old magazines

I use to keep all of my magazines and I'd get upset at the mailman and leave a not asking him to note fold it when i would put it into my mailbox...that's how crazy I was.  But one day, I had so many dang magazines that it was ridiculous.  I think collecting them is kind of neat but I don't have the room.  They now find the recycle bin.  Most times anyway but now if I like an article I make a copy and save it as a PDF for my own records.

My wife has a serious problem with saving every magazine she gets.  We have bankers boxes in the garage with magazines in them that she has never looked at once!  I bring it up every now and then and man, is it a sore subject to bring up.  I've taken to taking a box of them to the recycling place every now and then because it drives me crazy!

I should note I collected the Walleye In-sider and NDGF magazines.  Probably should have kept the Insider magazines since they are no longer going to be published.

My dad and brother feel that some of them may be worth something but I tend to disagree.  They are very interesting and in very good shape but I have never heard or known of anyone paying money for old magazines.  Well, they'll make for some good reading during the hunting seasons I guess.

You never really know. They could be worth something in a several years when everyone else has tossed their copy. I've seen really old books sold for quite a bit, so you just never know what some avid collector will pay. Also, I know the State Historical Society and Library have sold duplicate copies of some of their old magazines, posters and other stuff, usually in an auction and a lot of those items went for quite a bit. It really is hard to tell, but if you are in it just for history's sake, you would probably be happy just preserving them.

In fact, if you have some sentimental attachment to them but you don't have room to keep them and don't want to throw them away, you can always check with a state or county historical society and they would maybe take them and keep them in better storage than you ever could. They usually even name the collection after you so your great-grandkids could come and find them. I'm a big history dork. I have all my little notes and cards from when I was really little and I plan to lug them off to the State Historical Society one day. It seems pretty stupid to most people ("It's in the past, who cares?!" and "Who is really ever going to want to look at those again?"), but I've been through really old letters and other documents, and it is really cool to read through them and get a feeling for how people thought back then, what they did, etc. I found an old tape of my great-grandfather and I was just stoked! So even though you're not an important person with any historical significance, someone, somewhere will care, like family. Take me for example, I might have a niece or nephew some day who might want to find out what crazy Aunt Tess was like when she was little. But I guess Ovalbird needs to get off Facebook or something before that will happen...

And if you really want to know, you could always check some magazine collector or rare book Web sites. Yahoo has a list at http://dir.yahoo.com/Recreation/Hobbies/Collecting/Magazines/