other magazines...

[the blob]

a little OT here

 

I have a pretty big vintage magazine collection from the 30s - 50s. saturday evening post, life, the new yorker, fortune and lots of others. probably about 25 boxes of vintage magazines.

 

i guess I've always figured they're worth what someone is willing to pay, with there being somewhat more of a market for rockwell covers.

 

I was flipping through some Saturday Evening Posts the other day ad I had forgotten how they're really packed with tons of cartoons and illustrated stories --- a lot of terrific art. and the advertisements! especially the stuff from the 40s, really great stuff with great art, kitch, hall of fame baseball players, stars from the golden age of hollywood, the car advertisements, coke ads, charles adams cartoons, etc. huge amount of appeal to many types of collectors.

 

my question, is there a website that has scanned and indexed any of these magazines? doing a good job of describing them and showing some of the best advertisements would be like 10+ photos a magazine and way too much work for a likely $9.99 starting bid, yet this is probably the way people will see that this is something they may want. i'd prefer just to provide a link.

[SignatureSelect]

I am creating a database myself. Some of the books are hard to obtain samples of. I just finished a playboy data base. I would love to tackle a saturday evening post or new yorker database. You know CGC is talking about eventualy doing magazine grading.

[bounty_coder]

I am creating a database myself. Some of the books are hard to obtain samples of. I just finished a playboy data base. I would love to tackle a saturday evening post or new yorker database. You know CGC is talking about eventualy doing magazine grading.

 

They currently do; do magazine grading Do you mean larger format magazines???

 

-bounty

 

P.S. I said do do

[the blob]

a new york should fit in a CGC magazine slab

 

as should stuff like "true confessions" and some of the pulps from the 60s and 70s (earlier might be too fat)

 

saturday evening post would be far too large

 

I don't really see the point of this though.

 

People who collect these sorts of magazines are often not so nuts about high grade vs. ultra high grade, etc. they just want a copy that doesn't have too many dings.

 

And then there's a whole other group that collects them to chop them up and sell them for parts -- matting the cover and interesting advertisements

 

personally, i would feel horrible chopping up a 60 year old magazine like that, but when i see what people try and sell the stuff for at flea markets, I wonder. a magazine full of great ads and a nice cover my wind up being $100-$400 in various parts (not that they can necessarily sell all of them...)

[SignatureSelect]

To my knowledge They only do Comic Magazines No body has informed me that they are doing regular magazines. If they are doing regular magazines I have some high grade playboys I want graded But when I talked to steve Borock last he said they weren't grading regular magazines yet

[Harvey Dude]

To my knowledge They only do Comic Magazines No body has informed me that they are doing regular magazines. If they are doing regular magazines I have some high grade playboys I want graded But when I talked to steve Borock last he said they weren't grading regular magazines yet

 

I have some high grade Playboy magazines from 1954 and I was looking for a service that can slab them. I do hope CGC goes into this venture. In my research on slabbing mags, I ran across the following:

 

WHO IS CGC AND WHAT DO THEY WANT WITH YOUR MAGAZINES?

 

I recently (Feb. 16 &17) had the unique experience of visiting the headquarters of Comics Guaranty, LLC (CGC) in Sarasota, Florida.

 

The company, if you are not familiar with them, is a subsidiary of Certified Collectibles Group, an umbrella corporation which also includes other similar companies which authenticate, certify and encase coins, paper money and sportscards. The part of their business that deals with coins is by far the largest, but I was invited to view and be entertained in their comic division, run by Steve Borock and Mark Haspel, both of whom are comic book graders and executives of CGC.

 

The reason for my invitation was that CGC has been contemplating doing for magazines what it has done for comic books - essentially, authenticating, grading and encasing them in a tamper-proof plastic case.

 

Debate over what CGC does has raged on the internet and in comic collector circles since the company's inception in 2000. Now five years into the comics grading business, CGC is firmly established as a leader in the field. Their advertisements can be regularly seen in comic collector magazines and they are a regular fixture at nearly all major comic shows and events.

 

Much of the debate over what CGC does surrounds itself with prices, their unique 25-point grading system and the encasing of comics (what detractors like to call entombing, but is generally known as "slabbing"). To "slab" a comic book, CGC manually inspects the issue, applies a grade, and then seals the book inside a rigid plastic container with all the pertinent information on a bar-coded label. All this information is entered into a computer database, so CGC can access details on any comic they have ever graded. It's quite an elaborate process.

 

While the sealed casing can be opened, it would destroy the integrity of the grade, so most "slabbed" books are kept in their cases, away from the damaging elements of heat, humidity, etc. Some comic book purists, who enjoy their comics for reading and entertainment value as well as their collectibility, object to the slabbing process, seeing it as a denial of - at the very least - the pleasure of seeing the interior of the comic. After all, they contend, the cover and back cover is only the exterior of what is, to many, a work of art, or literature, or both.

 

The pricing issue also has arisen, especially on eBay, where high grade comics have been fetching many times book value in online auctions after they have been suitably graded and encased by CGC.

 

All of this brings us to the question of magazines. If CGC decides to begin accepting mainstream magazines (actually they already have to some degree, as they are now grade comic-type magazines such as Mad, Eerie, Vampirella, Cracked and others), what effect will this have on collectors, dealers and lovers of old magazines?

 

First off, CGC will deal only with standard size magazines initially, such as Time, Sports Illustrated and Playboy (they are especially interested in Playboy - well, who isn't), so your collection of Life, Saturday Evening Post, Colliers, etc. are safe, for now.

 

But the same debate would occur in the magazine community as has been and continues to be in the comic world. Prices for high grade early Playboy and Sports Illustrated magazines would likely skyrocket once they are graded and encased by CGC, just as happened with comics. Additionally, dealers who don't toe the CGC line, selling high grade collectible magazines without the CGC "stamp of approval" may be penalized by lower prices at auction or at sales.

 

In essence, CGC would create a new paradigm and new challenges, and a new profit center for them. CGC's grading is not cheap, nor are their gradings always uniform. I sat with the graders and actually assisted in grading some comic magazines. It was a unique experience, but no two graders will ever grade the same comic, or magazine, the same. CGC tries its best to make grades uniform, but there are so many factors which go into grading, that it's never going to be science, but remain an undefined, unstandardized art to a great degree.

 

After returning home from my visit to CGC, I was able to reflect upon what I had seen and learned from my two days at their headquarters. Basically, I felt that CGC was more interested in garnering information about the collectible magazine market than hiring me to run their new business - the pretense under which I was asked to visit - and that they had not laid all of their cards on the table. I was told different things at different times by different people and by the end of my visit, I distinctly felt that they were uninterested in me or my business, since I was not forthcoming with a great deal of "inside" information.

 

My general impression was that the people who run CGC are only interested in making money, regardless of how they do it, whom they displace or displease and that they will pursue any and all opportunities without regard to accepted standards or conventions. In other words, as they have done in the comic world, they will step on, over or around anyone who gets in their way. I wasn't impressed that they were either trustworthy or honest. In fact, I believe that they will do and/or say anything that sheds a positive light on their business, and I'm not alone in that regard.

 

As for if and when they begin to grade mainstream magazines, I believe it's a pipe dream on their part. The collectible magazine trade is highly fractured, and I told them as much. I do not believe CGC will be able to make significant inroads into the market. As it is, less than 2% of comics on eBay are CGC graded and I don't call that significant market penetration.

 

CGC has artificially distorted the comic book market and this price guide will not participate in any such distortion should they decide to invade the magazine trade. Any magazines graded by CGC and sold anywhere will not be reflected in prices ascertained by the Collectible Magazine Online Price Guide. CGC and any magazines they grade will be treated as though they never existed.

 

For more about CGC, visit their site at http://www.cgccomics.com.

 

Discuss this and other issues in the Discussion Forum.

 

That's all for now,

 

Rick Gagliano, Publisher

Downtown Magazine

[the blob]

there aren't that many magazines other than some early SIs and Playboys that would be worth slabbing. Time Magazine? Maybe with Joe DImaggio on the cover or something like that.

 

Anyone watch "Flea Market Mania" or whatever it's called? I sort of watch it for educational purposes, I don't believe the prices he spouts are based on anything real (particularly because nobody he talks to has ever paid more than 10% of what he says the item is "worth")

 

Anyway, some lady brings in a Playbill from a Jack Benny show in the 50s and he's telling her that the advertisements are worth $75-$100 a page, basically saying the whole item is worth over $1000. what a load of nonsense. the Playbill is MAYBE a $10-$20 item in total. the ads might be worth a few bucks each if you cut them out and spending the money matting them and selling them in a flea market, but even then only maybe $10-$25 a pop.

[Bronze_Age_Fan]

I wonder if CGC would ever consider grading horror mags like Fangoria?