History of Life Magazines

Video Transcript

"In taking a look at magazines through our history, they're fabulous ways to explore and relive the past. They're great historical documents. I have people come in the shop a lot and say, "my kid's, my child's working on a project. He's working on something about World War II, he's working about something about a different country, something about the culture and I'm looking for something in the forties". I actually have a lot of movie studios who come in here too and use these for atmosphere. So they really kind of set the tone and a certain place in time, whether you're looking at them or reading at them, they really transport you there. A great place to start when you start if you want to collect old magazines, is, is to try to find a resource to help you identify what, what you're looking for and this, I found this to be an excellent resource. So if you can find one of these, to start with, this is Life from 19 I think it's 88 and it's the 2,000th issue, that's a tongue twister, of Life Magazine. And inside this particular magazine, it's great because it shows by year every cover. So sometimes people come in, and they say, "Jan", a matter of fact, yesterday, "I need a picture, I need February, 19" I think they said "79, picture of John Wayne on the cover." So I can quickly turn to this or I can always go to the Internet and find which cover had John Wayne on it. Then I can go to my handy, dandy filing system and find them. So this is a great place to start. But when you're looking for magazines, let's get this right from the first. You want to look at magazines that are in good, in excellent condition because when it comes to collectible value, it is all about condition, condition, condition. So as we look at the Life magazines, and we take our little journey through time, we're going to also pay attention to some things to look for when you're grading papery femera magazines or anything that is a history. Whether it be photographs, cards, it's all about condition. So let's take our little walk through history right now through Life magazines. Expert Village, here we go. "