Collecting vintage magazines

A feel for the magazine market

One way to get a feel for the magazine market is through Ebay.co.uk - and it demonstrates big growth in magazine sales online. A search in December 2010 revealed 98,095 live listings and 40,415 completed listings using the words 'magazine -book' in the section Books, Comics & Magazines. The completed search in March 2007 revealed 29,425 items. Analysis of the 2007 data suggests the price breakdown in Table 1. So, 86% of all the magazines would fetch less than £10, and 99.66% less than £65.

Magazine prices on Ebay Back to top

On the first two pages of 100 lots, prices ranged from £839.99 down to £65, but about half of these did not sell, including the two most expensive items (nine volumes of 1861 - 1863 Temple Bar magazine and a set of Buses 1971-2005 for £650). Also, someone tried selling a copy of Nova from 1967 for the ridiculous price of £150. A complete set of Q to issue 117 didn't sell at £199.

Among those that did sell, were the following:

• 180 copies of Vogue (1968-93) for £499 (£2.77 each).
• a Christmas 1908 copy of Strand Magazine for £433. This issue carried the first outing for the Arthur Conan Doyle story 'The Adventure of the Bruce Partington Plans'. The seller described it as 'extremely rare in this condition'.
• bound volume of Gentleman's Magazine from 1752 with 32 colour plates for £415.50. A 1769 volume cost £78.10.
• a collection of the first 10 years of Face (121 copies) sold for £185 + £40 postage with 20 bids (£1.53 each).
• Three issues of Oz for between £160 and £169.69, headed by an October 1967 issue in excellent condition which attracted 14 bids.
• 365 copies of Car (1970-2005) for £167.59 (46p each).
• Launch issue of Wallpaper (Sept/Oct 1996) for £155.99 (14 bids); a copy of the July/August 1997 issue sold for £142; a March/April 1997 issue sold for £73.10. However, two 1998 issues sold for 1p (plus £3 postage) and several failed to sell at £1.50 plus £1.50 postage.
• Bound volume of 27 copies of Radio Times for £137.67 with 5 bids;
• Lost Magazine issues 1 to 9 with the 'rare variant covers ... never issued in the UK' for £124.99 plus £9.99 on a buy-it-now listing. A copy of issue 2 went for £12.50 .
• A collection of 1,000 car magazines dated between 1980 and 1990 went for £110 on a buy-it-now listing.
• First 100 issues of Classic Rock with cover CDs for £92.
• Christmas 1916 issue of The Bystander with cartoons by Bruce Bairnsfather (Old Bill) and Wilmot Lunt for £71.
• A lot of about 70 issues of Evo car monthly for £69.90 (the seller wisely withdrew the first issue during the sale to sell separately - for £21.87).
• 8 copies of 1950s pin-up title Spick for £21.
• BBC Sky at Night (issue 14 with CD-ROM) for £21.01.

By the end of page 30, the prices were down to £30 (and again, typically, at least half the lots were unsold). By page 83, the price was under £10, but only about a quarter of the lots on offer sold; there was page after page of bulk-selling, pay-it-now items at £15 and £10 not selling.

The same period saw more than 130 pages listing titles for £1 or less - most of which did not sell.

Guardian article on collecting magazines

What sells a magazine? Back to top

The Ebay list gives some excellent clues to what sells. Attractive elements include:

• the quality of the title - this is where the vintage fashion magazines win out because of their production quality and longevity, plus fashions keep coming back, or being re-interpreted;
• rarity and condition;
• cult status, eg, Oz and Lost;
• first issues (and last);
• historic content, such as the Sherlock Holmes stories in The Strand by Conan Doyle, or famous illustrations;
• cover subject: people such as Princess Diana, Madonna, Brigitte Bardot and Marilyn Monroe sell old, as well as new, magazines (see Dick Stolley's mantra for what sells People);
• link to a sport or hobby, be it football or knitting patterns;
• age does not make a magazine valuable, but it will multiply the value if it already meets some of the above criteria;
• the seller's reputation.

A sale can be down to luck. For example, there were 70 completed listings of Oz in the period covered. The cheapest was £1.95 (issue 40 in good condition, 'although there is a felt pen marking on cover which has come loose'. Also, Ebay is not a perfect market. A copy of issue 26 didn't sell; another sold a week later for £4.20. Both in 'reasonable' condition. Two copies of Oz 7 sold - for £169 and £156.

The highest paid for a set of Lost issues 1 to 9 was £124.99 plus £9.99 postage, but four other sets went for £51-£90. A first issue sold for £19.99 and other copies for £1.60 to £19.99.

How do people collect magazines? Back to top

There are probably as many reasons for people to collect magazines as there are magazines. However, there are some common factors that attract collectors:

• first and last issues;
• specific title;
• titles devoted to cars or films;
• writers may collect magazines from an era to help capture the 'feel' of a period;
• covers with a theme, for example Beatles or Twiggy covers;
• genres, such as pin-up titles;
• historical advertising in magazines;
• specific writers, photographers or illustrators;
• magazines linked to work or academic study, for example vintage fashion magazines or design titles;
• link to a sport or hobby, be it motoring or cookery;
• illustrators and designers will collect magazines for inspiration;
• magazines featuring a particular celebrity or signed by celebrities;
• TV or film makers looking to reconstruct the look and feel of a period;
• historic events, such as the sinking of the Titanic.

Some people like to collect a complete run of a magazine, which can be an easy way to start! For example:

• Popworld Pulp closed after 2 issues in 2007 and So London had just 3 in the same year;
• women's glossy weekly Riva had just 7 issues in 1988;
• men's monthly Club ran to 21 issues;
• pin-up monthly Span published 266 issues (1954-76).

Then people might buy a one-off title, for example to commemorate a birthday or rekindle a teen/childhood event - or seek inspiration for a 70s theme party.

One Ebay seller was auctioning a complete set of pop monthly Rave (February 1964 to September 1971): 'This collection was purchased monthly for my wife and lovingly stored, for her to look back on her teenage years.' He added: 'Individual copies can sell anywhere between £8-£30+ so the price I am asking is an average cost per issue of £9.50 (copies that have sold recently, are averaging out at £18 per copy).'

Places to buy and sell magazines Back to top

Please mention Magforum if contact any of these sites - it helps when I'm after a favour such as a cover scan. Websites include:

• 26 Pigs to buy and sell comics, annuals, books and magazines
• ABE Books sells vintage mags - use 'magazine' in keyword
• Advertising Archives Founder Larry Viner not only runs an image archive but also trades in magazine collections and provides a free valuation service
• Aviation magazine dealers : four listed in UK
• The Book Palace specialises in British comics and books
• Book and Magazine Collector : monthly magazine from Diamond Publishing in London. Many collectors do not have websites and sell through catalogues, lists of titles and email
• Black Cat Bookshop in Leicester for comics/memorabilia
• Car magazines - Old Classic Car covers motoring titles
• Celebrity magazines from MagazinesCelebrity.com
• Charles Buchan's Football Monthly run by Martin Westby and inspired by 1950s magazine. Has magazine grading guide
• Collecting House has magazine pages
• Collectors Gazette - one of 3 titles from Warners Group
• Collecting Books and Magazines in Australia
• Comic collectors' fairs
• Crazy About Magazines run by Jackie Holmes who specialises in celebrity titles such as Hello! and OK!. Also stocks Vogue and music titles
• E-Bay auction site
• Elegantly Papered for vintage fashion magazines
• Everything Collectible sells magazines that have been signed by celebrities, actors, actresses, models and music artists
• I luv magazines trading website in US
• JR Comics and Collectables for boxes and plastic bags
• Magazine Back Issues is a US site that sells US and international titles
• Magazine Collector Club US message board and trading post. Guidance on terms such as 'mint' and 'fair'
• Magazine indexes by Phil Stephensen-Payne of UK and US titles. The amount of work in this is awesome!
• Soccerbilia for vintage British soccer / football magazines
• The Magazine Man specialises in motorcycle, tattoo and airbrush titles
• Tilleys vintage magazines. Easy-to-use site. Shop in Chesterfield near J29 of M1 (phone first)
• Vinmag Archive dates back to 195 and holds 250,000 copies of magazines, along with newspapers, films and posters. Warehouse in east London
• Vintage Carriage Trust 10,000 railway magazines for sale
• Vintage Magazine Co Vintage Magazine Shop in Soho and Brighton, London stocks 250,000 magazines and comics
• Vintage Motorshop in Batley for car books and magazines

The condition of magazines Back to top

A seller who is not familiar with 'official' collectors' terms such as 'mint' and 'fair' should stick to everyday language and be careful to state, for example, whether:

• pages are missing (very easy to overlook);
• items cut out, such as articles or vouchers;
• any pages are ripped;
• cover becoming/is detached;
• any writing on covers (such as a delivery name or address) or inside, or marks - rings from cups are common!;
• forms or crosswords filled in;
• creases to cover or inside;
• 'foxing' - brown marks that appear as spots;
• discolouration and yellowing of pages (common on newsprint or poor quality paper, particularly if magazine has been left in sunlight);
• rusting staples (common in magazines before 1970).

A good, square-on picture really does help. Martin Westby publishes a magazine grading guide on his football website.

Be sure to get your facts right. If you can't prove a statement yourself, give a source for the quote so people can check it out for themselves. Magforum is regularly quoted on the history or background of a magazine on eBay, which is fine as long as you credit the source.

Looking after and storing magazines Back to top

There are many factors to consider when storing magazines:

• magazines are heavy, particularly glossy monthlies;
• they vary in size, mostly from A5-ish to tabloid (A3-ish) newspaper supplements;
• vintages magazines of the likes of Nova, Queen, Town and Vogue are bigger than today's glossy monthlies. They don't fit in standard boxes or bags;
• you may be able to get A4 photocopier paper boxes from work, but they are too small for most magazines;
• magazines need to be kept dry - varnished pages that get wet or damp will stick together when they are dried out.

I use:

• book publishers' boxes, which tend to be slightly larger than A4, as are wine boxes and boxes of 12 500m beers. The magazines are stacked flat;
• self-assembly magazine boxes that store magazines vertically - but beware the cheap ones, they can't take the weight;
• storage boxes from JR Comics - but be careful, these are too heavy to lift if full of glossies. I haven't tested the claim that they can stacked 5-high;
• plastic bags with a sealing strip (but don't let the strip catch on the cover wheen you take them in and out);
• a pile of about 25 monthly glossy magazines will fill a box of the size used for a dozen bottles of wine;
• magazines are heavy, particularly glossy monthlies;
• boxes will sag over time and collapse if stacked.

Some tips:

• think about how you're going to organise your collection. I arrange the boxes by date for most titles, but by title for a big run of a particular title;
• I have a list of magazine file that gives details of the 1000s of magazines I hold (publisher, printer, date, price, pagination, what I paid for it, editor, designer, notes on articles, writers, illustrators, etc). It's a Word table of about 4MB. It's in 8pt text and prints out at 142 pages;
• when you stack magazines on top of each other, don't align the spines for more than about 6 copies because the spine is thicker than the opening edge;
• stacking magazines too high can cause the spines to flatten and lose their squareness;
• seal the boxes, otherwise spiders and insects get in;
• beware of mice in garages and lofts - they will eat into boxes and magazines;
• store boxes on a patform off the floor - just in case there's a spillage. Also, damp can seep in from a garage floor;
• Beware if you're moving house; a box of Dazed & Confused will be heavier than anything but LP records.

Selling on Ebay Back to top

It's astounding what people think they can sell a magazine for. One Ebay seller put up a first issue of Cosmopolitan that had an undisclosed reserve on it (bad idea) that turned out to be something ridiculous like £100. I asked about this and they said they'd spoken to someone 'high up' at NatMags who said they were very rare and the office copy was kept in a glass display case(!). Do I detect the pitter-patter of someone being led off up the garden path?

This demonstrates the first rule - do an advanced search on Ebay for sold copies. If this woman above had done hers, she would have seen a copy of that issue sell the month before for £8.50. Even a copy in mint condition would be unlikely to go for 12 times that.

Of course, people have different strategies. If you have a collection of Honey magazines and you put them all up at £125, perhaps some of them will sell. But most will not. And none of them will go very quickly. But it's your choice. So my advice:

• search on sold copies in advanced search to get an idea of price; it will also tell you how many bids there were, hence the level of demand;
• if you can't find one, use a comparable title - Glamour for Cosmo; Vogue for Elle; FHM for Maxim;
• you may see from the search that the title simply doesn't sell; if so, offer it to Magforum!, or take it down the charity shop or up into the loft for a decade;
• if it's not worth much, is there an interview in there that might sell to a Madonna fan, rather than a magazine collector? So list in both places;
• remember that some people collect the advertising or just the cover - is there something worthwhile putting up?;
• don't list a collection all in one go; do a few a day to try and build up interest - with the best ones being sold last;
• postage costs are a bugbear - often more than the magazine will go for - so consider selling 2 or 3 copies at a time. Maximise value by keeping within postal weight boundaries;
• protecting mags in the post is vital - use old card and put them in a plastic bag. A padded bag is sometimes not enough - an ordinary envelope definitely not enough;
• don't be tempted to jack up the postage - the buyer will get feedback revenge when they see the stamps cost 81p and you charged £2.50!;
• finally, make sure you have checked all the pages and there's nothing cut out or written anywhere. It is very easy to miss a page torn out - and you'll end up having to give the fee back because the postage return will be more than the mag!

Finally, make sure you do a summary of the content - an article by a famous writer, images by a popular photographer or a profile of a star can expand your customer base.

Quoting Magforum and eBay Back to top

I'm very happy for eBay sellers to quote from Magforum pages - but you should acknowledge this by giving the Magforum page address and ideally adding a link to the page. All the material on Magforum is copyright - the site has taken the best part of a decade to build up and it's a one-man band, so you can imagine how how much time and effort has gone into it. Income from advertising pays for the site's fees, research costs and buying magazines.

A link to Magforum will benefit your eBay marketing because:

• it shows the buyer there is a collecting base for your magazine;
• there will often be extra pictures and information that help describe your magazine in more detail;
• Magforum is heavily used by magazine collectors - this page is the top Google result for the search 'collecting magazines' - so by using it you show you have done your research and are a serious seller.

Note that you can often jump straight to the magazine in question. For example, if you are selling a copy of Queen:

• Search on 'Queen' at Magforum.com using the Google search box at the bottom of most pages;
• This will return a link to http://www.magforum.com/glossies/queen.htm
• When you click on this, it takes you to the top of one of the women's glossy monthly pages, which includes Queen;
• On the right you see a list of the titles covered by the page;
• Click on Queen in blue text and it will jump you to the entry;
• Copy the address in your web browser address bar to use to create a link: http://www.magforum.com/glossies/queen.htm#que
• It is the #que part that finds Queen within the page;
• If you do not know how to make a live link in eBay just paste in the address to your text and your potential buyers can copy and paste this into their web browser.

One final thing though, don't copy the images because they are not of your actual copy of the magazine and will usually have been cleaned up to show the cover in better detail. Good luck