Sports Illustrated/TIME Blog #24 – It’s Time to Start Your Registry.
Welcome to my Sports Illustrated/TIME magazine blog – Your collector’s guide to the latest hobby updates and insight into what’s trending now.
Seems every group, organization, team… recognizes their best and brightest stars of the past year and graded magazines are no exception. June is the month CGC presents their annual registry awards for comics and magazines. For those that might not be familiar with what the hobby calls a “registry”, a registry is a set, run, collection, vignette, set within a set, or otherwise recognized collection of graded items which has been submitted to and recognized by CGC (or others), assigned a grade, and judged against other submissions in the same category.
For example, magazines are a major category from which any number of sub-sets or registries may originate. Sports Illustrated falls within the magazine category and may include such registries as the first ten swimsuits or all swimsuits, all Willie Mays covers, complete set of 1954 issues, complete collection of Jordan or Ali covers and so on. Your registry must be submitted, accepted and published by CGC. From those recognized submissions, CGC awards the highest valued registry in each category. A registry value is weighted by grade and value. The graded magazine hobby is still in its infancy, so there are significantly fewer submissions (and categories) to date, increasing a magazine submission’s odds of winning. Owning a registry is a rewarding piece of the hobby and should be explored by all interested subset collectors.
In addition to the recognition and bragging rights that come with winning a registry award, there are many other significant benefits which may enhance your collection or hobby business.
A few of the benefits are:
- Your collection will receive worldwide exposure.
- Other collectors that may have an interest in buying some or all of your registry items will be able to locate you to make offers.
- Sellers may want to contact you to offer enhancements to your registry.
- Registry commons become more valuable.
- More registries serve to better organize the hobby which in turn elevates interest and value.
- Registries stimulate completion which also drives up values.
Because this is a Sports Illustrated/TIME blog, below I’ve listed a few of the possible registries from those publishers that may peek your interest or give you an idea of your own.
- Jordan covers – 50
- Ali covers – 39
- Mantle covers – 13
- Swimsuits – many variations
- Bird, Johnson, Gretzky, Montana covers
- Sportsman of the Year covers
- World Series or Super Bowl covers
- Derby Winning Horses
- Complete years
- Team covers – Yankees, Cardinals, Lakers, Steelers, Canadiens
- Batting Champions
- Top 10 Home Run Hitters
- Olympians
- Single sport covers i.e., baseball, football, etc.
Registries are a big part of the Comics and Sports Card hobbies and will grow to be the same in graded magazines so don’t get left behind. Turn that prized subset into a Registry Award Winner!
I hope you are enjoying the reads on the history of TIME and SI magazines as well as an insight into relevant magazine collecting.
Great collecting to you and best fortunes with Sports Illustrated/TIME!