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A Collectable-Magazine Acquisition Roadmap

Six steps every collector should take before buying

The Magazine Collector -- Website Review

The "PR Snoop" reviews our new site (Guest Blog)

Aircraft Never Built Now Take Wing Online

Our latest press release (230 search engine hits to date!)

The Thrill of Collectable Magazine Auctions

Buying and selling rare magazines in a room full of collectors – Heaven!

Welcome Auction Houses

In a recent press release, The Magazine Collector posed the question: When it comes to collectable aviation magazines, are you a picker or hoarder? If you want to really appreciate what being a picker is all about, there’s no better arena than the floor of a live, real-time collectable-magazines auction.

In no other environment can a collector examine the goods being offered up for sale. Critical issues of condition are dispelled because the goods are available for viewing and inspection before the bidding starts. That’s something important that is totally lost with most online auctions. Those run by legitimate auction houses that have qualified personnel who clearly and correctly describe the true condition of an item definitely add value to the needs of the serious collector.

The conscientious commitment to collecting things that characterizes pickers manifests itself in an offline auction. The tension inherent in competitive bidding can fill the room with Tesla levels of electricity.

The auction floor is also a forum for meeting other collectors. Discussing magazines with other collectors, exchanging ideas and news – these are benefits that can only happen in a room full of serious collectors. A live auction is picker paradise!

Online auctions just don’t cut it, although they can be fun. The Magazine Collector website’s function as a communal watering hole where collectors can gather online will never compare to a live auction, of course. But this online community does fill a social networking gap in communicating with like-minded collectors.

This website is open to auction houses wishing to promote their events and other collector services. 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.

Read an observer’s review of our site at:  (http://www.scribd.com/doc/50314204/The-Magazine-Collector-An-Alternative-to-Recycling)

You can help make this site prosper as collector’s 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

Click here to sign up as a Non-Member.

Magazine Publishers Are Members, Too

The Magazine Collector online community networks magazine collectors and aviation publishers of both online and print periodicals.

The history of magazine publishing – especially aviation periodicals -- is a topic that members of The Magazine Collector online community consider a priority. Our founder’s background as a retired aviation author and magazine publisher/editor, as well as an acknowledged rare periodicals collector, keeps The Magazine Collector website focused on the publishing side of the membership’s magazine collections.

A savvy magazine collector always looks into the publishing side of the periodicals in his/her holdings. Information about publisher Street & Smith, for example, is integral to any collector holding copies of Air Trails. This and other pulp classics of the pre-WWII “Golden Age of Publishing” were produced by the longest-extant publisher in history (1855 – 1959). How every issue went from raw content to distribution is, in itself, a fascinating story of publishing innovation and survival.

Whether you publish online or in print, our site’s membership is likely your target readership. Our members are aviation buffs first, and are collectors as a hobby or avocation. Your participation in our online community would bring value to you and our networked community of magazine collectors. Our user-friendly sight provides you with a number of resources, such as our open-discussion Forum page, and the Resources page. You can even post your own guest blogs!

Want to pitch your subscription promos or back issues/archives? Use our Buy/Sell page to get the attention of our universe of magazine collectors. Our website is open to the public, and we provide non-members access to many of the web pages.

Read an observer's review of our site at: (http://www.scribd.com/doc/50314778/The-Magazine-Collector-Website-Review).

You can help make this site prosper as an publication-lovers’ portal by signing up as a member.

Members and Non-Members Welcome

Membership is FREE, and by joining you get to:

·         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

·         Sell collectable magazines and aviation paraphernalia on the Buy/Sell page

o   Includes a free e-mail blast promoting your offering

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

Click here to sign up as a Non-Member.

Online Community of Pilots and Aircraft Owners

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 bought or built 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 website at:  (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

Click here to sign up as a Non-Member.

Online Magazine Dealer Marketplace

Connecting buyers/sellers, and collectors with other collectors of model aviation periodicals and collectable modeling paraphernalia…that’s what The Magazine Collector online community is all about.

Welcome to The Magazine Collector!

Sellers of scarce and rare aviation magazines (as well as books and aviation paraphernalia) are the lifeblood of The Magazine Collector website. As an online community of aviation magazine collectors, this website’s users rely on dealers like you to meet the demands collectors have in growing their holdings. For retailers like you, its targeted audience differentiates this website from others promoting the buying and selling of aviation magazines.

The site is designed to provide not just visibility for magazine purveyors, but to offer web pages like our Buy/Sell, where both buyers and sellers have an open marketplace. Further, both the Forum and Resources pages give you a place to showcase your expertise and know-how to our collector audience. That aviation audience encompasses a wide range of enthusiasts, from pilots and aviation associations, to modelers and museums/libraries. It can be said that if it has to do with “Things With Wings,” our The Magazine Collector community has something to offer. More importantly, we solicit new members through aggressive ongoing marketing campaigns. Frequent press releases and e-mail blasts also contribute to increasing our online traffic through site visibility and awareness.

A No-Fees Marketplace

From a business perspective, using our online presence as part of your marketing/sales strategy is straightforward. There are no fees at all. You post your own promotional content and manage it yourself on the Buy/Sell and Forum pages. Photos and images are allowed. You can link to and from your website, too. You can publish to other pages, including posting your own guest blogs! We even provide a detailed how-to Member User Manual to help you get started.  

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.

Read an observer's review of our site at:  (http://www.scribd.com/doc/50314778/The-Magazine-Collector-Website-Review).

Spend a few minutes becoming familiar with this site. Except for the members-only Buy/Sell and Forum pages, the entire site is open to the public and searched by Google, Yahoo!, Bing, etc.

You can help make this site prosper as a collectables marketplace 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

Click here to sign up as a Non-Member.

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The Magazine Collector -- An Alternative to Recycling

Glenn Shoup (aka “The PR Snoop”) previews a new online community for historical aviation magazine aficionados. This website preview was originally published on Site Review (http://sitereview.org).

Admin (The Magazine Collector)

______________________

Previewing a website just before it launches is akin to critiquing a restaurant meal or hotel experience on the day before the place opens. That said, The Magazine Collector website shows promise for its targeted aviation magazine collectors’ audience, as well as perhaps for those of us who are not collectors, but do have an interest in aviation.

I fall into the latter category by happenstance. I happen to live in what Los Angelenos call “The Valley.” As such, it’s not unusual for me to be lounging at poolside (my office) and see a P-51 roar overhead. Or a formation of T-6s, a B-25, B-24, Bearcat, Ford Tri-Motor, the Goodyear blimp, pass overhead at low altitude. And the list goes on and on. The oft underrated “Valley” happens to be steeped in aviation history. Wiley Post, Will Rogers, and Amelia Earhart flew out of local airports that are still operational, for example. Therefore, my review of this new aviation website may not be as objective if I were writing it from Missoula, Montana.

The Magazine Collector website, itself, is a communal effort as an online social community. Its web pages show a conscious effort to anticipate a target audience well beyond scarce or rare aviation magazine collectors. The Gallery page, for example, is open for posting photos of most anything with wings, from models (flying or static), to homebuilts, historical photos, etc. The same broad brushstroke holds true for the Resources page, where postings can range from sources such as magazine dealers, to information about aviation museums and libraries.

I personally am focusing on the members-only Buy/Sell page. I have a pile of my father’s old aviation magazines somewhere in the attic. As an alternative to recycling, I’m going to list those on the Buy/Sell page to see if any collector wants to purchase any or all of what I have. I’ve been meaning to do this for some time, but my opinion is that using eBay is too complicated and not always very profitable. I figure that placing these possibly-collectable magazines where collectors hang out online should produce better seller outcomes for me. At The Magazine Collector, there are no fees (even membership is free, and there are no hidden “upgrade” fees). No display advertising is allowed, but I’m sure that Google will do the usual thing with this site as one of its blogspots.

I’m anxious to see how the website’s Forum page will evolve. I have been exposed to some of the aviation chat on Yahoo! Groups, and have come away underwhelmed at times, but not always.

A thumbs up to The Magazine Collector’s “open-mic” approach to its blog-page content. Any member can post a blog, and those postings are available to the public. Actually, most all the content is accessible to non-members and the general public, except for the Buy/Sell and Forum pages.

I got a sneak peak at the Member User Manual, and was impressed. With over 40 pages, it walks a new member through every step (replete with screen shots) of how to use the website. This is obviously targeted to online newbies.

In summary, all the elements of a viable social network are in place at The Magazine Collector (http://themagazinecollector.blogspot.com/). Since I am writing about a brand new site just before its first day live, I’ll look forward to seeing more content, as new members – and even non-members – contribute to the information displayed on this site.

As an online social platform, I see a future for this website beyond its meme as “a community for aviation magazine collectors.”

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Press Release -- Aircraft Never Built Now Take Wing Online

This press release was issued on 11 March 2011.

Admin (The Magazine Collector)

___________________

Golden Age of Aviation concept planes come to life again at

The Magazine Collector, a new online community.

What does it feel like to fly a high-performance fighter plane that never went beyond the concept stage? Those who had that experience did so as armchair aviators in the mid-1920s to the late ‘30s. They were at the controls of futuristic flying machines engaging in dogfights against advanced-design enemy aircraft. All they had to do was read the aviation adventure novels published in 10¢ pulp fiction magazines.

Each issue featured aircraft that were created in the minds of the most talented aviation artists of the day. These sleek concept planes were so futuristic that they could never have been built with the technologies of those days, yet many of them have since been proven flight worthy when built as flying models.

Those same adventurous experiences of flight are alive today on a new website dedicated to preserving those vintage aviation publications. The Magazine Collector (http://themagazinecollector.blogspot.com/) is a social network for an aviation community that focuses on collecting titles such as Bill Barnes Air Adventures and Air Trails that captured the experience of flight in the pre-WWII era.

See a review of the website on Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/50314204/The-Magazine-Collector-An-Alternative-to-Recycling).

About The Magazine Collector

Members of the site’s community have interests beyond collecting aviation magazines. They may build their own airplanes (or build models) and share their aircraft and flight adventures. The website is a platform for those interested in aviation:  librarians, museum curators, magazine sellers, aviation historians, and just about anyone else who wants to contribute, or simply enjoy what’s there. The website is public, membership is free, and non-members are always welcome.

Contact The Magazine Collector

Use online form at:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dFVYN25kS1hNVm1Cd3gyRWtRTW5wRkE6MQ

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