OK, you're at an estate sale, and a sign "More Downstairs" is directing you to the cellar.
There you are, confronted with stacks and stacks of old magazines. Looking them over you see that there are complete editions of dozens of titles from Movie Mirror, Vogue, and Vanity Fair to Popular Mechanics, Look, and Saturday Evening Post. Luckily, the deceased, who'd suffered from OCD, had kept all in order.
You know that some magazines can be worth big bucks on the secondary markets, but you're not sure which ones to grab. Here are a few suggestions (and remember that condition counts!):
1) First issues are almost always printed in lesser numbers than subsequent issues, so chances are very good that a Vol. 1, No. 1 of anything will be worth more than others in the series. This is why, for example, the first issue of People magazine (1974) can be worth up to $100 today.
2) Another "first" that can up a magazine's value is the first appearance of a celebrity. For example, collector and authority Steven Lomazow (check out the links to his site in the Resources section below) states that Madonna's face on the cover of Island Magazine (October 1983) is worth $1000+ to collectors. Another example is the first appearance of Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan in All Story (October 1912), making that issue one of the most valuable in collectordom with a pricetag of $20,000!
3) Do you know why some issues of Harper's Weekly and almost all of Camera Work are valued from several hundred to several thousand dollars each? In addition to all the original photographs in the magazine, Camera Work had the good fortune to have been edited by renowned photographer Alfred Stieglitz. And Civil War-era Harper's Weekly regularly featured illustrations based on works submitted by Winslow Homer and other artists.
4) Remember that "old" does not necessarily mean "valuable." National Geographic, in print since 1888, is often cited as an example. It did not became a monthly until 1896, after which EVERYONE saved them, so it is only the very rare first few issues that command high premiums.
Of course, this discussion does not even begin to cover the niche markets for magazine covers (New Yorker, Time, and Saturday Evening Post are favorites) or magazine ads (such as for shipping lines, automobiles, and Coke).
As you can see, more than a superficial familiarity is necessary to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to learn more about this popular collectible, check out the resources listed below, and check out our previous column on collectible magazines written by Elaine Gross Russell, available here.
Happy Collecting!
Books
"Antique Trader Vintage Magazines Price Guide ," by Richard Russell and Elaine Gross Russell (link)
"Old Magazines: Identification & Value Guide," by Richard E. Clear and David T. Alexander (link
"Popular Fiction Periodicals: A Collectors' Guide to Vintage Pulps, Digests, and Magazines," by Jeff Canja (link)
Websites
Magazine Grading Guide (link)
The heading says it all.
Magazine History: A Collector's Blog (link)
Dr. Steven Lomazow, a neurologist and collector of vintage magazines, hosts an informative blog including the story of the REAL Vol.1, No.1 of Look magazine.
RSAP: Research Society for American Periodicals (link)
Great site offers a valuable Research Resource page, links, more!
