Many, many, many motoring magazines

Anyone wanna buy a big bunch of car magazines?

Even before we got into the auto writing business, we loved car magazines. Back in the ‘60s and early ‘70s, Dad had a subscription the Motor Trend. We worked a night shift then and, on Saturday, we would take the kids to his house and crash while he took them out for a pizza or ice cream. If we woke up, it would be quiet and we’d start reading those magazines.

We read them from cover to cover and back again. We actually wore out a lot of the covers. And eventually we “inherited” the collection and it became the start of ours. Only, the collection went to a new level and pretty soon the house was full of car magazines.

After we got into the writing business, the collection grew and grew. Magazines were purchased at swap meets. Magazines were given to us. Magazines that the ad salesmen used and tossed in the garbage would be saved and brought home. And sometimes when articles were published, a certain number of author’s copies would be provided.

Magazines are fun to collect, but there are some downsides. Boxes and shelves are needed to store them. Of course, when you have piles and piles of magazines, you realize how heavy paper can get. Then, there’s the whole idea of sorting the magazines by name, year and month or by volume and issue numbers. This job can eat up a lot of your time.

But magazines are in our blood. So, last year we bought a big collection of “car stuff.” There was old ads, sales catalogs and literature, books, toys, parts and, of course, magazines. In fact, about 150 file cabinet drawers full of magazines from as early as the 1930s to fairly recent issues. There were big ones, small ones, hardcover ones . . . just about every type of car magazine.

Once we brought them home, it was clear that the only thing to do was to start merging what we already had with the new ones. Then, we could sort out the duplicates (in some cases as many as 10 copies of one issue). So, we have spent the last few months dragging magazines from home to the shop, organizing the collection and setting aside the issues we have more than one of. There are many, many, many multiples, but we are going to have one heck of an archives when the job is done.