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What do you do with your magazines?

Black&Tan

Black&Tan

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 4, 2004
736
0
Clutter elimination part 2. I'm trying to reclaim my life from the clutter.

I've got stacks of National Geographics, Mustang mags, Photoshop User, MacWorld, MacAddict (the first 3-4 years, after that it was crap), Modeling, design mags, and catalogs. I have this vague idea of trying to read them all, but there is not enough time in a month to read them all. And there's no room for everything!

What magazines do you save? Do you ever find time to read what you've put aside? What criteria do you use before you throw them away.
 
They lie around in the lounge for a bit, move under the coffee table's top, build up, get bleached in the sun and then they often move to the toilet for a stint before eventually being thrown away. If you've got loads of old magazines and they're in relatively good quality you could always ebay some. Some people love to have older editions of magazines.

I like to have a few months worths of good magazines in the lounge, ones that make me look intelligent, New Scientist etc. :eek:
 
I've kept all my issues of Macworld and MacAddict, but of course that's only 15-20 issues of each.
That said, I just keep them to look cool; I never look back at them. I think I could throw them away fairly easily if I wanted to, and I know someone else who might like to take them off my hands.

I used to have years of Boy's Life and LEGO Magazine back when I was into those things, but once I stopped caring, I had no trouble whatsoever tossing them out.
 
I've mustered the determination to throw out the old Aldus & Adobe magazines. The next ones on the chopping block are the MacAddicts. Not sure about the Mustang ones yet....I've got them going back to the 80's.
 
If I subscribe to a magazine it's because I really enjoy it and it holds value to me (I only have 3 magazines I subscribe to). To that end, I make a conscious effort to save most of my magazines. I still have all my editions of MacWorld, Sports Car International and most importantly, my National Geographics. In fact, I have every edition of National Geographic since January 1977 - almost 30 years' worth - saved and packed away in my basement! I think they are excellent keepsakes and collector's items. I like reading through the old editions form time to time as well just to see how much the world has changed since certain articles were published. :cool:

All that being said, I am a minimalist, so this does technically go against my nature. :eek: ;) I usually like to be lean and mean, have as little clutter as possible, and be very organized and tidy. Perhaps this is why my mammoth National Geographic collection is at least neatly packed away with all the editions in order. ;) :cool:
 
I read them, then throw them away within a week or so. The only way I keep a magazine for more then a week or two is if it has an article or two that i'd like to reread another time.

I get something like 10-12 mags a month. I used to keep a few of them, but just have the room anymore. I did finally convince my wife to throw away her AGING Cosmo magazines, that was a great day.

Z
 
I'd venture to say that only a small percentage of magazine titles would be worth much to collectors - National Geo, Sports Illustrated, Life, Popular Mechanics perhaps, maybe some computer mags, and some news mags (Time). Many others just aren't worth the space to store them.

Of course, I'm always surprised by what people are willing to buy. Apple Computer boxes, for example.

I suppose if they're in good condition and are sequential for long periods, then they'd be worth more than sporadic copies in questionable condition. Personally, I subscribe to so few magazines, and even those for short periods of time, so I just recycle them all after a few months.

~Shard~ - that's quite a collection of NG's; impressive, and I'm sure they're fun to go back and look through from time to time. The only thing I have wrapped and stored away are some complete decks of The Empire Strikes Back cards from, what, 1980 or something? I just can't make myself get rid of them. :eek:
 
I clip any how-to articles out and file them in appropriate folders as reference material. Everything else goes in the recycle bin.
 
emw said:
~Shard~ - that's quite a collection of NG's; impressive, and I'm sure they're fun to go back and look through from time to time. The only thing I have wrapped and stored away are some complete decks of The Empire Strikes Back cards from, what, 1980 or something? I just can't make myself get rid of them. :eek:
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Yep, I'm quite proud of it! It's one of those magazines that just make great collector's pieces - you can't say that about many other magazines. :cool:
 
emw said:
The only thing I have wrapped and stored away are some complete decks of The Empire Strikes Back cards from, what, 1980 or something? I just can't make myself get rid of them. :eek:
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Yeah, I found some of those too! And mine are also sealed in plastic, old comic book bags cut to size. I also discovered a box of movie buttons/badges. They might be ebay-able...
 
~Shard~ said:
Yep, I'm quite proud of it! It's one of those magazines that just make great collector's pieces - you can't say that about many other magazines. :cool:
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I agree. My collection goes that far back also, along with some miscellaneous issues/years from the 60's, 50's, and even 40's. When we bought our house, I found 4 years worth of NG's in the garage. They were all from the 50's & 60's.
 
Black&Tan said:
I agree. My collection goes that far back also, along with some miscellaneous issues/years from the 60's, 50's, and even 40's. When we bought our house, I found 4 years worth of NG's in the garage. They were all from the 50's & 60's.
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Nice find! I actually purchased the entire 1968 year's worth of NatGeos as a birthday gift for my brother a couple years back, as that was the year he was born in. He just loved reading through what all was going on in the world, where science was at, etc., etc. when he was born. A very unique, cool gift, and I'd definitely do it again for someone else. :cool:
 
~Shard~ said:
Nice find! I actually purchased the entire 1968 year's worth of NatGeos as a birthday gift for my brother a couple years back, as that was the year he was born in. He just loved reading through what all was going on in the world, where science was at, etc., etc. when he was born. A very unique, cool gift, and I'd definitely do it again for someone else. :cool:
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I'm saving some magazines for my kids from their birth year. Included is a copy of MacAddict from their birth month.

Sometimes I clip pages and put the pages in a drawer, like if it has a cool destination on it or a recipe or something.
 
Usually I keep them for a while (between three months and a year) and then take them for recycling. When I was younger I used to keep them for years - they can take up a rather large amount of space.

I don't buy magazines any more, save for National Geographic and the odd one to read when I'm on a train or an aeroplane.
 
I keep mine, I've only got two subscriptions going though and one is to Cook's Illustrated, so I like to keep the reciepes; and the other is my Wood Magazine subscription, which I keep because I like to drag one out from time to time and build something from it.

Thankfully the Cook's Illustrated people publish an annual bound book along with an index. I'm gonna have to invest in that soon and get rid of the magazines. It's getting difficult to look through 4 years worth!
 
I've been getting all these free magazines for the past year. I don't even read them. Maybe 1 article for each. There are so many. They just keep coming cause I can't pass up on free subscriptions.

The ones I want I keep. EGM, & Nintendo Power I have a lot of. Tv Guides are everywhere, I decided to throw those away, and then there are a bunch of other entertainment magazines.

A great way to store magazine are to order those free priorirty boxes from the USPS and cut them in half. They are the perfect size (but mums the word since you're not supposed to use them for anything else besides shipping priority)
 
I've used magazine boxes like those you'll find in a library to house the various computer magazines. I've almost got a full set of BYTE from 1977 until the end. I've also got a lot of Atari magazines from way back when. I generally keep the things with programming tasks and throw the rest away.
 
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