Hi.
I volunteer annually at a used-book sale that has become major.
Sometimes we have quite interesting late-19th-century magazines among
our Special offerings, but they usually don't sell unless they're in
"fine" condition or better, which magazines rarely are.
Here's what we've been doing with some of such items, as well as old
illustrated books beyond repair: we remove the attractive and/or
interesting pages, mat them, and offer them for sale separately as
prints. Priced at $1 to $5 each, they sell very well--usually we have
none left at the end of the sale.
It's not an original idea: some book dealers and decorators have been
doing this forever with book illustrations. If you're at a book
auction and see busy bidding for a tattered volume (or even a not-
tattered volume) with a lot of illustrations, you're probably seeing
bidders who plan to sell the books one page at a time as Art. Once
framed, these pages can sell for a tidy sum (much of which is
understood by the purchaser to be the value of the framing). One of
my favorite restaurants some years ago was decorated entirely with
framed botanical prints, pages of old botanical books--the prints
were all the lovelier for the foxing on the paper. I'll bet they paid
their decorator through the nose. I just hope the original books were
already falling apart and past intact preservation, not savaged just
for the sake of the pictures!
I mention this to (1) reassure you that in the case of old magazines
you're probably not violating the rules of ephemera preservation, or
at least many have done so before you, and (2) alert you that as
separate pages you might have some marketable images. My local
antiques/consignment shop takes matted pages as described above, and
they seem to move pretty well (to people who will frame them and
either hang them or sell them, obviously). In fact, you'd probably be
doing something constructive toward sharing what you have by breaking
it up.
So I'd say go ahead and remove the pages that are of interest and use
to you, and then look objectively at what you have left. Recycle the
pages that have no appeal (but look carefully, especially at any
short stories or poems that might be in the text, just in case you've
got a Famous Author), and then invest in some standard-size mats for
the pages that you think might interest someone. Mat, slide into
plastic bags that will fit them snugly, and take them down to an
antiques/collectibles/consignments shop and see what happens.
Best wishes,
Ruth Anne Baumgartner
scholar gypsy and amateur costumer
and volunteer pricer/sorter/coordinator of sale volunteers, Pequot
Library Used Book Sale, Southport, CT
On Aug 5, 2009, at 8:50 PM, Laurie Taylor wrote:
Hi,
I've got two magazine boxes (upright-on-the-shelf type) full of
Peterson's
Magazines, late 1800's but missing covers and color plates. They're
generally in pretty poor condition. I'd be willing to bet that
there are
quite a few surviving copies of Peterson's in much better condition
than
these.
I've been debating for years whether to keep these or trash them,
or find
someone who'd want them in spite of their condition. Now I'm
considering
going through them and pulling (carefully) any good pages relating to
fashion and trashing the rest. This idea came out of realizing
that there
are probably some scaleable pattern diagrams in some of these that
might be
worth salvaging.
So, am I breaking some unwritten law of ephemera preservation if I
save the
best parts of these and trash the rest? Apart from the fashion/
costume
content, I can't really see much use for them. They're not
displayable.
Any thoughts?
Thanks.
Laurie T.
Phoenix
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