Thank him for his thoughtfulness, take the items, take whatever articles you desire and recycle the rest! Hopefully you have a recycle center nearby or at curbside. If he asks about the magazines, simply tell him you took the info you wanted and gave the rest away. A small white lie... maybe, but no ones feelings are hurt. Also tell him you don't need any more publications. Hope this helps your decision making! Good luck, clifford

Man; I don't envy you!

I reckon if a friend of mine gave me 40-50 cartons of train magazines, I'd probably clear a suitable space in the garage or basement, take the time to peruse at least one magazine from each carton and then after a respectable period of time, haul the entire collection off to a recycling center.

Curt

How about taking a couple cartons at a time to train meets to put on a

'free' table?

 

It does create a situation when folks don't understand that you collect just trains, not train-themed tchochkies, etc. if you don't want to hurt their feelings.

As have most of us, I had a huge stack of all of the popular magazines, model and prototype, and I was successful in giving them to a school teacher who was starting a model railroad club in his school.  The kids enjoyed them and used them for reference, and I took it as a tax deduction.

 

You might see if you have a similar situation in your area.

 

Paul Fischer

Thank him for his thoughtful and generous gesture; go through the pile of magazines at your own pace to save any you might like to have; ask any other friends if they might be interested in some of them; then take the remainder to a paper recycling or rendering facility.  Don't know whether or not a local library might be interested in them, but I suspect not.

 

Fifty cartons is a whole lot of (heavy) magazines!  Good luck!

Where in PA are you? If you were close , Id love to have them.Tried your email but wouldn't work for me.
My email is;
welkiemike@yahoo.com
Ph;
410-371-8186
Mike

First, get a back brace

 

Since he only paid $5 for THAT MUCH STUFF (back brace), if you tell him the truth it might not hurt so much (no back brace, maybe).  If you find a suitable "depository" by the time you pay him a visit you can tell him that also, to lessen any pain (no back brace) to the friendship he may endure.

Well, I have one idea...

 

 

Some hot dogs, maybe some marshmallows, a few beers. Hey, you've got a party on your hands....

 

Gilly 

 

DR. offices, dentist offices any sort of place that has a waiting room is a great place to leave magazines.. People are constantly cutting out articles from them and walking out the door with them.. You never know a kid picks one up and says mom I would love to have a  train set... grandpa picks one up and it brings back a memory of a Hudson under the xmas tree and the next thing you know we have a new forum member.. It's a heck of a lot of magazines, but just a thought.. The recycling center probably won't create any new train nuts!!

     Scott

Find a local model rr club or museum that sells used mags as a fundraiser. Many do. I ditched most of my collection that way.

 

 

Otherwise, torch 'em.

Sent you an email.

I would try to give them away.   I've been thru this with lots of different kinds of magazines and I no longer subscribe to any.   I do buy O guage and CTT at train shows, if I can buy a stack for reasonable.   I hate throwing out any mags and the only way I can prevent them is to not get a lot of them.   I do know the local  library here will take old mags and sell them at the friends of the library sales.   Might even take them to whatever hobby shops you have around and see if they will let you donate them for free.    

I recently got rid of many, many boxes of train and computer magazines.  Can't even imagine having to deal with a whole truck load as a gift.

 

A few funny things while I was disposing of the magazines. I posted on a few local forums (pickup only, no shipping) and at first got little response. 

 

After a couple of weeks I was ready to haul the lot to the recycle center and then I got a bunch of replies, "I'll take them!"  So I divided them up among several folks. 

 

My wife asked, "what are they going to do with them?" 

 

"You've been after me for years to get rid of them.  What do you care?" I replied. 

 

One guy was thumbing though his take when he said, "I took that photo."  I figured he meant he was in the same area some time and then he showed me, "That's my byline. I took that picture and wrote the article." What a coincidence!

 

Anyway I wish you luck.  And hope you find some new friends.  

There are many of us (ol Pharts) that still enjoy the printed magazines. If I were any where near to you, no problem as I would love to have the lot. Keep me in mind when you start going through your stash. I need the first five years of OGR and the last three years of OGR. My wife made me promise no more magazine subscriptions. 

When I was a kid, a friend of my uncle's disposed of his collection of Trains,  Model Railroader, and Railfan/Railroad by giving them to me.  In retrospect I suspect my dad rolled his eyes at receiving several boxes of someone else's garbage, but they were probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I practically learned to read with them, and if I'd never received them, I'd never have even heard of the southern steam program, 611, 1218, 765, 4449, etc.

PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE chose this option!!  I've already been through 50 years of Vanity Fair, People, Better Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan and Elle at the doc's office!!!

I think that is great that you have the kinda friend that would think of you when he saw the "train magazines". I just had a similar situation but not on that larger scale. A dear friend of mine who I've known for over 60 years bought me a dvd of real trains. I am not at all interested in real trains but thanked him. I think that was fantastic that he thought of me when he saw the dvd.

Nursing Homes?  There is little reading material there for the residents.

Yes! Nursing homes, doctors' offices and anywhere else with a waiting room need general interest and more-to-the- men's-side magazines. Time and Newsweek are usually around, but other than that it's a vast heap of fashion magazines...old ones, at that. if you enjoy a magazine, but don't especially want to keep a back issue, take it along and leave it.

 

(Brought to you by the time I sat in a car dealership's waiting room for five hours with nothing but a couple of old copies of U.S. News and World Report...)

The physical nature of the "gift" and the effort required to load it certainly displays that this friend cares about your friendship. That means your stuck and have to accept them.

I would express your "appreciation" and explain to him that most of these publications are now available electronically (whether they are or not) and suggest he need not exert that effort again.

 

Hopefully, you have a truck and a nearby recycling center to deliver them to on your way home. Grab a few random handfuls to leave lying around in case they visit. You can then explain that you shared the others with fellow enthusiasts.

 

or you could return his $5 and tell him your taking them directly to the dump. This assumes that you determine they really don't like you and this is their way of putting one on you.

 

Friend or acquaintance? Your call.

Michael,

Thank your friend, take the items and tell him, in a polite way, that now you have more than enough reading material and you do not want anymore, as this amount will take plenty of time, to look through.

 

TrainsRMe,

Your word tchochkies, I know well, as my wife and her Maternal family say it, plenty of times, when looking, or buying small, or inexpensive items.

Ralph 

 

 

 

 

Michael:

 

As much as you don't need heavy cartons of train magazines, I think you have to graciously accept them and dispose of what you don't want.

Well as cold as it's been back there, here is an idea

Turn newspapers & junk mail back into logs

I've had the same situation happen to me, and frankly I looked at it as an opportunity to discover. I found many articles which were gems, loads of photos that delighted and enlightened. Rather than figuring out a disposal plan, read them, enjoy them and selectively retain what was the best of the lot. Then do the discard if that's the end plan.

 

Bob

I'm guessing that there are a lot of people that wish that they had that good of a friend.  I do, but can always use more.  Lot of good suggestions here, especially the nursing homes.

 

Art

Gentlemen,

   Actually this has happened to me, but on a little smaller scale, with both train and Gun Dog type magazines, I do look thru most of them, then take some to the VA doctors office, and pass them onto other individual sportsman & train runners.  Some do hit the burn pyle for the big rock fire pit in Potter/Tioga however.  I always thank the men who bring the magazines, and then advise them I now have enough. 

PCRR/Dave   

 

Hi Mike. Sent you a reply.
Thanks;
Mike

Small barber shops might work.  A boy sitting there with his dad, waiting their turn.

Maybe a new 'recruit' to the hobby????  One never knows, does one?

 

     Hoppy

P51, you've obviously never been to the train meets I attend.  The Virginia Train Collectors' meets always have a table of free magazines, and they're nearly always empty by the end of the show.  So to your comment that certainly no train clubs would want them - "All generalizations are false, including this one". 

the local library. I drop off old train mags

all the time in the for free magazine section.

the kids love em.

Well, I've been to many train shows near me (I live in the Puget Sound region) and magazines never vanish here. Sure, people will grab a few, but that's it.

Been hitting train shows since I moved here in 98 and I've seen this at every single one...

I second Popi and others suggestion about dropping them off at the library.  My wife does this with my old Trains magazines and, as I've mentioned on other threads on this subject, many times as she walks past the donation area on her way out after looking for books she'll note that most or all of them have been taken.

There's some good advice above. I can't really add anything except to say that I had somewhat of a similar situation recently although on a much smaller scale. [no pun intended]

 

Some guy's wife gave my wife a shoe box of trains. The wife said it was a family heirloom and the husband couldn't bear the thought of throwing it in the garbage so he wanted to give it to someone who would take care of it. I opened the box and inside were two locomotives. Both HO. One of them was a Rivarossi Big Boy and the other one looks like a Tyco Baldwin Shark. You know the real cheap kind of HO stuff that nobody wants. Now I think the Big Boy would be worth about $50-60 if it was NIB but this one is falling apart. The forward and trailing trucks were broken off and the side rods for the front set of drivers were all broken and don't let me forget to mention that the tender was not included. Basically I told my wife this is a pile of worthless junk and I didn't want it. What bugs me is if it was such a family heirloom why didn't the guy take better care of it? If he had, although I don't have much use for HO, I could have displayed it. I was ready to toss it in the trash but my wife (the one who is always telling me to get rid of stuff) wants to keep it. I said OK.

 

As for magazines I recently threw out about 4 boxes of Model Railroader. Every issue before 2008. Twice I listed my collection of CTT magazines (which many of them were in excellent condition) on this forum and the 2nd time I found a guy who wanted them. I was asking $1 for the entire and I only put a price on it to make sure the person was really interested and wasn't going to give me the run around. This fella asked me to meet him at a local train show so he didn't have to drive all the way to my house. I said OK and he turned out to be a real nice guy. He gave me $10 for my trouble and needless to say I was overjoyed to get that much for the magazines.

 

40 to 50 boxes! Wow! If it were me I would go through each box and see what is included. I would take what I want and then try to find a home for the rest. There might be some magazines in there that people want. I wonder what is in there because if you had every issue of MR, RMC, OGR and CTT I don't think it that would add up to 40-50 boxes. Maybe there is some hard to find stuff in that collection that is worth something to somebody.

 

Anyway, I wish you the best of luck. Let us know how make out with this.