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Where are the Mad Magazine collectors?
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I was born in 1972. I had about 200 MAD Magazines from the 70s and 80s until about 8 years ago. I decided to declutter my condo, and I walked the magazines over to BMV in Toronto (Books Magazines Videos). It's a store that buys used books, magazines and videos. Hence their name. Anyway, the guy flipped through them and gave me about 50 cents each. And that was it. It didn't occur to me that I could categorize them and save them like my comic books. Now I'm regretting the sale. Did I give away a fortune? (Feel free to subscribe to youtube.com/joshrachlis and follow facebook.com/joshrachlis)

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18 hours ago, Josh Rachlis said:

I was born in 1972. I had about 200 MAD Magazines from the 70s and 80s until about 8 years ago. I decided to declutter my condo, and I walked the magazines over to BMV in Toronto (Books Magazines Videos). It's a store that buys used books, magazines and videos. Hence their name. Anyway, the guy flipped through them and gave me about 50 cents each. And that was it. It didn't occur to me that I could categorize them and save them like my comic books. Now I'm regretting the sale. Did I give away a fortune? (Feel free to subscribe to youtube.com/joshrachlis and follow facebook.com/joshrachlis)

Depending on condition, that was probably a fair price to pay for them.  If you got $100 for a box of Mads from that time period, I think you did pretty well.

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On 5/24/2017 at 10:31 AM, Josh Rachlis said:

I was born in 1972. I had about 200 MAD Magazines from the 70s and 80s until about 8 years ago. I decided to declutter my condo, and I walked the magazines over to BMV in Toronto (Books Magazines Videos). It's a store that buys used books, magazines and videos. Hence their name. Anyway, the guy flipped through them and gave me about 50 cents each. And that was it. It didn't occur to me that I could categorize them and save them like my comic books. Now I'm regretting the sale. Did I give away a fortune?

Naw, you didn't give away a fortune. But if you put the time in, you might have been able to get $2 to $5 for each issue, depending on condition. You saved yourself a lot of time by just selling them all in one lot. Maybe you could have made a little more on eBay. The good news is, you can easily get any issue back that you want, for a few bucks.

The thing with Mads from the 1970s and 1980s is that this was their highest circulation period. Actually I think it peaked around the early 1970s. I saw a chart somewhere once, that shows how Mad's circulation rose and fell with the baby boomer generation. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Mad's circulation was in the range of 2 million copies. I think by the 1980s it had dropped to 1 million, which is still nothing to sneeze at.

So even if 199 out of every 200 readers in the 1970s trashed or thrashed their copies, there would still be 5,000 to 10,000 issues out there somewhere. Not rare.

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On 5/26/2017 at 1:25 AM, Doohickamabob said:

Naw, you didn't give away a fortune. But if you put the time in, you might have been able to get $2 to $5 for each issue, depending on condition. You saved yourself a lot of time by just selling them all in one lot. Maybe you could have made a little more on eBay. The good news is, you can easily get any issue back that you want, for a few bucks.

The thing with Mads from the 1970s and 1980s is that this was their highest circulation period. Actually I think it peaked around the early 1970s. I saw a chart somewhere once, that shows how Mad's circulation rose and fell with the baby boomer generation. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Mad's circulation was in the range of 2 million copies. I think by the 1980s it had dropped to 1 million, which is still nothing to sneeze at.

So even if 199 out of every 200 readers in the 1970s trashed or thrashed their copies, there would still be 5,000 to 10,000 issues out there somewhere. Not rare.

I think you guys are responding to some guy's spam.  He joins a site just to create a story and ask you to subscribe to his youtube channel or facebook.   

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On 5/24/2017 at 1:31 PM, Josh Rachlis said:

I was born in 1972. I had about 200 MAD Magazines from the 70s and 80s until about 8 years ago. I decided to declutter my condo, and I walked the magazines over to BMV in Toronto (Books Magazines Videos). It's a store that buys used books, magazines and videos. Hence their name. Anyway, the guy flipped through them and gave me about 50 cents each. And that was it. It didn't occur to me that I could categorize them and save them like my comic books. Now I'm regretting the sale. Did I give away a fortune? (Feel free to subscribe to youtube.com/joshrachlis and follow facebook.com/joshrachlis)

Yes you did very well to get 50 cents an issue for those Mad you could probably buy them back cheaper than that today

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I've been organizing some stuff, including putting magazines in better-quality slipcovers and backings. I had a lot of my magazines in the cheaper poly-sleeves with the cheaper backings, but I decided I'd better play the long game and get them the best archival material I could. So I got a bunch of acid-buffer backings, and thick mylar sleeves, and I'm putting several sheets of microchamber paper in the magazines. Especially if they're extra-valuable, or if they seem musty/smelly/acidy.

Anyway, while organizing, I snapped some photos. Nothing new here, but the photos are new. Here are my issues of Mad #24. I hoarded four of 'em.

 

mad24-three.jpg

mad24-graded.jpg

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Those borders really made the magazines stick out.  The art was great and there were so many little things hidden in it.  Plus I am pretty sure that the art in the border changed somewhere around issue 26 or 27.  I do wonder who did the artwork for the border, I always just guessed it was Will Elder.

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On 10/14/2017 at 5:05 AM, Phantalien said:

Those borders really made the magazines stick out.  The art was great and there were so many little things hidden in it.  Plus I am pretty sure that the art in the border changed somewhere around issue 26 or 27.  I do wonder who did the artwork for the border, I always just guessed it was Will Elder.

Agree?

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