| Sports Illustrated Blog # 168 on Our Way to 200 – Sports illustrated “Dark Era Print” Explained Welcome to my Sports Illustrated/TIME magazine blog – Your collector’s guide to the latest hobby updates and insight into what’s trending now. I’ve been writing about “Dark Era Print” for 10 years. So what exactly is it and does it affect me as a collector? Dark Era Print is a phrase I coined early on in this evolution to describe a time period Sports Illustrated publications printed magazines using materials – paper, inks, etc, – which overall, did not hold up as well as materials used before or after. I do not know the reason for the change or what the changes were. I only know there was a change. Please note – this is not a guess – this is my evaluation based on visual and grading over thousands of mags and confirmed by the CGC magazine graders’ census. Although the period does not have a hard end date, it does have a very specific beginning time line. The beginning: The last magazine of consequence BEFORE the “dark era print” is the 6-25-1956 Warren Spahn (coincidently the mag immediately preceding Spahn is the Coup-de-Gras 56 Mantle first cover). The first issue of consequence AFTER the start of the dark era is the 1956 All Star game, which is the Mantle second cover. The ending: I have set the cutoff date for the end of the Dark Era Print to be 12-31-69. The change in magazine print quality seems to be more gradual and cannot be pinpointed to a specific week or issue. I have come to the conclusion that the end of the decade is as close as can be predicted. Mags after this date seem to hold their color and “newness” appearance much better than those that came before. There are quite a few significant collector issues that fall within the Dark Era range which is the reason SI collectors should be keenly aware of this anomaly. Highest grade, first tier athletes appearing on covers within this era will always draw the attention of collector and speculator alike thereby influencing buy/sell pricing to the extent that it may not make sense to the unaware. Case in point, the 56 All Star game issue 7-11-56 CGC 9.2, just sold for $7000+. That’s a pretty good number if you compare sales of issues from 1954 thru 1956. Personally, I like owning highest grade issues from this period as they seem to hold their value better than similar issues from outside the era. Collectors, keep this in mind when adding mags to your collection from the Dark Era Print era. My Ebay handle is “sportsillustrated9.8” and sportsillustrated98.com on the internet, not to be confused with other similar tags. Contact me with your order and I’ll provide payment details. If you’re interested in one or more of my ebay auctions and you would like to purchase, email me (wylliejohn@yahoo.com) to save on taxes, and shipping. Thanks for your loyal following. My readers always receive “first among equals” pricing/service. Many thanks for your continued support and patronage. On the web – Sportsillustrated98.com |
