Cousteau's Secrets of the Sea - Part 3

Continuing on this third post (out of four) with the history of the collection "Cousteau's Secrets of the Sea", published in Spain by Urbión and in Argentina by Hyspamérica, and distributed in Peru by Riguse, this time I'm showing you first how the prices increased in Peru during that time, when inflation was rampant since 1985 and finally reached an insane rate by 1990. Remember how in one of my previous posts I called your attention to the price tag from the Monterrey department store, which indicated 22.90 Intis for one of the earliest releases in the collection? Well, in late 1987 I attended the Ricardo Palma book fair (which is held every year, usually in the Miraflores district of Lima) and at Riguse's booth, I bought some back issues I was missing (or maybe issues in advance which hadn't made it to the stores yet):

As you can see, by then the price had almost doubled already, at 38 Intis. I returned a couple of times over the next days, to buy a few more issues and the covers for binding volumes 1 and 2 both of Cousteau's Travels and The Encyclopedia of the Sea, as I had mentioned in my last post:

The price for the binding covers was roughly twice that of an issue, at 70 Intis, and as I mentioned previously, those were the only ones I managed to get for several years. I kept buying the weekly (or bi-weekly) regular releases at the department store for the next months. Then, in mid-1989, I went to the International Book Fair in Lima (which is held every year around that time of the year), and bought 2 more issues there at Riguse's booth:

By then the price had already increased more than tenfold, up to 5100 Intis per issue, as you can see. And then, at the end of the year, I went to the Ricardo Palma Book Fair again,and bought several more issues over a few days:

Now the price had more than double once again, this time reaching the sum of 12300 Intis per issue. But wait until you see what happened a year later, when in late 1990 I returned to the Ricardo Plama Book Fair for a couple more issues to complete the collection:

As you can see, the price had skyrocketed to ONE MILLION Intis per issue at that time! That's how bad the hyperinflation in Peru had become by 1990. In order to simplify the paperwork, prices began to be expressed in the imaginary currency of "Inti-millón" to keep them short, and later, in 1991, the Nuevo Sol (New Sol) was finally introduced, which was equivalent to 1 million Intis and has remained a stable currency ever since, thanks to the new Constitution from 1993, which among other things granted autonomy to the Central Bank, preventing it form being controlled by the government and forced to print money at will.

Finally, here's also a leaflet I got from Riguse back then:

I went a few times to Riguse's warehouse in the district of Barranco; it was huge, with large piles of issues from different collections spread around over wooden pallets on the floor, and the main offices upstairs. Sadly, they closed down a few years ago, much to the chagrin of local collectors, since they used to offer the most interesting collections in the market. Among the ones listed at the time, aside from Secrets of the Sea and Wild Nature (whose binding covers, as I told before, I had to use instead of the covers I couldn't find enough of for Secrets of the Sea), you can see Science Fiction (full name, Biblioteca de Ciencia Ficción, or Library of Science Fiction), a collection of 100 pocket books in a softcover edition. with titles from different well-known authors, like Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein, Clifford D. Simak, Pierre Boulle, Ray Bradbury, Fredric Brown, Harlan Ellison, James Blish, Alfred Bester, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Theodore Sturgeon, Paul Anderson, Harry Harrison, and many more. Unfortunately, I couldn't collect all of them, though I still managed to get over 20. Eventually, I'll write another post about that collection...

And now let me finish showing you the cover sheets for the last 44 releases of the collection Costeau's Secrets of the Sea, from release 89 to 132, corresponding to Volumes 5 and 6 of Cousteau's Travels and The Encyclopedia of the Sea:

And that's it. As you can see, all these cover sheets have no further mention of the publishers on the front, which means they belong to the Spanish edition by Urbión. On the back of the sheets for releases 130 and 131, you can see this confirmed, as Urbión announced the release of a 240-page volume titled "Viaje al Amazonas" ("Voyage to the Amazon"), which unfortunately never reached Peru, covering Cousteau's 1982 expedition to the Amazon river, in search for its source high in the Andes. The final title for the volume was "El viaje de Cousteau por el Amazonas", which Urbión released in 1983 (this collection had originally been released in 1982, before being re-released in 1985). It can still be found for sale online from second hand bookstores. In English it was published under the title Jacques Cousteau's Amazon Journey.

Stay tuned for the next (and last) post in the series, where I'll be showing you additional materials included with the collection's releases...