The Magazine Collector is a social network connecting those who enjoy “Things With Wings.”
Welcome to The Magazine Collector!
You are probably like most other pilots or aircraft owners who “caught the flying bug” because of a magazine. Surprisingly, it sometimes only takes a photo or article about a classic aircraft to get hooked. Maybe it was Jimmy Doolittle’s Gee Bee R-1 racer, the Spirit of St. Louis (Ryan Monoplane), Howard Hughes’ H-1 Racer, “Winnie Mae” (Lockheed Vega), or any one of those “Golden Age” (circa 1919-1939) planes that set off a spark inside you, which eventually ignited your aviation lifestyle.
You eventually built (or bought) a plane, perhaps then joined a flying club, and even started to put aside some copies of aviation magazines that held your particular interest. Now and then, in a quiet moment, you thumb through those pages…those pictures are a pilot’s soul food. The articles transport your mind to the cockpit of those planes, even if those stories are about aircraft that last flew before you were born. Like those hooked on cars, flying is an avocation that also works when performed from an armchair. That spark inside you is imagination, and that’s one human factor that magazines provide in spades. It’s what initially made us want to learn how to fly, and what keeps refueling our enjoyment of flight.
Classic Aviation Periodicals
The quintessential imagination of flight appeared in the pages of pre-WWII magazines. Air Trails is the de facto standard by which other aviation pulp magazines of that day are measured. That magazine is universally acknowledged as having made aviation a keystone of our country’s culture. If you are skeptical, read one or two of the adventure novels published in Air Trails. The aircraft depicted and their pilots were the real stuff of a pilot’s imagination…they were pure fiction, ergo totally presented as flights of the reader’s imagination. The magazines captured the pure essence of the armchair experience of flight. That fulfillment of a pilot’s imagination is what makes collecting historical magazines so worthwhile to pilots and aircraft owners.
A Portal to “Things With Wings”
The Magazine Collector website is a portal to fulfilling your innate fantasies of flight. Our site supports a community of people like you who love “Things With Wings.” Not only are our members pilots, aircraft owners, homebuilders, aircraft restorers, members of flying clubs, airshow enthusiasts, etc., they are preservers of that spark inside us all that fuels and keeps our imaginations flying high.
Read an observer’s review of our site on Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/50314778/The-Magazine-Collector-Website-Review)
Our founder is an acknowledged rare books and periodicals collector. Also, being a retired aviation publisher and editor also helps keep The Magazine Collector focused.
You can help make this site prosper as an aviation-lovers’ portal by signing up as a member.
Members and Non-Members Welcome
Membership is FREE, and by joining you get to:
· Buy and sell magazines and aviation paraphernalia on the Buy/Sell page
o Includes a free e-mail blast promoting your offering
· Engage other members on the discussion Forum page
· Post your own guest blogs
· Contribute to the Resources page
· Submit photos and images to the Gallery page
Click here to sign up as a Member.
You don’t necessarily have to become a member of The Magazine Collector community to get access to and use of this website. Non-members can:
· Access all web pages, except members-only Forum and Buy/Sell
· Pose questions on the Q&A page
· Get advance e-mail notification of the latest happenings at The Magazine Collector
