Welcome to my Sports Illustrated/TIME magazine blog – Your collector’s guide to the latest hobby updates and insight into what’s trending now.
Vintage SI’s from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s are realizing much higher point of sale values without being graded. There are several reasons for this market shift in the hobby.
- They’re scarce – much scarcer than the hobby realizes.
- They’re very expensive to grade and the time allotted for grading is prohibitive in a changing hobby.
- They’re esthetic. They’re beautiful. Not only the first cover stars but even the commons tell a story that needs to be re-told.
Add this up and you have a recipe for increasing customer demand – just try to tell a collector he can’t have something. That’s where these vintage newsstand issues stand right now. They’re hard to find. Of course, we have seen the super star ungraded covers routinely sell well into the four figures and second tier/commons have followed right along.
Although I have seen a few graded subscription copies sold, for the most part, these issues have no increasing values.
My opinion here is that this is a not a trend, but a movement, that will continue as long as hobbyists continue to have few other reasonable options. I also predict that high quality newsstand issues from this era will end up having retail values 2 to 3 times higher than anyone else in the market is currently predicting.
So the message is clear, vintage newsstands are a bargain. Watch and see.
I’d also like to update my readership on my revolutionary “never will be beat” designation. I have now labeled over 100 graded items “never to be beat”. Still batting 1.000. I’ll keep everyone posted as to updates.
I hope you are enjoying the reads on the history of SI, SPORT, and TIME magazines as well as an insight into relevant magazine collecting.
Great collecting to you and best fortunes with Sports Illustrated/TIME!
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