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Extra, Extra Read All About It!!! - By Bruce McKinney If you are going to buy older magazines you will need this set. By Bruce McKinney You could think the entire field of collectible history is found between the covers of books. You would be wrong but you would not be alone. Books tend to be reviewed when they first appear, are picked-up by bibliographers within a few generations and then begin to appear in dealer catalogues and auction descriptions in time giving the first and other early editions a second life as valuable and collectible. Of necessity book dealers engage in a triage by exclusion that further narrows collectible material to a group of predictable titles that bibliographers, book dealers and auction houses coalesce around for mutual protection. Often it comes down to buying and selling what is referenced and ignoring what is not. The collector, and to a lesser extent the librarian, look for documented titles. They're safe. It also leaves a vast amount of material out. In books a high percentage is abandoned, in manuscripts most is ignored and in ephemera essentially all is forgotten. Pity the collector that is limited to what others say is important. Among the things not found between covers on a regular basis are newspapers and magazines: the enfant and juvenile that report and analyze events before the first books are written. Because they are temporary, often perishable they are somehow less valuable or so the market says. Storied collections of newspapers have been built over the past thirty years by those who asked libraries and other institutions to sell such materials they rarely used and no longer seemed to want. Often stacks of newspapers changed hands for free or for pennies and the buyers assembled astounding collections of first day accounts of important events. Even today this material continues to come out of libraries albeit with somewhat better valuations attached. This continues to occur because libraries, the original repositories of these first day accounts, are no longer the natural owners. For them micro-fiche and fully digitized images are more practical because old newspapers and magazines don't long survive when frequently touched. For them digitization is inevitable as is the logic that only a few complete electronic sets be created. For libraries who field the occasional research request an online link to a centralized collection is less expensive and more productive. Libraries have long known this and have been de-accessioning their older periodicals for decades. In many cases, where no digitized copies exist the hard copies are never-the-less removed. The value and importance of peripheral publications, if demand and cost-to-keep are factored in, often make them first victims of budget crunches. They take up space, are rarely requested and deteriorate.
Extra, Extra Read All About It!!! - By Bruce McKinney The essential early American newspaper resource, 2 vols. They are also uncommon although it doesn't seem that way to someone running searches on eBay, today's dumping ground for old newspapers. They come up with misleading frequency that is at odds with their rarity [which is not to be confused with importance]. The same newspapers do not often appear but random newspapers, both loose and bound, are constantly appearing. You'll look in vain for a specific publication; stand little chance of finding a particular year and no chance of finding a particular issue. Nevertheless random publications are constantly coming up because there have been so many of them. According to Clarence Brigham in his History and Bibliography of American Newspapers [1947] in the period prior to 1821 2,120 newspapers were known to have published at least once, 1,118 lasted less than two years, 1,002 lived from two to four years, 541 from five to nine years, 302 from ten to nineteen years, 106 from twenty to twenty-nine years, 34 from thirty to thirty-nine years, 15 from forty to forty-nine years and 10 from fifty to eight-seven years. Since 1820 the numbers have increased exponentially. In other words, there are thousands of titles, relatively obscure documentation and absolutely random distribution: in short - a very disorganized market. Add to this the imprecision of eBay searches. A search for NEWSPAPERS recently yielded 35,689 matches when I searched title and description, 3,938 when I searched the title alone. When I searched "bound newspapers" I found 426 title and description matches, 22 by title-only. I then added a state: NEW YORK BOUND NEWSPAPERS found 83 in title and description. The numbers are impressive, the results less so. These searches depend on information sellers provide and many aggressive sellers load their descriptions with thousands of words of boiler plate junk that is intended to create matches without any regard to whether they are accurate. eBay doesn't seem to care that this wastes prospective bidders' time so you'll pay the price by having to wade through inappropriate matches. It's slower than it should be but still fast compared to random place searches. And its always getting better. On the other, if you go to Abe and use "bound newspapers" in the advanced search screen keyword field you get 5,276 matches. Abe provides an optional date range and this enormously simplifies the search. For 1700 to 1800 there are 30 matches and for 1801 to 1850 98 more. Abe however also permits sellers of photocopies and reprints to mix their listings in with real material. It wastes time to sort through traif so select the option to sort by highest price first, the reprints disappear and you begin to see the other side of the old and historical newspaper market: material offered for several thousand dollars. Now when you go back to eBay to follow the newspaper market you can sense there some attractive bargains though you'll have to work to find them.
Extra, Extra Read All About It!!! - By Bruce McKinney This book will instill interest in newspaper collecting Many eBay sellers rely on listing sites such as Abe and Alibris for their descriptions and rarely find a close match for their material. With no text and prices to copy they tend to offer minimal descriptions and generally low prices. Hence the potential bargains. On the other hand if you are going to be a bidder you need to do your homework. Here are some basic resources: Brigham, Clarence S. History and Bibliography of American Newspapers: 1690 : 1820. 2 vols. First printed in 1947. Mott, Frank Luther. American Journalism: A History of Newspapers in the United States through 250 Years. First published in 1941, revised and reprinted several times and extended to...260 Years. Gregory, Winifred. An alphabetical index to American newspapers 1821 -1836. A Union List. First published in 1937. For those who are more interested in early newspapers in the American west I recommend David Dary's Red Blood & Red Ink, an account of newspaper publishing in the early days of western expansion and settlement.. If you are leaning toward becoming an outright newspaper collector or adding newspapers to the mix of material you acquire in pursuit of your personal focus Dr. Dary's book gives life to many of the names found just under the mastheads: the printers and publishers. It's in print. He's also the author of seven other books on the west: The Buffalo Book, True Tales of the Old-Time Plains, Cowboy Culture, True Tales of Old-Time Kansas, More True Tales of Old-Time Kansas, Entrepreneurs of the Old West, and Seeking Pleasure in the Old West. Here are some additional sources Dr. Dary suggests: Frederic Hudson: JOURNALISM IN THE UNITED STATES FROM 1690 TO 1873. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1973. This 789 page work is the earliest comprehensive history of American journalism. It spans 1690 to 1872 and includes some information on journalism west of the Mississippi. It was reprinted in 1968. Willard Grosvenor Bleyer: MAIN CURRENTS IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN JOURNALISM. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1927. This work includes material on early English journalism, journalism in the colonies from 1750 to 1783, the political press in America from 1800-1833, and key American journalists including James Gordon Bennett, Horace Greeley, Henry J. Raymond, Samuel Bowles, Edwin Lawrence Godkin, Charles A. Dana, William Rockhill Nelson, Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. Includes a list of readings plus index. 464 pages.
Extra, Extra Read All About It!!! - By Bruce McKinney none James Melvin Lee: HISTORY OF AMERICAN JOURNALISM. Garden City, N.Y.: The Garden City Publishing Co., 1917. Revised edition in 1927. This 462 page work including index covers much of the same material as Bleyer's work but with a slightly different focus and more detail. John Myers Myers: PRINT IN A WILD LAND. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1967. A more popular treatment of 19th century journalism in the American West. No notes but bibliography and index. There are many volumes written on individual newspapers across America. GAUDY CENTURY, 1848-1948, SAN FRANCISCO'S ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF ROBUST JOURNALISM of special interest. The 302 page work was published by Random House, New York, in 1948. Another such one paper work is Gene Fowler's TIMBER LINE: A STORY OF BONFILS AND TAMMEN who operated the Denver Post. The 480 page work lacks an index and bibliography but is well written, an interesting look at a yellow journalism paper that ruled the Rockies for many years.

Extra, Extra Read All About It!!!

- By Bruce McKinney

If you are going to buy older magazines you will need this set.

By Bruce McKinney

You could think the entire field of collectible history is found between the covers of books. You would be wrong but you would not be alone. Books tend to be reviewed when they first appear, are picked-up by bibliographers within a few generations and then begin to appear in dealer catalogues and auction descriptions in time giving the first and other early editions a second life as valuable and collectible. Of necessity book dealers engage in a triage by exclusion that further narrows collectible material to a group of predictable titles that bibliographers, book dealers and auction houses coalesce around for mutual protection. Often it comes down to buying and selling what is referenced and ignoring what is not. The collector, and to a lesser extent the librarian, look for documented titles. They're safe. It also leaves a vast amount of material out. In books a high percentage is abandoned, in manuscripts most is ignored and in ephemera essentially all is forgotten. Pity the collector that is limited to what others say is important.

Among the things not found between covers on a regular basis are newspapers and magazines: the enfant and juvenile that report and analyze events before the first books are written. Because they are temporary, often perishable they are somehow less valuable or so the market says.

Storied collections of newspapers have been built over the past thirty years by those who asked libraries and other institutions to sell such materials they rarely used and no longer seemed to want. Often stacks of newspapers changed hands for free or for pennies and the buyers assembled astounding collections of first day accounts of important events. Even today this material continues to come out of libraries albeit with somewhat better valuations attached. This continues to occur because libraries, the original repositories of these first day accounts, are no longer the natural owners. For them micro-fiche and fully digitized images are more practical because old newspapers and magazines don't long survive when frequently touched. For them digitization is inevitable as is the logic that only a few complete electronic sets be created. For libraries who field the occasional research request an online link to a centralized collection is less expensive and more productive. Libraries have long known this and have been de-accessioning their older periodicals for decades. In many cases, where no digitized copies exist the hard copies are never-the-less removed. The value and importance of peripheral publications, if demand and cost-to-keep are factored in, often make them first victims of budget crunches. They take up space, are rarely requested and deteriorate.

Extra, Extra Read All About It!!!

- By Bruce McKinney

The essential early American newspaper resource, 2 vols.

They are also uncommon although it doesn't seem that way to someone running searches on eBay, today's dumping ground for old newspapers. They come up with misleading frequency that is at odds with their rarity [which is not to be confused with importance]. The same newspapers do not often appear but random newspapers, both loose and bound, are constantly appearing. You'll look in vain for a specific publication; stand little chance of finding a particular year and no chance of finding a particular issue. Nevertheless random publications are constantly coming up because there have been so many of them. According to Clarence Brigham in his History and Bibliography of American Newspapers [1947] in the period prior to 1821 2,120 newspapers were known to have published at least once, 1,118 lasted less than two years, 1,002 lived from two to four years, 541 from five to nine years, 302 from ten to nineteen years, 106 from twenty to twenty-nine years, 34 from thirty to thirty-nine years, 15 from forty to forty-nine years and 10 from fifty to eight-seven years. Since 1820 the numbers have increased exponentially. In other words, there are thousands of titles, relatively obscure documentation and absolutely random distribution: in short - a very disorganized market.

Add to this the imprecision of eBay searches. A search for NEWSPAPERS recently yielded 35,689 matches when I searched title and description, 3,938 when I searched the title alone. When I searched "bound newspapers" I found 426 title and description matches, 22 by title-only. I then added a state: NEW YORK BOUND NEWSPAPERS found 83 in title and description. The numbers are impressive, the results less so. These searches depend on information sellers provide and many aggressive sellers load their descriptions with thousands of words of boiler plate junk that is intended to create matches without any regard to whether they are accurate. eBay doesn't seem to care that this wastes prospective bidders' time so you'll pay the price by having to wade through inappropriate matches. It's slower than it should be but still fast compared to random place searches. And its always getting better.

On the other, if you go to Abe and use "bound newspapers" in the advanced search screen keyword field you get 5,276 matches. Abe provides an optional date range and this enormously simplifies the search. For 1700 to 1800 there are 30 matches and for 1801 to 1850 98 more. Abe however also permits sellers of photocopies and reprints to mix their listings in with real material. It wastes time to sort through traif so select the option to sort by highest price first, the reprints disappear and you begin to see the other side of the old and historical newspaper market: material offered for several thousand dollars. Now when you go back to eBay to follow the newspaper market you can sense there some attractive bargains though you'll have to work to find them.

Extra, Extra Read All About It!!!

- By Bruce McKinney

This book will instill interest in newspaper collecting

Many eBay sellers rely on listing sites such as Abe and Alibris for their descriptions and rarely find a close match for their material. With no text and prices to copy they tend to offer minimal descriptions and generally low prices. Hence the potential bargains. On the other hand if you are going to be a bidder you need to do your homework.

Here are some basic resources:

Brigham, Clarence S. History and Bibliography of American Newspapers: 1690 : 1820. 2 vols. First printed in 1947.

Mott, Frank Luther. American Journalism: A History of Newspapers in the United States through 250 Years. First published in 1941, revised and reprinted several times and extended to...260 Years.

Gregory, Winifred. An alphabetical index to American newspapers 1821 -1836. A Union List. First published in 1937.

For those who are more interested in early newspapers in the American west I recommend David Dary's Red Blood & Red Ink, an account of newspaper publishing in the early days of western expansion and settlement.. If you are leaning toward becoming an outright newspaper collector or adding newspapers to the mix of material you acquire in pursuit of your personal focus Dr. Dary's book gives life to many of the names found just under the mastheads: the printers and publishers. It's in print.

He's also the author of seven other books on the west: The Buffalo Book, True Tales of the Old-Time Plains, Cowboy Culture, True Tales of Old-Time Kansas, More True Tales of Old-Time Kansas, Entrepreneurs of the Old West, and Seeking Pleasure in the Old West.

Here are some additional sources Dr. Dary suggests:

Frederic Hudson: JOURNALISM IN THE UNITED STATES FROM 1690 TO 1873. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1973. This 789 page work is the earliest comprehensive history of American journalism. It spans 1690 to 1872 and includes some information on journalism west of the Mississippi. It was reprinted in 1968.

Willard Grosvenor Bleyer: MAIN CURRENTS IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN JOURNALISM. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1927. This work includes material on early English journalism, journalism in the colonies from 1750 to 1783, the political press in America from 1800-1833, and key American journalists including James Gordon Bennett, Horace Greeley, Henry J. Raymond, Samuel Bowles, Edwin Lawrence Godkin, Charles A. Dana, William Rockhill Nelson, Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. Includes a list of readings plus index. 464 pages.

Extra, Extra Read All About It!!!

- By Bruce McKinney

none

James Melvin Lee: HISTORY OF AMERICAN JOURNALISM. Garden City, N.Y.: The Garden City Publishing Co., 1917. Revised edition in 1927. This 462 page work including index covers much of the same material as Bleyer's work but with a slightly different focus and more detail.

John Myers Myers: PRINT IN A WILD LAND. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1967. A more popular treatment of 19th century journalism in the American West. No notes but bibliography and index.

There are many volumes written on individual newspapers across America.

GAUDY CENTURY, 1848-1948, SAN FRANCISCO'S ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF ROBUST JOURNALISM of special interest. The 302 page work was published by Random House, New York, in 1948.

Another such one paper work is Gene Fowler's TIMBER LINE: A STORY OF BONFILS AND TAMMEN who operated the Denver Post. The 480 page work lacks an index and bibliography but is well written, an interesting look at a yellow journalism paper that ruled the Rockies for many years.