Best way to get rid of decades of model train magazines?

Trash! 

I had 40 years of magazines that nobody wanted and the recycling center would not take them. So in the trash they went.

I had several years of MRR mags around the house, and finally had enough. I gathered them all up, arranged them chronologically, and looked through them one last time.

I then tore out the articles of interest, color scanned them, then ditched the rest. Now I only have one magazine in the house at a time, until the next one comes in the mail. 

Those old magazines have a lot of information in them. I have always enjoyed looking through them. Even the advertisements have a lot to tell us about the state of the hobby back then.
Sadly, I too had to clean out most of my old magazines due to lack of space.
I went through mine, and took out interesting articles and some advertising.
The rest went into recycling.

I occasionally throw a shopping bag full of magazines in with my weekly recycling pick-up.

Rusty

Some of the magazines have a digital issue archive.  I bought the archives so I didn't need to save the old magazines.  The archives I have, have a very convenient search function that makes retreiving old articles very easy.

Earl

Throw them away.

I recycle mine after scanning the articles I want to keep.

when i have extras to dispose of, i hand them out to kids at a train show when i have a table.....also put em out on the table that has show flyers, every show has one of these. somebody always takes them....far better then throwing  em out...

Try taking some of them to local retirement homes.  The gentlemen that are there would appreciate something other than Better Homes and Gardens to read.

Try one of these

Here's the unfortunate reality:  our trains take up X amount of space.  for most of us, their boxes take up an additional amount of space.  through in several decades of magazines.....and they take up....more space.

The magazines likely have little to no resale value at all.  I've found it shockingly liberating to recycle all but the few dozen that made my "worth keeping" pile. 

FWIW, I've tried to keep one advertisement from Charles Ro from each year since 2000 or so just to see what things were selling for when new.  I've also kept some Trainworld ads for the same reason.

But all in all, you won't miss the paper.

rattler21 posted:

You could take one or two and leave it/them in the dentist's office, doctor's office and barber shop.  John

Just make sure your name and address are not on them re: ID theft.

I just recycled a few hundred magazines going back to the 1980's. I only kept the premier issue of CTT and all the Model Builders. Some guys with a lot of time on their hands try to sell toy and real train related magazines on eBay. I thought about the effort of selling countless magazines at $1.00 each plus postage and said - no way. The TCA library was drowning in donated CTT's a few years ago and was trying to sell them cheap at York. From what I saw they were not very successful in moving them out.

Recycle them.

I was at  show a week ago, and a guy had a big stack of free RMC's on his table....l went rhrough the indices, for structure and gas electric/rail bus articles, took two...the guy behind me snatched up the rest. Often stacks are left on the flyer table as noted above, and disappear. They are new until you have read them. I just keep the ones with interesting articles....take the others to a show.

rattler21 posted:

You could take one or two and leave it/them in the dentist's office, doctor's office and barber shop.  John

public library

Just took a F-150 bed full of magazines to the recycle bin at the dump. real train, model train, Hot Rod and other car magazines......from 1972 to 2014. Kept my NG&SLG and many ORG....rest gone!!!! enough room that I can get my 46 Ford in my garage!! 

I offered them to many....none wanted. 

Speaking of CTT, I looked over their 30th Anniversary Issue recently.  I very much remember when they were first published in 1986...and stopped buying Model Railroader from that point on.   It's hard to grasp that 30 years has gone by.

My how the three rail O-Scale hobby has changed in that time, mostly for the better, IMHO.

rattler21 posted:

You could take one or two and leave it/them in the dentist's office, doctor's office and barber shop.  John

That's what I'm going to do:  My dentist, doctor, hair cutting place and unfortunately the rest the recycle bin.

I had years of model railroader.  Amazingly, I found one guy who took them.

I keep ONLY "Great Model Railroads" and "Model Railroad Planning" (I have every edition of each) and my OGRs.  Ond day I'll get smart with OGR and buy the on-line digital version and get rid of the prints; less layout features.  I'll pull them out and scan.

I take them to train shows leave them on the flyer table. They go fast, I mark free on the cover and inside page so it makes it more difficult for some guy to pick them up for resale.

bigo426 posted:

Some guys with a lot of time on their hands try to sell toy and real train related magazines on eBay. I thought about the effort of selling countless magazines at $1.00 each plus postage and said - no way.

For sure selling single issues on eBay is not a great approach.

I find people like to buy the entire year...or a bigger pile.

Plenty of examples on ebay of people selling a pile of 50 1970s RMCs for 35.00 bucks or so.

Somebody just got 30 bucks for the 2014 complete year of RMC - and 35 bucks for the complete 2015!

Also triage you collection "first issues" - they always bring more.

The older - and less well know the magazine, the better you'll do.

Media rate shipping is cheap - and you dont have to pack these like they are made of glass.

Throwing them away is bad advice, IMO.

Berkshire President posted:

The magazines likely have little to no resale value at all.

That is really not true at all...

Recycle bin... I've tried selling old magazines, heavy, expensive to ship, limited audience...

Roving Sign posted:

Berkshire President posted:

The magazines likely have little to no resale value at all.

That is really not true at all...

It all depends on your perspective.  How much time and effort are you willing to put in?  How much do you value the additional space?  I can't tell you how many piles of magazines that I've seen at the same train show....year after year, never moving.  The For Sale Forum on this site frequently has "free but you pay the shipping" on various paper....and they often don't move.

Everything has an Opportunity Cost.

Selling old magazines is good for those with LOTS of time and energy. Getting $30 for a years worth of magazines does not net you much. ebay gets about 10% including 10% of your shipping cost, Paypal another 10% depending on type account you have. Packing materials, time and gas to get to the PO......don't forget the time to create listing take photos. Then PRAY some nut job doesn't complain to Paypal one magazine had a torn cover and gets his money back.....

I liked the 30 minutes start to finish it took me to load the truck. 

Offer them for Free on Craigslist

Where are you at?  If you close I'll take them.  Love looking through the old magazines for ideas, projects and techniques!

AMCDave posted:

Selling old magazines is good for those with LOTS of time and energy. Getting $30 for a years worth of magazines does not net you much. ebay gets about 10% including 10% of your shipping cost, Paypal another 10% depending on type account you have. Packing materials, time and gas to get to the PO......don't forget the time to create listing take photos. Then PRAY some nut job doesn't complain to Paypal one magazine had a torn cover and gets his money back.....

I liked the 30 minutes start to finish it took me to load the truck. 

PayPal is 2.9 percent + 30 cents...

12 issues of a magazine sold for $35.00 with a $4.00 media rate shipping will result in an ebay fee of $3.90

The buyer will send you a PayPal for $39.00 - PayPal takes  $1.43

$39.00 Sale plus shipping
-$3.90 (ebay fees)
-$1.43 (paypal fees)-$4.00 (shipping)
--------------------------
$29.67

A collection dating back to the 1950s could be worth hundreds if not over a thousand bucks properly sold.

AMCDave posted:

I liked the 30 minutes start to finish it took me to load the truck. 

So should we also just throw way our old rolling stock that only brings 15-25 bucks on ebay too...?

Unfortunately  I recycled my old train magazines, when it came to my old Blues magazines, I went a different route and brought them to the local VA hospital. Always looking for donations

bill

AMCDave posted:

Selling old magazines is good for those with LOTS of time and energy.

A little story to that end. For many years there was a local guy who schlepped old train magazines around to all the shows. I bought from him many times to fill out my own collection.

About 6 or 7 years ago, he passed away. When they got into his house, he had accumulated so many, that first they could barely walk through the house, and second there was concern about the stability of the structure due to the weight. I can't remember how many dumpsters they filled.

I do miss Bruce.

I keep my set neatly in binders on bookshelves. They have actually become part of the layout in a roundabout way. Every once in a while, I have to look something up, or just grab a year and take a trip down memory lane.

John C. posted:

I keep ONLY "Great Model Railroads" and "Model Railroad Planning" (I have every edition of each)

Yeah, I only keep those and any issue of MR/RMC that might have a article that I'm sure I'll go back to someday. They stack up really fast and every few months, I'll go through the stacks in the book case under the layout that hold the magazines (I have hundreds of 1:1 scale RR magazines and those for other subjects, including softbound books that I intend to keep) and cull out those I know I won't likely need.

I usually put a stack in the containers with the stuff I take to sell at model train shows, and I'll give a few to any decent-acting kid looking at my sale table who wants them (usually, they'll want them). Kids who tear stuff up or are 'handsy' get nothing other than what their parents pay for. I'll often drop off a few at the break tables where I work, as there are hundreds of people in my building and they always vanish right away. In the past, I've known co-workers who had kids who liked trains, and those unwanted magazines usually went to them.

Magazines, I think are like cars; they're valuable if they're really current or really old, and generally not so much between those two points. The only model train magazines I've ever bought were a few Great Model RR or Planning issues, MR's 50th anniversary issue (which I'd lost my copy in a move) and not long ago, MR's very first issue, in a bound volume with the whole volume one from the first year.

Really, older model train mags don't hold much value for people that I'd ever seen other than layout articles that hold personal interest for someone, or for plans. Many of those older articles are really outdated now and aren't much use to most people, that I've ever seen, anyway...

I recently had this same issue. I had magazines dating back to the 1980's. I found that no one really wanted them. While I felt bad about throwing them away they all ended up in the recycling bin anyway. I did enjoy flipping back through them all.

take them to a doctors office. I've been giving my wife that works at one all my old car mags. give the guys something besides Woman's World and 4 year old People to look at. and you may get some kids into the hobby.

I throw them away when the new issue is received.

Rod Miller

Berkshire President posted:

Roving Sign posted:

Berkshire President posted:

The magazines likely have little to no resale value at all.

That is really not true at all...

It all depends on your perspective.  How much time and effort are you willing to put in?  How much do you value the additional space?  I can't tell you how many piles of magazines that I've seen at the same train show....year after year, never moving.  The For Sale Forum on this site frequently has "free but you pay the shipping" on various paper....and they often don't move.

Everything has an Opportunity Cost.

I've never been able to sell copies of MR - way too many available and most often free for the taking.  Last time I had to move 50 years of it and it ended up getting donated to the local library to sell just to get it out of my garage. 

I managed to get 30+ years of RMC for free with binders just for the cost of carrying them out and taking them away.  I'd like to get a few more of the years in the 50's to round out my library

Some magazines used to have some real value - years sets of Narrow Gauge & Short Line Gazette were easy to move a few years ago for $20-30 a set.  Now it's available as a electronic archive so if you only are needing the info, and want to recoup the library space then their value has gone way down.

one local shop has boxes of used mags, and I'll sit on the floor and search for needed issues. $1 each I usually leave with a good bit.

If you have a table at a local meet, bundle the old magazines with the common, low-value freight cars.  Offer them as follows:  car + 2 magazines = $10, car + 1 magazine = $12, car + no magazine = $15.

Aside from the occasional desirable issue (CTT #1, articles about John Allen, etc.), they have little or no value, and it's not worth the trouble to try to sell them.  The "free" table usually has plenty left on it at the end of most meets.

I do like the "tear and scan" idea.

Roving Sign posted:

AMCDave posted:

I liked the 30 minutes start to finish it took me to load the truck. 

So should we also just throw way our old rolling stock that only brings 15-25 bucks on ebay too...?

If that's what works for you....YES!!! At one time I listed 100 items a week. Even though I had software to list my items (I was selling the same thing weekly, items I manufactured) it was still work. Today listing a individual item, photos, text and all, takes 30 minutes plus shipping packing time. 

For my limited time here on earth.....magazines I can't give away are not worth my time. If I had a large amount of rolling stock I bet I could get someone willing to pay shipping cost to get them....3000 magazines were not worth it to me.....I figure I'd made about $3 hour to sell them all. Anyone here earn that an hour???