Old magazines...what do you guys do with them?

[DICKEYBIRD]

My previous hobby/obsession was model aircraft (the flying type) and I have a large collection of magazines going back to 1980 up through the middle 2000's. Radio Control Modeler, Model Aviation, Flying Models, etc. Most of them are organized in proper magazine storage boxes. I need the space for collecting more machining stuff and am real close to just putting them out on the curb & turning my back. Oddly enough my wife is worried that one of my grandchildren may get the bug someday & want to see how we used to do it. Of course I'll hang onto the ones that have my articles & designs published in them but the other ones won't make much sense to them. Anyone here have any suggestions/advice/mental health provider recommendations?

[Arcane]

I have several boxes filled with car magazines mostly from the 70's and 80's. I also have a few hundred science fiction and fantasy novels. I don't know if anyone will ever want to read them again but I do know that if I get rid of them no one will ever have the opportunity to read them so I save them...in the hopes they will someday add to someone's enjoyment.

[ed_h]

I've never had any luck selling old hobby magazines, but they we we always pretty easy to give away.

Ed

[Jim Williams]

Magazines got to be a big problem for me. I had subscribed to a lot of car publications, gun publications, watch and clock stuff, plus many others. I cut my magazine subscriptions way back and try to read things that I stopped by going to a library regularly. I gave the accumulated stuff I felt was important to people who seem to appreciate it and now try to pass along the stuff I still get just after I read it. I had friends who died with big accumulations that their family trashed after they were gone. The money realized from trying to sell this sort of stuff is usually not worth the trouble. Looks as if I may also have to give away some surplus equipment like single lip cutter grinders, because no one seems interested in buying them.

[AD5MB]

take them to the laundromat. a dozen at a time. they will find a home.

[loose nut]

ignore this

[J Tiers]

I have put them on Craig's list, and everytime they left, and left me some $$.

So far they have been old computer magazins, but the old issues of 73 and of Audio are next. I do not anticipate much trouble getting rid of them to a new owner. A relatively large metropolitan area does not hurt.

[loose nut]

I have a large collection of magazines going back to 1980 :

1980, amateur.

I just inherited a second set of Model Engineer magazines that I promised would go to a good home. Once I amalgamate the new ones with my own set I will have an almost complete set back to Vol.1 (1898 to 2006, digital versions after that to present. Missing many of them from 1904 to early 1920's), the second set will go back to 1925 or there about's. Now I have to find a home for them, there is only a few thousand of them. It isn't like I can ship them to somebody, cost, so I'm limited to someone in pick up range and when I say pickup they will fill one, cab included maybe more then one trip.

I feel your pain.

[jmm03]

Do you have a VA facility or some old folks homes in your area? If you can't sell them on craigslist perhaps they could be donated. I have a hard time parting with magazines and books myself. Jim

[burdickjp]

Find a local member owned makerspace and donate them there.
Find a public library or non-profit museum with a makerspace and donate them there.

I think it'd be cool to do some projects out of old magazines as a class at a makerspace.

[Dan Dubeau]

I gave up trying to keep them, so My wife took them into work to spread around to the various waiting rooms at her work (childrens hospital). I'm sure there are a few Dads out there that have since appreciated reading some old WOOD magazines, or Inside Motorcycles, Roadracing world etc, as opposed to chatelaine, or better homes and gardens. I wish I would have thought of it before she took them in, but I was featured in a couple inside motorcycle articles back around 2008/9 and would have liked to cut out those articles to save, but it's too late now. Not a big enough deal to try and find back issues.

[Paul Alciatore]

Two suggestions:

Your local library. Most will take donations readily.

Offer them here for shipping cost.

[J Tiers]

Libraries here are tossing that stuff as fast as they can.

It's OLD, irrelevant, the library folks have no idea what it is anyhow (literary folks can be even worse than lawyers for being clueless), and it is (gasp, choke) actual printed material, not a computer file.

[mihit]

I tend to give them to people who will get use of them, I don't know how many tonnes of paper I've moved over the years but they do me no good in boxes.

[6270 Productions]

I am the president of a 501.c3 non-profit organization. We have a military museum and military library as well as a local history museum.

www.ariseatlantic.org

We have newspapers dating back to World War I and magazines dating prior to World War I.

I urge you to not throw them away. All you have to do is keep them (or find someone else to keep them) for one hundred years or so. "Somebody" at that time will really appreciate having them, if only for a display.