Magazines question

[balthazar]

I am almost done with the 2010 Recount of my ad collection. Done to date: Chrysler (944), Ford (1347) and GM (3444) are done, and the independants are mostly sorted & awaiting counting (est: 350), then the dreary foreign ads will be the only thing left (est (200). That's a total of around 6300 ads. Yes, I'll get to those request in short order.

I went thru maybe a 16-ft tall stack of National Geographics and de-bound them to get clean, full-sheet ads out. Those are all processed..... but being 'in the groove', I am eyeballing a 16-in stack of Motor Trends & C&Ds from '02-08. Lots of decent, performance-oriented ads there, and my post -say- 1990 ad count is painfully thin.

Think it'd be a 'bad thing' to cut up auto rags just for the ads? Wouldn't be the first time for me, and I do save random pics and articles... There's no one out there clamoring for magazines this new, are there ???

[SAmadei]

I don't think there are many people looking for such magazines. I've been surprised you would take apart National Geographics... I thought they were one of the holy grails of old magazines.

[regfootball]

in my basement i have car magazines dating back to 88-89. i have subscribed to C/D and MT since then. still have all those. Also, R/T since maybe 98. Automobile off and on since then.

At some point I am prob gonna get rid of them.. ........

but my soon to be one year old boy, i bet it would be fun to share them all with him someday.

Edited March 1, 2010 by regfootball

[GMTruckGuy74]

Is there an easy process to de-bound a magazine? Some I have done in the past haven't turned out too good, while others were just a staple to be removed. I have a ton of magazines that eventually I will go through, keeping just the articles and ads I want with the remainder to the recylcing bucket. Need to move out and clear out my "stuff" in the basement before the new baby arrives

[mustang84]

in my basement i have car magazines dating back to 88-89. i have subscribed to C/D and MT since then. still have all those. Also, R/T since maybe 98. Automobile off and on since then.

At some point I am prob gonna get rid of them.. ........

but my soon to be one year old boy, i bet it would be fun to share them all with him someday.

I'd keep some of the better ones. I stumbled across a Motor Trend from 1978 with the Trans Am on the cover and spent hours pouring over it. It had been sitting in a box in my grandparents' basement for 30 years. I plan on keeping the really good editions of my car mags until I have kids someday so they can do the same thing.

[Cory Wolfe]

I have a box full of MT and C&D from the same era. I've taken an ad here and there. They're probably pretty easy to come by.

[balthazar]

SAmadei ~ >>"I've been surprised you would take apart National Geographics... I thought they were one of the holy grails of old magazines."<<

Quite common. I could not bring myself to cut up the 1940s issues, tho... tho I have in years past.

IMO, Life would be the holy grail- harder to find, usually will cost you, treasured by more, nice big ads, usually different ones.

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GMTruckGuy74 ~ >>"Is there an easy process to de-bound a magazine? Some I have done in the past haven't turned out too good, while others were just a staple to be removed."<<

Nat'l Geo is relatively easy: snip the staples with side cutters, bend 'em upright and cut them flush. Then you can remove the ads (only in the front or rear of the issue), tearing it from the glued binding.

With non-stapled, glued, square-bound mags, like current M/T, I would likely tear off the cover, then remove pages until I came to the ad. Sometimes a 'glue ridge' builds up by the time you reach deeper into the issue- you should X-acto that off to avoid tearing the edge of the ad.

Non-glued stapled issue are the easiest, tho the fold is not as sharp- so tearing a 1-page from a 2-page spread has to be done more carefully.

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I've been reading thru various issues at breakfast and have concluded they are not worth keeping whole to me, esp -like I said- I am short on ads of the '00s. I will keep plenty of clipped pics & select articles, but the ads will be most welcome.

[SAmadei]

IMO, Life would be the holy grail- harder to find, usually will cost you, treasured by more, nice big ads, usually different ones.

Yeah, I figured Life was up there. I guess NatGeo suffers from the same problem as wheat pennies... too many people hold onto them.

With non-stapled, glued, square-bound mags, like current M/T, I would likely tear off the cover, then remove pages until I came to the ad. Sometimes a 'glue ridge' builds up by the time you reach deeper into the issue- you should X-acto that off to avoid tearing the edge of the ad.

Non-glued stapled issue are the easiest, tho the fold is not as sharp- so tearing a 1-page from a 2-page spread has to be done more carefully.

Why not use a belt sander? Clip the magazine in a jig and grind off 1/8 an inch.

[balthazar]

^ Um-mmmm......

Almost done- have about a half-yr left out of 6 yrs of M/T and C&D. Will finish de-binding tomm- then it's sort, count & file. Have yielded a TON of ads- about a 3-4" stack.

As no doubt everyone knows; these are all square-bound, glued issues. When taking them apart, I firmly grab 6 or 8 or 10 (or more) pages together and pull them off the main mag- those then separate easily. The deeper into the issue you tear, the more important it is to remove numerous pages at once, or the glue ridge that stands up will tear that edge if you try to pull 1 page at a time. Plus it's much faster. I pull them when the issue is 180-degrees open.

You develop a 'feel' for the tension / effort required (I've been doing this since 1979).

The glue ridge in this era, for these titles, does not cleanly slice off with an X-acto- too gummy or something. You can also pull from the back. Only a handful of issues have been anything other than 'easy'.