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Does Anybody Here Collect really Old National Geographics?

maxwedgechar

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Now that I am Max Wedgeless I’ve decided to work on some of my hobbies. In 1966, my Scout Troop, before curbside recycling, would collect newspapers, monthly, as a troop competition and the local scrap yard would leave us a dumpster. About 1 yard high of papers was worth 100 pounds. The Scout with highest total got a prize. We accepted near any paper. If there was anything interesting I would swap it out against my total. I got Kennedy Assassination stuff, space program, car magazines, it’s where I found out about Maxes and Hemis and, wait for it…… National Geographics from the ‘Teens and the Twenties. Then in 1981 the guy I was working for asked me if I wanted his father’s collection. SURE! His father’s collection was near complete from 1910 to 1960 and his oldest was the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake issue!

I would go to flea markets and antique shops looking for Pre-1910 issues. I would occasionally find one or two and then came eBay! I started buying what I could afford. Then I came up against something that I finally found out about. Issues from about 1906 on are less expensive than 1905 back. Sometime in 1905 they started publishing pictures of bare breasted native women and the membership took off exponentially! Oh, but I read it for the articles!

I met a guy through eBay who I’ve been buying from monthly for about 5 years. He is a retired high end National Geographic dealer. Right now I am to the point where I have January 1904 on to about 2017 when my late wife’s membership ran out and my oldest is 1893. He has offered to sell me everything I need including issue number one either in a bound volume by year or individual issues so I would only need four issues to complete the collection. And yes, for a whole lot of money!

Does anybody else have the National Geographic Magazine Madness like I do? And I also have my 1961 Baseball card collection where I only need 10 out of about 600!
 
I read an article a long time ago. How the east coast was tilting the continent and would eventually break off. The cause was contributed to the fact that everybody on the east coast saved national geographic magazines and the weight was having the effect.
 
Two years ago I made a deal with my friend and ended up with 55 file boxes of National Geographic inventory covering from 1890 to 2016! I did an inventory which amounted to 1500 lines on Excel and 2500 pieces! I have had it on eBay now for 3 months and nobody has stepped up. I figured out that there is $40,000 in eBay retail value and I've got a buy it now for $2,000!

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I always enjoyed reading National Geographic. I think the magazine helped me get into backpacking, scuba diving and the outdoors. Anyway, for a long time, I kept all my issues. I had them from the mid 70's through the mid 90's. But in the mid 90's, drowning for space, I got rid of them (for nothing).

People collect all kinds of things. Some keep their value and other things seem to lose the public's interest. When my dad tried to sell my grandfather's stamp collection all we heard was crickets. My dad finally sold them in bulk for pennies.

The bottom line for me is collect what you like and enjoy without doing it as an "investment". My cars are worth something today, but they may be worth very little in the future. I don't care. I do it because I enjoy them.

If you enjoy (and can afford) your National Geographic collection - keep doing so and don't worry what everyone else thinks.
 
National Geographic and similar publications like Encyclopedia Britannica lost their appeal when the Internet started to take off back in the mid '90's.

The value in stamp collecting is sadly now limited to a very small number of high value pieces that only rich people can afford.

Coin collecting suffered a similar fate - where most coins are only worth bullion value....scrap in other words. Not many coins are attracting the interest of desirability they once did.

The younger generations have little to no interest in anything apart from instant gratification on social media.
 
We got Readers Digest and national Geographic at our house growing up and everyone (5 kids 2 parents) read them cover to cover. We also had hundreds of books. We all still read and pass books around the family.
 
Two years ago I made a deal with my friend and ended up with 55 file boxes of National Geographic inventory covering from 1890 to 2016! I did an inventory which amounted to 1500 lines on Excel and 2500 pieces! I have had it on eBay now for 3 months and nobody has stepped up. I figured out that there is $40,000 in eBay retail value and I've got a buy it now for $2,000!

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Cranium would never leave the house with all those to look at!
 
I switched to Playboy and Penthouse when I was about 13.


For the articles and anatomy studies....
Same as above, but also many great ads for the GTX and Charger R/T. December '68 issue had my favorite GTX ad of all, "suggested for mature audiences." An uncle gave it to me the day after I drove the Demonstrator. I now fit the demographic. Cynthia Myers made history that issue as the first playmate born in the 1950s. She has passed on, but the car is still with us.
 
We got Readers Digest and national Geographic at our house growing up and everyone (5 kids 2 parents) read them cover to cover. We also had hundreds of books. We all still read and pass books around the family.

My mother got monthly Readers Digest also. It was always good bathroom reading at our house in the 70s and 80s.
 
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