Where To Sell Magazines?

[jpdenk]

I'm new here, stumbled across the site as a result of a Google search for vintage video game magazine info. I'm an old geezerly video game player going back to the days prior to the Atari VCS, had the stand-alone Pong games and the Atari Video Pinball console, but anyway, I have a small collection of magazines mainly from the early '80's: first 10 issues of Electronic Games, first 5 issues of Videogaming Illustrated, issues #1 and 2 of Gamepro, first 4 issues of Video Games and Computer Entertainment, first issue (Fall 1982) of Video Games Player, first issue of Electronic Fun with Computers & Games, first newsstand issue (vol.1 #2) of Atarians, Video Games (published by Pumpkin Press) issues # 1,2,3,4,5,8, Electronic Games version 2 from October 1992 issue #1, and the Premiere issue of Arcade the Video Game Magazine. Almost all of them were looked through once, with care, and then bagged with an acid-free backer, so most are in VF+/NM/M condition, exceptions being Electronic Games #1 and 2 which are VG/VG+.

I'm considering selling them, not sure if I want to or not, but I'm hoping that I could get some advice as to what would be the best way to do that. I'm seeing mention of Ebay sales, guess that may be the best option? If I get some spare time, I'll try to scan the ones that aren't available here so that people will have access to digital versions of them, as I have a decent scanner and am well-versed in Photoshop, so if I can find the time to do the scanning and post-processing, I will.

John

Edited June 4, 2009 by jpdenk

[triverse]

Wow. You have some rare issues there. If you are open to scanning anything can I make a few requests? I can go through and compare what you have and we don't have anywhere else if you don't mind. I am sure there are a few members here that would like to discuss purchases with you. If no satisfactory offers are made, you could go the ebay route as there are a couple of resellers that will sometimes sell a kidney for issues they need.

Welcome to the site by the way. As far as editing, if you find that you don't have time for it we can work out something for storing the unedited files till a member here can edit them for you to save time if need be.

[jpdenk]

Wow. You have some rare issues there. If you are open to scanning anything can I make a few requests? I can go through and compare what you have and we don't have anywhere else if you don't mind. I am sure there are a few members here that would like to discuss purchases with you. If no satisfactory offers are made, you could go the ebay route as there are a couple of resellers that will sometimes sell a kidney for issues they need.

Welcome to the site by the way. As far as editing, if you find that you don't have time for it we can work out something for storing the unedited files till a member here can edit them for you to save time if need be.

Wow, that was a quick reply! Yes, let me know which issues you'd like scanned and I'll see what I can do. I'm unsure of what the magazines are worth, have seen some vague references suggesting that some, particularly the Electronic Games issues, are fairly expensive, so I'm at a disadvantage when it comes to fielding any offers I might receive here. Due to that, an Ebay auction may be a better option if I decide to sell anything. I see one Ebay seller who has a store specializing in gaming mags, and seems to be offering them at "Buy it now" prices mainly, but I don't know if people are actually buying at his prices.

Thanks,

John

[triverse]

I am working on the list now. I am able to be around a computer most of the day and can take advantage of quick responses to questions from members (might say, I am dedicated to this project or just weird, either way ).

You are talking about Bill Mario Man I am sure on ebay. Yeah, he has a lot of magazines, you can search for videogame magazine and then on the left, look for 'complete auctions' and then click that. Anything that has been getting sold lately (and stuff that closed without selling) will be listed there, not sure how long back it goes, probably a week or so. Taking a quick look, not much is selling for much right now. I would personally hold onto them as you certainly are in possession of some very rare key items in gaming history there.

If you are strapped for cash and need to unload them then you could either post them on ebay with Buy it nows similar to BMM's prices or just slightly lower or contact him and ask for an offer (he will probably want pictures and other proof of condition, I am not sure as I have never sold to him or bought from him). I do know that he has been sitting on a lot of those issues for quite awhile (since I joined here over a year ago and started looking hard at ebay for magazines).

I have a preliminary list now:

Arcade the Video Game Magazine #1

Atarians V1i2

Electronic Fun with Computers and Games #1 (uploaded)

Electronic Games 80's 1-10 (#1 uploaded, 2-10 available)

Electronic Games 90's 1

Gamepro 1 and 2 (#1 uploaded)

Videogaming Illustrated 1-5 (need months on these)

Video Games (Pumpkin Press) 1-5, 8 (january 83 uploaded)

Video Games and Computer Entertainment 1-4

Video Games Player #1

I know Electronic Games 80's run is being worked on hard by kitsune and waremonger at the moment.

I would personally like to see VG&CE #1-4 scanned, as I am sure one of our alumni members, Gamedoctor would too (the same Game Doctor that wrote for VG&CE and many others).

If possible could you list the months for the Videogaming Illustrated issues? Another member has scanned many of them and I am editing them now but they didn't number their issues.

Thanks, it is greatly appreciated.

[Phillyman]

Welcome, one thing immediately jumps out at me......The Second issue of Gamepro? You own that? Any chance you would be willing to part with it? Or lend it to me for a week

[E-Day]

Welcome, one thing immediately jumps out at me......The Second issue of Gamepro? You own that? Any chance you would be willing to part with it? Or lend it to me for a week

Indeed. It's the only one that one on on the site before you has. It's the last missing one!

[jpdenk]

I am working on the list now. I am able to be around a computer most of the day and can take advantage of quick responses to questions from members (might say, I am dedicated to this project or just weird, either way ).

You are talking about Bill Mario Man I am sure on ebay. Yeah, he has a lot of magazines, you can search for videogame magazine and then on the left, look for 'complete auctions' and then click that. Anything that has been getting sold lately (and stuff that closed without selling) will be listed there, not sure how long back it goes, probably a week or so. Taking a quick look, not much is selling for much right now. I would personally hold onto them as you certainly are in possession of some very rare key items in gaming history there.

If you are strapped for cash and need to unload them then you could either post them on ebay with Buy it nows similar to BMM's prices or just slightly lower or contact him and ask for an offer (he will probably want pictures and other proof of condition, I am not sure as I have never sold to him or bought from him). I do know that he has been sitting on a lot of those issues for quite awhile (since I joined here over a year ago and started looking hard at ebay for magazines).

I have a preliminary list now:

Arcade the Video Game Magazine #1

Atarians V1i2

Electronic Fun with Computers and Games #1 (uploaded)

Electronic Games 80's 1-10 (#1 uploaded, 2-10 available)

Electronic Games 90's 1

Gamepro 1 and 2 (#1 uploaded)

Videogaming Illustrated 1-5 (need months on these)

Video Games (Pumpkin Press) 1-5, 8 (january 83 uploaded)

Video Games and Computer Entertainment 1-4

Video Games Player #1

I know Electronic Games 80's run is being worked on hard by kitsune and waremonger at the moment.

I would personally like to see VG&CE #1-4 scanned, as I am sure one of our alumni members, Gamedoctor would too (the same Game Doctor that wrote for VG&CE and many others).

If possible could you list the months for the Videogaming Illustrated issues? Another member has scanned many of them and I am editing them now but they didn't number their issues.

Thanks, it is greatly appreciated.

Sure,

First, thanks for all that info and advice.

Videogaming Illustrated #1-August 1982

" " #2-October 1982

" " #3-December 1982

" " #4-February 1983

" " #5-April 1983

Video Games from Pumpkin Press is one that I liked a lot back then, but I don't think they lasted too long, can't say for sure though as I don't remember when they folded. Their dates are:

#1-August 1982

#2-October 1982

#3-December 1982

#4-January 1983 (you have this one)

#5-February 1983

#8-May 1983

The Arcade the Video Game Magazine #1 is a weird one, as I received the first issue for free in the mail, not sure why or how, as I had never heard of it before that. I used to attend the Consumer Electronic Shows in Chicago back in those days, so maybe they got my name somehow through that. I never saw another issue of that one, so it's probably very rare. It was aimed at mature gamers, probably why it went nowhere back then as it was mostly kids playing video games in those days.

I was 26 when the Atari VCS came out, so I was already older than most video game players, and I still enjoy playing games, love my XBox 360, even though it's been in for the RROD 3 times already.

Thanks,

John

[jpdenk]

Indeed. It's the only one that one on on the site before you has. It's the last missing one!

Well, I guess I should scan that one and contribute the scan to the collection then.

And no, I'm not ready to sell any of the magazines right now, maybe some time in the future. I've held onto them for the past 27 years or so, a bit longer won't hurt.

John

[triverse]

These are the Videogaming Illustrated issues that s1500 has sent me so far (I will ask him if he has anymore-or hopefully he will see this thread and chime in).

August 82

April 83

June 83

Just to be sure we are on the same page this is what I have (2 of the covers anyhow):

That is the Videogaming Illustrated you are talking about right?

[jpdenk]

These are the Videogaming Illustrated issues that s1500 has sent me so far (I will ask him if he has anymore-or hopefully he will see this thread and chime in).

August 82

April 83

June 83

Just to be sure we are on the same page this is what I have (2 of the covers anyhow):

(Scans snipped)

That is the Videogaming Illustrated you are talking about right?

Yes, that's the one. Your top scan is #5 and the bottom one is #1. I have both of those.

I'm going to be pretty busy until next week, so I doubt very seriously that I'll be able to start scanning any whole magazines before next Monday or Tuesday at the earliest, but if I get a little time before then, I will try to do some quick scans of the covers of all my magazines and upload them to a Picasa album so you can see what I have. I'll post here if/when that happens.

[triverse]

Thank you very much for the numbers on those (s1500 told me the Tron one was #1 but after that, he wasn't sure, now we know). You saved me many fruitless hours of searching google.

There is no hurry on scanning anything. This project is completely voluntary (every once in awhile someone may make a request though if you have your list available) and you should never feel obligated to do anything unless you want to.

[jpdenk]

I just took out my copy of Gamepro #2 to just see what's in it, and to my dismay, I see that page 41-42 has been cut out, looks like someone took scissors to it and sloppily removed the page. Looks like page 41 was an ad, so no big loss there, but page 42 was the first page of an article about Rastan for the Sega Master System. I know I would never have done that, so I'm suspecting that it was like that when I bought it. I guess there's a slight chance that one of my kids did it back then, doubtful though, as we never had that game for the SMS, don't know why they would have cut that page out.

Edited: part of page 71 missing too, another picture cut out and took part of an article with it. Damn! Now I'm going to have to go through all the others to see if anything else has been cut out. If this is the only one, then I suspect that it was done before I bought it, but if I find more issues with stuff cut out, then it had to have been one of my kids. This issue came out in 1989 when my kids would have been 16 and 14, and I kind of think that they would have known better than to do that, especially as they were both into comic collecting at the time and knew that removing parts of pages would destroy the book's value.

John

Edited June 4, 2009 by jpdenk

[triverse]

I know the feeling to have something destroyed without your knowing then when you want to enjoy it or show it off, it is in tihs damaged state.

If it is just a couple of pages that are missing we have "missing page" pages that you can insert when releasing the file.

I will find them. For some reason the posts with the insert pages are hard to find.

[jpdenk]

I know the feeling to have something destroyed without your knowing then when you want to enjoy it or show it off, it is in tihs damaged state.

If it is just a couple of pages that are missing we have "missing page" pages that you can insert when releasing the file.

I will find them. For some reason the posts with the insert pages are hard to find.

Just finished going through all of my magazines, and thankfully, none of the others have damage. I suspect that the damage occurred prior to me buying the magazine. Back in those days, I felt that these magazines were going to one day be collectibles, so when a new magazine was launched, for the first few issues (sometimes more like with Electronic Games) I would buy 2 copies of each issue, one to read and one to archive, and the archive copy was handled very carefully and bagged up often without even opening it in order to have a mint copy archived, although I did go through some of them once prior to bagging. So I wouldn't necessarily have caught those damaged pages back then.

My guess is that some kid decided that, for some reason, there was something on those 2 pages that they wanted, so they snuck a pair of scissors into the store and cut out the parts they wanted. The only other possibility (that I can think of) is that there was something that had to be removed from the magazine at the last second after they were printed and the publishers cut something out, but that seems pretty unlikely to me. Most likely it was some kid who didn't want to buy the magazine deciding to cut out something he wanted.

Of course, it had to be the copy of Gamepro #2, the one that no one else here has, so I don't think you'll have the missing pages, currently anyway.

The good thing is that I am amazed at how well my magazines have come through the years. Most of them look like they're fresh off the newsstand.

John

Edited June 4, 2009 by jpdenk

[triverse]

I am sure your releases will be eagerly checked out whenever you release one.

Them missing page inserts we have are just for this reason, you put them in the release (renamed the missing page numbers so they show up in the right place) so that releases that are not complete can be released (hopefully a member will see that those pages are missing and may have time to scan them, but not the whole mag). Hopefully that isn't more confusing than it should be.

[KevInCal]

John, sounds like most of your issues are in too good of condition to attempt to scan them! I could see scanning just the covers, but if your mags are in the condition I'm thinking, it wouldn't be worth it to attempt to scan the inner pages as it's next to impossible to not damage the mag when doing that. Honestly, eBay probably is the best place to sell them. I would say many of your issues are worth $50+ each, easily. Probably some are worth over $100 each.

[jpdenk]

John, sounds like most of your issues are in too good of condition to attempt to scan them! I could see scanning just the covers, but if your mags are in the condition I'm thinking, it wouldn't be worth it to attempt to scan the inner pages as it's next to impossible to not damage the mag when doing that. Honestly, eBay probably is the best place to sell them. I would say many of your issues are worth $50+ each, easily. Probably some are worth over $100 each.

Yeah, that occurred to me last night when i was going through them checking for damage. I'll have to experiment on a new magazine that isn't valuable. If I wear a pair of cotton gloves of the type used for handling old documents, or even latex gloves, and take some care, I think they can be scanned safely, as the pages are still very supple and the magazines aren't (with one exception) square-bound, so they'll lay flat without straining anything significantly. If I think it's doing damage, then I won't scan them, other than the covers. I also have some older comic books too, going back to the early 1940's, so I have some experience with handling fragile magazines, and I occasionally do a bit of photo restoration work, so I'm used to handling and scanning old, fragile documents.

[KevInCal]

Sounds good.