Old magazines

[Rick Potter]

OK, lets just say that I have spent a lifetime saving my old magazines. I have pop science and pop mech mags that go back to the 60's. I have car mags that do the same......hundreds of them. I have WW mags back to the late 70's, more hundreds.

Now, lets say I have run out of room, the wife needs the space, and I have internet access to many of them anyway, although I much prefer leafing through a mag.

I will keep some of the ones I like best, but the rest simply have to go. I refuse to throw them away, I don't want to try selling them one at a time on E-bay, but they still have to go. Craigs list maybe?

Are there places that will buy these things? If not, I would appreciate suggestions on who I could donate them to. I hate to see them thrown away at Goodwill. There used to be used books stores that carried such things, but they seem to be extinct.

Maybe I should just build another garden shed :o .

[mike holden]

Went through this about a year ago. Took them all to a recycling center. Tough to let them go, but I have not missed them. I do have all the woodworking mags on disc, so that data is still there, but my other mags are gone.
It is a tough moment, but really it is for the best.
Mike

[Steve Peterson]

You might be able to give them away on CL, but it seems unlikely that you would be able to find a buyer willing to pay significant amounts. It doesn't cost anything to try though.

Most magazines at the local Goodwill sell for 25 cents and it looks like they sit there for a while.

Ebay seems like it has a much bigger audience. Some of the asking prices are a few dollars per mag. Don't know if they actually sell.

Steve

[Ed Labadie]

Had the same issue a few years ago, car magazines from the 70's & 80's.

Put a free add on CL, they were gone in 1 hour. :D

Ed

[Chris Padilla]

I've finally (I think) had all my subscriptions end. No more magazine for me. I do have a decent collection (not near yours) but were I to get rid of mine, I would simply toss them in the recycle bin and not think twice about it. The CL route sounds best, however. There are probably people looking for such things for various projects...who knows?!

[Mike Null]

I gave all mine away except for FWW. Those are stored in several places including on a shelf under my home-made kitchen table for my perusal during morning coffee.

[Dan Hintz]

When my father cleaned out his collections of mags (Pop Science, Pop Mechanics, Byte, etc.) a few years back, he gave them all to me. I thumbed through each one VERY fast, looking for articles of interest... I probably tore out 30-40 pages from hundreds upon hundreds of magazines. Was it worth my time? Sort of... got a few useful ideas, but no way t measure the return on my investment. Everything not used immediately went into the recycle bin.

The only thing I kept were Invention & Technology mag (Smithsonian)... articles are well written/researched and detailed. I may eventually grab a few articles and toss the rest of those, as well.

[Randy Red Bemont]

I would give the CL a quick try and see if they go. Otherwise, take them to the recycle bin and don't look back. You will enjoy the floor space they are taking up. Good luck.

Red

[M Toupin]

Went through this several years back. I had full collections of FWW, Wood and several others including metal working mags like Home Machinist. Hated to get rid of them but they took up a LOT of space. Tried selling them on CL but I couldn't even give them away. About that time I picked up a decent printer/scanner with ADF and duplex scanning capability. On a whim I cut the spine off one and fed it through and converted them to PDF, worked like a charm! I don't often look though them but it is nice when I'm looking for a project or a specific edition to have it on hand. Working a little at a time I scanned all 600+ and keep them on a external drive, about 600gb in all.

Mike

[Chris Parks]

Been there and done that. All the car mags went but the big collection was National Geographic, every issue sine 1965 and I had to just about beg someone to take them. I offered the whole lot to the local library and got a no thanks which surprised me but eventually I found someone who took them. the other thousands pf books I had went into the recycle and my Kindle is my friend these days with no regrets. Magazines are read on a big 27" screen, how anyone can read a PDF on a small one even a laptop is a mystery to me.

[Greg R Bradley]

I am condensing offices at work and just hauled home three pickup loads of magazines to store. Easily 4,000 pounds of paper. I had one 12'x12' office with 3 wall lined with bookshelves up to the 10'ceiling. I tossed what I could and I'm left with car magazines that take up almost 30' of shelf space. National Geographic, Architectural Digest, and Sunset taking up almost that much. When I finish remodeling, I can't see having this much shelf space so some will have to go but what would go?

Has to be golden to someone but I'm not sure I care anymore..........

[John Stankus]

Don't forget retirement homes and senior centers sometimes like to get a library of magazines.

[Matt Schroeder]

My dentist could use some updating of his office magazines. 1965 Nat'l Geo would be newer than some of what is there...

[Bruce Page]

I inherited boxes of them from my FIL before he passed. I held on to them for several years and finally threw them in the recycle bin. For sentimental reasons I hated to do that but I needed the space. I recycle all of my current subscriptions to a couple of friends.

[Dave Lehnert]

In the same boat right now.
My collection goes back to around the late 1980's.
I have convinced myself that if I needed to look something up I would not be able to find them quick if at all anyway. So I dont need them,
I have let all my Woodworking mags run out and just this month now subscribe to Popular Woodworking digital edition on my Amazon Kindle Fire. I like it so far because the magazines (I think) are kept forever on the cloud . If I need to find a magazine it will be as easy as going to my Amazon account and download it.
I have two other non-woodworking digital magazines I subscribe to for some time now and every back issue I purchased is always available to me.
Time Magazine digital lets you go back and read any (Or most) back issues as long as you are a subscriber. Just the other day I heard about a magazine story I was interested in from 1997 Time Magazine and I was able to find and read it in just minutes.

[Rick Potter]

I was afraid I would get answers like this. I guess it's nice to know I am not alone. I will try CL, and then I will continue to give some to friends who would appreciate them, and the rest to Goodwill.

Thanks guys.

[Wayne Lovell]

If there is a Half Price bookstore (this is the actual name of the chain not just a generic description of used bookstores) in your area you might call them, most of them have a used magazine section but I have not noticed woodworking magazines. If not call some of the recycling places that buy paper, a long time ago we had a "coffee fund" at the company I worked for they used to ask people to bring their old news papers etc. and would take them to a place near us and sell them. For a while they got pretty good money for them and then the market got glutted and they almost had to beg them to take them the last time they took any. I repeat that this was a long long time ago and I have no idea what the current market is on used paper.

[Jim Becker]

I recycle such things. With few exceptions, they have almost no value.

[Greg R Bradley]

Just find the next guy that knows they must be valuable and saves them. That's how I ended up with so much. I can generally count on anything I save turning out to be worthless and the stuff I toss or sell cheap ending up valuable.

[Brian Henderson]

I'm in the middle of packing for a move and I had the same problem. Tons of magazines that I really don't want to take with me. I haven't looked at them in years. I haven't even thought about them in years. I just dumped them all in the recycling bin. They aren't worth anything, nobody wants them, let them be recycled.

[Matt Day]

I sold about 100 woodworking and remodeling mags recently on CL for $30. Sold in a day or two. Better than nothing, and I'm glad they found a new home and to get rid of them.

[Rick Potter]

Well, I just took over 200 Workbench magazines to the local Habitat ReStore. They said they were glad to get them. I plan to go back in a week or so, and see if they sold. If so, I will start with the Pop Mech, and Pop Sci collection.

[Joe Tilson]

Don't forget the local thrift stores. We have one a couple of blocks away. This is where we take ours. So far, after putting them on the shelves, they seem to be purchased within a week or so. The ladies who run the store say that people do buy them.

[Curt Harms]

Went through this several years back. I had full collections of FWW, Wood and several others including metal working mags like Home Machinist. Hated to get rid of them but they took up a LOT of space. Tried selling them on CL but I couldn't even give them away. About that time I picked up a decent printer/scanner with ADF and duplex scanning capability. On a whim I cut the spine off one and fed it through and converted them to PDF, worked like a charm! I don't often look though them but it is nice when I'm looking for a project or a specific edition to have it on hand. Working a little at a time I scanned all 600+ and keep them on a external drive, about 600gb in all.

Mike

space
I'm doing similar but just cut out the pages that are or may be of interest. You can get a lot of pages in a pretty small place . I don't have a duplex scanner so it takes a little longer.