does anyone here collect magazines?

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if so, how many do you have?
is it worth keeping magazines?
i have about four piles, each taller than one metre, sitting in my room. i read them occasionally, but im not sure i need them now and am thinking of selling them off or giving them away. part of me wants to keep them for research purposes, just in case, and also cos i like them, and occasionally like flicking through old issues to see what was happening in that particular week/month etc but mag-hoarding must only be the vice of a precious few.

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 19:59 (twenty-one years ago)

when i read magazines i tear out the articles that I want to save and then leave the rest of the magazine somewhere (laundromat, bus, by the mail in your apartment building).

― S!monB!rch (Carey), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:04 (twenty-one years ago)

do you not have exceedingly large files now though?

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Not on purpose.

I have to goosestep around the piles in my studio.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:06 (twenty-one years ago)

I save them for the articles. I go back to read them for the advertisements.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:06 (twenty-one years ago)

― RJG (RJG), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:07 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't really tear out that many articles. Maybe 1 every 3 issues. Magazines for the most part are bad and repetitive. I think I have a subscription to 10 magazines now. INCLUDING VIBE! I feel like I was trying to launder money or something.

― S!monB!rch (Carey), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:09 (twenty-one years ago)

vibe has great ads.

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:15 (twenty-one years ago)

I keep all my Juxtapoz, Shot and Readymade magazines and occasionally buy LensWork/Blind Spot/Aperture to keep. Anything else, I just rip out the pages I want to keep or read it at the bookstore.

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:25 (twenty-one years ago)

I seem to have difficulty in throwing magazines away. I went up in the loft a couple of days ago to hunt down the sox surviving issues of Smash Hits from my childhood (The Reynolds Girls! Rick Astley! A-ha doing strange things with a stuffed panther!), and came across a huge stack of NMEs, a run of Empire from 1997-2005, two years' worth of Select. Then, I discovered about fifty issues of Computer & Video Games, the last two years of ACE, loads of Your Sinclair with no covers, some Crashes, and yes, even a few Sinclair Users. But no Smash Hits. Victory was finally achieved after searching through a box containing issues #65-332 of Transformers UK and MASK: The Comic. I now have the lyrics for Taja Seville's "Love Is Contagious", so I'm happy.

I am a fire hazard waiting to happen.

― carson dial (carson dial), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:25 (twenty-one years ago)

I do this, but am trying to clear most of it out. For a while I subscribed to the Village Voice, and kept them for movie/music reference use. I ended up with about 2 1-meter stacks, with the newer ones mostly unread. I thought about giving them to a library (I would have tried craigslist if it was around then) but ended up sending them to the city's recycling center. (Saving the Pazz and Jop sections.) I have some High Fidelity mags from the early 80s (new-fangled CD technology!) that I'll probably get rid of, and some Slash mags from the same era that I'll save. I get Dwell now (www.dwellmag.com) that I'll save too.

― nickn (nickn), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:36 (twenty-one years ago)

I think my parents still have my favorite Cricket magazines stashed in the garage. Otherwise I don't collect magazines on purpose, they just start stacking up.

― teeny (teeny), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:47 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm not sure if I've ever thrown out a magazine. I have drawers full plus a big stack in the bathroom. A lot of design and music mags.

― Thermo Thinwall (Thermo Thinwall), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:53 (twenty-one years ago)

oh i dont collect on purpose either, theyve just mounted up and i cant seem to bear to chuck them.

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 21:08 (twenty-one years ago)

We just bought a tasteful basket for this very purpose.

― .ada.m. (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 21:08 (twenty-one years ago)

I think my parents still have my favorite Cricket magazines stashed in the garage.

I found a whole box of these in my closet the other night. 1979 - 1983. This imaginary kid that I might never have better enjoy all of this crap.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 22:03 (twenty-one years ago)

everything i've regretted throwing away has been magazines

― lolita corpus (lolitacorpus), Thursday, 20 January 2005 00:05 (twenty-one years ago)

I've kept piles and piles of magazines for years. I won't throw away Spins, because they're not in the Library of Congress, but the one person who attempted to get copies from me via mail ended up realizing I'm as slow at mailing as I am at getting rid of magazines.

I think I might recycle my Nations. I have every issue from the late '80s, with gaps here and there.

― Pete Scholtes, Thursday, 20 January 2005 00:54 (twenty-one years ago)

there might be an ebay market for old magazines.

― teeny (teeny), Thursday, 20 January 2005 01:30 (twenty-one years ago)

I have a lot of magazines that I keep - not whole series though. I have two excellent copies of Soviet Life from the 70s.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 20 January 2005 01:31 (twenty-one years ago)

I've kept a stack of Playboy mags from 65-75 or thereabouts, most in reasonably good condition. I had high hopes of doing a room with Gahan Wilson's cartoons, but never got around to it. I did keep a room, however, with wall-to-wall centerfolds for a few years when I was single. My future mother-in-law thought it was pretty cool.

― jim wentworth (wench), Thursday, 20 January 2005 02:26 (twenty-one years ago)

I AM NOT A CORRECTOR

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 20 January 2005 02:56 (twenty-one years ago)

I keep Art related magazines. Artforum especially. Everything else going into a pile which festers until I cut the interesting pictures out of them and then throw the remains away.

― world's best grandpa (deangulberry), Thursday, 20 January 2005 03:05 (twenty-one years ago)

i have about 5 years of Wireds (from the first english issue. interesting how you can guage the health of the technology sector by the spine width of wired (seasonally adjusted)), Linux Format from issue 9 (mandrake 7.2, christmas 5 years ago?), Knowledge from about issue 7, and a big pile of ST Format at Home that i found over christmas. and a couple of years worth of 2000ad.

saturday and sunday magazines get recycled minus the articles i want to read every month or so but i now have about 6 inches of articles i want to read but will never get around to. did the same with about 7 years of What Hi-Fi recently, keeping all the reviews of things i had or particularly shiny things. still have lots of NME and MM clippings from the 3 ft pile i demolished 5 or so years ago.

― koogs (koogs), Thursday, 20 January 2005 11:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Have/had large collections of Mojo, Uncut, Word, Q, Select, Vox, Word. I never throw magazines away though at the same time I never go back and read them either. The Q's,Vox and Select got thrown out last time but one that I moved. Not that bothered about the Uncut's but I can see that the Mojo's probably have a lot of great stuff that might be good to revisit at some point. Someone needs to knock up a full index of all the reviews and articles in every issue though so I can find things quickly rather than having to hunt through 20 issues to find what I want. Surprised no-one's been anal enough to do this online yet.

I did have another collection of magazines (*ahem*) under my bed for years when I stayed with my parents but those went out about 8 years ago.

― mms (mms), Thursday, 20 January 2005 11:11 (twenty-one years ago)

somewhere in a damp shed in cambridge are all my old nmes, melody makers and selects. i don't just keep magazines, i buy old ones, film ones. recently i 'inherited' a bunch of old 'films and filming' and 'sight and sound' and 'cahiers du cinema' magazines. carried about a tonne home on the 134.

― Miles Finch, Thursday, 20 January 2005 11:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Let's see, I have a gigantic pile of music magazines dating back to 1991 in my garden shed. It's a mixture of Q, Mojo, Select, Vox, NME, Melody Maker, Uncut and what ever else British music mags have been published in that timeframe.
I've got at least one magazine for every month from then on. I was actively collecting them at one point and then I stopped caring about collecting and they just continued to build up.
I also used to have a decade's worth of spectrum and amiga magazines that I was forced to throw out by my parent's when we moved house.

I'm tempted to chuck them all.

― Greig (treefell), Thursday, 20 January 2005 11:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Get scanners and archive for the good of mankind.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Thursday, 20 January 2005 11:59 (twenty-one years ago)

I have two excellent copies of Soviet Life from the 70s.
That is really fucking cool!

― Thermo Thinwall (Thermo Thinwall), Thursday, 20 January 2005 15:46 (twenty-one years ago)

"there might be an ebay market for old magazines"

I bought a huge stack of old italian design magazines once outside of a bookstore for 50 cents an issue and gave them to maria to sell on ebay and they went for 20 to 30 dollars a pop! great investment. most of the people who bought them were from Italy too. Domus magazine. If you see any lying around from the 50s/60s, scoop them up.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 20 January 2005 15:54 (twenty-one years ago)

I've gotten rid of a lot of my old magazines. I was out of hand with the hoarding for years. I would buy old weird stuff and hold on to stuff for no reason. now i just keep my mojos and my ugly things and my metal mags. i still keep my old fangorias too for sentimental reasons. But keeping piles of old new yorkers and vanity fairs and that kinda thing around? And stacks of architectural digests from the 80's that I scavenged somewere? I'm, luckily, over that obsession. Plus, you know, I need room for the thousands of records and books.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 20 January 2005 15:59 (twenty-one years ago)

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