The magawiki used to be part of this site, but then I broke it off and sent it into its own space last September. A look at the site shows how enthusiastically I kept it up for the first few months and then how the posts dwindled until June when I apparently stopped posting altogether. I had another reminder of why I love old magazines today when I was prepping some back issues of Time for tonight’s eBay listings.
I keep the magawiki online because it’s intention is to help you find those hidden gems inside old magazine back issues. It started by mistake, simply because I cataloged my findings for myself whenever I listed something for sale, figuring (correctly) that it would save a lot of time when I had the same issue to list in the future. It takes a lot of time to compile each magazine’s contents, which is ironic in that the original reason for bothering to do so was to save myself the time of answering all of the inquiries I’d receive on each issue back when I listed them more vaguely.
Time is a title that I’ve never really bothered to include complete contents inside my listings. Two reasons, first, it’s hard to do so–articles are brief which would lead to a couple of hundred lines of descriptive text for each listing. And second, I don’t see much of a reason to include them inside the magawiki since Time itself makes everything available and searchable in its own archives database. Anything I put online for them would be inferior.
That said, I still do page through every issue to note the big stuff. (Also to check condition, missing pages and cut-outs are a very unhappy buyer surprise I work to prevent.) Tonight’s batch of 10 issues all featured Hollywood and celebrity covers including the 1941 George Petty cover of Rita Hayworth and the 1952 cover of Lucille Ball. That stuff is obviously good upon first inspection. But the fun stuff is inside. That’s where the surprises lurk.
Today I discovered that inside the August 23, 1948 issue featuring Betty Grable on the cover is a far too brief notice covering the death of Babe Ruth. That sort of item I add to my item listing as the Bambino’s name tends to help items be found when buyers search. Another fun one was in the November 22, 1948 issue featuring Tallulah Bankhead on the cover. Paging through I noticed the top item in the Milestone section mentioning that Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip had had their first child. The four or five line notice concludes: Name: unannounced. I just find that so fascinating that in that one brief moment in time before the magazine went to press the fellow who’d come to grace so many newspaper and magazine covers over the past few decades was on the scene but was yet to even have a name! That’d be Prince Charles, of course.
Now these little items typically don’t add value to a sales listing, but I get a personal kick out of finding them and I tend to think they may help an otherwise orphaned issue sell a bit faster. But when I head back to my scanner after thinking all of my images are done, well then I’m showing something off that I think might make what’s inside the magazine better than the outside of the issue.
No disrespect to Claire Bloom, but she doesn’t sell and she, along with Rosemary Clooney, was clearly among the least interesting covers in today’s batch of ten (Others I listed today that have gone unmentioned: Katharine Hepburn, Olivia De Havilland, Ava Gardner and Betty Hutton). To make matters worse, paging through I discovered that the center page had come detached from the binding–it was included but laid inside the issue instead of firmly affixed by its staples. I reached the Cinema section inside this November 17, 1952 issue of Time, and sure enough the feature was all about Claire Bloom. But I guess in keeping with the phrase under her name on the front cover, A Star Is Born, it also includes two full-page full-color portraits of other rising actresses, one of Marilyn Monroe with Zsa Zsa Gabor on the other side of the page.
Well, I had to scan Marilyn and include it in the listing! You’ll find that image below. It’s interesting to note the caption under Marilyn’s image:
MARILYN MONROE A full-blown, 26 year-old answer to the prayers of Hollywood for a sexy showpiece, she worked as a model before landing bit parts in pictures, hit the publicity jackpot with 1) nude calendar art, 2) a warm friendship with ex-Yankee centerfielder Joe DiMaggio. Her acting talents, if any, run a needless second to her moist “come-on” look, which will next be seen in Niagara and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
By no means of super value, but a nice find and hopefully an affordable addition to somebody’s Marilyn collection. After all, she can be pricey!
Note: A Marilyn Monroe item from the other end of the price spectrum to be discussed next time …
Bid and Buy:
TIME Magazine Back Issues inside my eBay Store
(8 of the 10 issues I listed today will be found at auction beginning at prices of $9.99 and under. The Lucy and Rita issues are priced a bit higher, but do include the Best Offer feature, so feel free to send offers over through the eBay system. Worse I can do is say no, or more than likely counter-offer you.)
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