts training for practitioners over 60. I don't watch much of either, not to my taste any more lol!!
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[Theli]

I look forward to seeing more! I've actually research a few of the names that showed up in here already. I used to be quite the martial artists fan. Read a lot about it, watched docs and bouts, even practiced a bit when I was younger. Wish I'd stuck with one and kept up with it. Still watch MMA regularly though. Do you watch MMA or boxing at all?

[mhatchett]

I do, I own all the O'Hara publications, Jeet Kune Do and a few others. Bruce Lee is a very polarizing figure in the Martial Arts Community and his legacy has been somewhat diminished by the scramble to assume leadership/ownership of his intellectual property/techniques. It'll interesting to watch that situation resolve itself if it ever does. I tend to focus on other aspects of training, etc, especially as I've gotten older. I buy every Robert W. Smith book I can find, if I don't already own it. A true Martial Artist and Historian. I'll post some more photos later and will try to include some Bruce lee titles.

[Theli]

I came across some interesting paperbacks at the used bookstore a couple of days ago. Two books by Bruce Lee, one I believe was simply titled Jeet Kune Do, while the other was Street Fighting. I would have picked them up but they were a bit pricey for a blind purchase. Damn good condition though. DO you have any of his PB books from the 70's?

[Theli]

I'm loving checking out these rarities and oddities! Allan Smith sounds like he had quite the life. Very cool bio.

[mhatchett]

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A real Treasure, maybe one of a kind, How To Get A Boche, published in 1918 by Captain Allan Corstorphin Smith. Smith also wrote a seven book series called Secrets of Jujitsu in 1920. I’ve attached a brief biography that I found some time ago

”Allan Corstorphin Smith was a pioneer of judo-based combatives instruction in the US Army. He was also the fifth Caucasian, and the first Scot, known to have been graded shodan at the Kodokan. [EN1]
Smith lived in Scotland for the first 17 years of his life. Where, I don’t know, but Corstorphine is a place on the edge of Edinburgh.
Young Smith fancied that he had some ability in boxing, and so, one night in a Glasgow theatre, he decided to accept the offer to meet all comers made by some Japanese jujutsu expert. Smith’s effort to defeat the Japanese was completely unsuccessful. He was impressed with the ability of the small Japanese to deal with much larger opponents, and this gave birth to his interest in jujutsu.
Around 1908, Smith arrived in Japan as an officer of some unnamed, but almost certainly British, company. His office and lodgings were in Yokohama, and finding that it was difficult to travel to Tokyo and the Kodokan as much as he wished, he made his own dojo and invited others, presumably foreigners, to attend. Soon these other members dropped off, and he was left with a Japanese 3-dan friend, Sato, as a training partner. Occasionally, however, other Japanese turned up. One notable visitor was Kyuzo Mifune. Mifune was ranked 5-dan at the time, so this visit would have been before 1912.
In 1915, Smith published a book in Yokohama called Little Lessons in Japanese. I have not seen this book, so cannot say anything about it.
On January 19, 1916 (Taisho 5), Smith received his shodan certificate at the Kodokan. Contemporary illustrations show Smith, in kilt (minus bonnet and plaid) receiving his certificate amidst dozens of onlookers. The occasion was the most important ceremony of the Kodokan year, the New Year’s rice cake cutting ceremony called kagami biraki.
An interview with Smith appears in the March 1916 issue of the Kodokan magazine Judo (volume 2, number 3, page 3). In the accompanying photograph, Smith is shown wearing the full formal Highland dress of kilt, bonnet, plaid, and skean dubh. In this interview, Smith expressed his pride in being a Scot; he even managed to get the Scottish victory over the English at Bannockburn in 1314 into the conversation. (This is the battle featured in the Mel Gibson movie, Braveheart.) Smith said that Scots took pride in their traditions, just like the Japanese took pride in their traditions. He added, however, that Germany was exaggerating the enmity between the Scots and English, saying, "We are all British now." Of course, the First World War was on, and Japan was a British ally in those days.
In the interview, Smith said that when he first arrived at the Kodokan, he had trouble with the technical terms, but in time, he got over this. He tried to enlist in the British Army via the British consulate in Yokohama, but after a medical examination, he was found unfit for service because of bronchitis.
The following year, Smith turned up in the United States, apparently in the company of his 3-dan friend, Sato. How Smith and Sato got to America is still unknown. While in the United States, Smith managed to become captain in the US Army, as in 1920, he published a work in seven volumes entitled The Secrets of Jujitsu: A Complete Course in Self Defense. This book was modestly subtitled, "By Captain Allan Corstorphin Smith, U.S.A. Winner of the Black Belt, Japan, 1916, Instructor of Hand-to-Hand Fighting, The Infantry School, Camp Benning, Columbus Georgia, and at the United States Training Camps and Cantonments, 1917 and 1918." This work is interesting because it makes frequent references to the shita hara, or lower abdomen, which Smith abbreviates, "Stahara." The Stahara is also mentioned in the US Army’s Field Manual FM 21-150b, Unarmed Defense for the American Soldier, of 1942.
After that, Smith disappears again.”

[mhatchett]

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So clearly, Ju-Jitsu had it going on in the 30s-40s. The first book is from 1935, the second from 1943. Tommy Kay’s Big Book of Karate Fall 1982, these were a lot of fun! Finally, the oldest Martial Arts book I own, published by the Japan Publishing in 1904.

[mhatchett]

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Do or Die, 1937/1944, The art of the Bayonet is emphasized, killing techniques. American Combat Judo 1959, looks like wrestling. Hand gunning! American Ju-Jitsu for police 1931. Look out there’s a frog! Sorry about that!

[mhatchett]

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The top three titles are wartime publications FM 21-150 Unarmed defense for the American Soldier 1942, In the second title, Lightning Ju-Jitsu 1943, A tommy can be seen disarming a Nazzzzzi. Learn How to Fight Tough from former World Boxing Champion Jack Dempsey 1943. The ubiquitous Bruce Tegner is teaching Police defense tactics in 1978 and Sammy Franco is teaching you how to be Street Lethal in 1989 Published by Paladin Press. Paladin has published some great books….and some real trash lol!

[mhatchett]

I know, the thread was started six years ago. Hard to believe. I've read and used my Martial Arts collection extensively over the years. I have a wide variety of interests and my collecting reflects that, i think. I'll try to get some of the older stuff up tomorrow.