Need help selling old Sports Illustrated magazines

[edwards2301]

My husband has quite a few old Sports Illustrated Magazines. He has finally agreed to let me get rid of them. I would love to make a few bucks. Anyone have ideas of where or whom would buy these they go back to 1981 up to 2000. Thanks ahead of time.

[dnickels]

Find a fool with money?

I don't think they're worth the effort to sell. If you look on ebay there are tons of these for sale, some have bids of a few pennies but most have absolutely no bids at all. Even the ones being sold in lots and issues back to 1958.

[DizneyRox]

Agreed... I would put them out with the recycling and hope they take them, if not, I bet they would make great kindling...

[AHOTE]

I have to disagree with dnickels and DisneyRox. There's a big difference in finding a fool with money and a collector wanting to purchase what you are offering. I have sold magazines online and I just did a quick search of an online auction site and Sports Illistrated Magazines range in price from $.99 to $995.00 per issue plus shipping. The bulk of them are in the low range and may not be worth listing as single copies but specific issues are sought after. The $995.00 listing was for 11/03/75 issue. Do your research before you list them to get an idea of value based on condition and price yours accordingly. Use the "buy it now or make an offer feature", it can help an item sell. Give a complete and acurate discription of each item and include good photos. Who knows you may just be able to finance your next WDW vacation and maybe a bit more.

[DizneyRox]

Check completed listings when researching sale prices. The vast majority of SI magazines go unsold. Ones that seems to sell for anything significant seem to be autographed.

When you subtract the listing fees (charged regardless of if it sells), transaction fees, along with the time to research fair prices, photograph, list, deal with the eBay buyers, etc. The net profit will be next to nothing I would almost guarantee.

[PirateLover]

If they are not worth anything, I would try to find a library to donate them to before I simply threw them out. I know my college had an extensive periodical section with issues of magazines dating back decades ago. Worth a few calls at least.

[edwards2301]

wow,thanks for the great responses and suggestions. I will try to find the online auction that AHOTE was talking about and see if I have anything worth the effort. Yes, Piratelover we do live close to a college and my husband and I both work at different high schools maybe someone would want them. Thank you so much.

[Maleficent_vf]

I work in a library and can tell you that they have no interest in inheriting someone's collection of a "popular" magazine like SI. I wouldn't bother trying to find a library to donate them to.

[dnickels]

I'd take those $995 and $500 listings with more than a healthy grain of salt. It's ebay, there are zero bids on any of them, the seller does not say anything about the issues being signed or in any way unique. It looks like the sellers are just hoping to catch someone making a mistake. Basically the equivalent of me getting some Disney park maps and putting them up with a listing price of a few hundred dollars.

I've emailed one of the $500 listing sellers to ask them why their listing is $500 but other sellers are selling the same magazine for 3-5 bucks (and all have zero bids). If they bother to write back I'll post the response here.

[PirateLover]

I work in a library and can tell you that they have no interest in inheriting someone's collection of a "popular" magazine like SI. I wouldn't bother trying to find a library to donate them to.

Wow that is an extremely short sighted point of view. I didn't know that you were the spokesperson for all libraries everywhere? Both my high school and college libraries had collections of "popular" magazines. My high school had SI. I know this because I did a research paper on the NHL and used the back issues as a resource. A few phone calls never hurt anyone. The worst they can say is no. Sheesh.

[DisneyDog]

As a librarian, I agree with the previous poster who said a library may not want the issues. It's definitely not short sighted. They might want an issue or two to make up for missing/lost issues if they bind their journals, but they probably won't want the whole collection. Most of us just don't have the space to house magazine donations. I work in a public library, and we don't bind, and we don't save more than a few years' worth of back issues. And, a larger, perhaps University or College library would have access to electronic versions of magazines and journals and wouldn't necessarily want the print versions to take up valuable shelf space.

It's amazing the stuff people drop off at my library, thinking that we want it. We won't accept donations of magazines, old textbooks, old encyclopedias or anything in poor condition, but people drop it off anyway because they can't bare to throw it out. So, it becomes our problem. We just throw it out anyway. If it's not current information or in decent condition, we aren't going to add it to the collection. It actually costs money to add an item to the collection -- staff time for a professional librarian to catalog and add to the database, money out of the supply budget to stamp, sticker and cover an item, etc...and since the state of Pennsylvania cut almost $50,000 out of our budget, we can't afford to waste any money.

[PirateLover]

As a librarian, I agree with the previous poster who said a library may not want the issues. It's definitely not short sighted. They might want an issue or two to make up for missing/lost issues if they bind their journals, but they probably won't want the whole collection. Most of us just don't have the space to house magazine donations. I work in a public library, and we don't bind, and we don't save more than a few years' worth of back issues. And, a larger, perhaps University or College library would have access to electronic versions of magazines and journals and wouldn't necessarily want the print versions to take up valuable shelf space.

It's amazing the stuff people drop off at my library, thinking that we want it. We won't accept donations of magazines, old textbooks, old encyclopedias or anything in poor condition, but people drop it off anyway because they can't bare to throw it out. So, it becomes our problem. We just throw it out anyway. If it's not current information or in decent condition, we aren't going to add it to the collection. It actually costs money to add an item to the collection -- staff time for a professional librarian to catalog and add to the database, money out of the supply budget to stamp, sticker and cover an item, etc...and since the state of Pennsylvania cut almost $50,000 out of our budget, we can't afford to waste any money.

Well this is a much more thorough answer and does make sense when you put it in those terms.

[DisneyDog]

Oh, and if a library is missing issues of SI, chances are it will be the Swimsuit issues. They always manage to go missing (sometimes within hours of arriving!)

[dnickels]

Just wanted to follow up because I finally did hear back from one of the sellers of those $500 (listed price) issues of Sports Illustrated.

I sent them a message on June 11th asking if the issue was signed or anything because identical issues were listed for just a few bucks, got no response.
I sent them the same message on June 17th, got no response.
Sent another message on the 22nd and they finally responded with "some are worth more"

I suppose there's nothing illegal about listing a cheap item for a few hundred dollars and hoping someone buys it, but just something to consider when using ebay to gauge the value of certain items.

[DizNee143]

I sent them a message on June 11th asking if the issue was signed or anything because identical issues were listed for just a few bucks, got no response.
I sent them the same message on June 17th, got no response.
Sent another message on the 22nd and they finally responded with "some are worth more"

LOL!! seriously that was there answer!?!

[forever a child]

Ebay will do free listing if you start your bid price at .99 cents. If they don't sell, you are out of pocket nothing.

Or you can list for free under books or collectibles in Craigslisting, again for free.

Otherwise..use them for kindling

[ScottKinPA]

I have many many of these magazines and it seems they are really not worth very much. So I have two ideas for what I am going to do with mine.

1. Birthday Gifts
A friend of mine is a Dodgers fan, I am going to give him my Maury Wills cover. Brother is a Cowboys fan, guess what he gets, one a year until I run out. You get the picture.

2. Birthday Gifts, too
My friend whose birthday is August 10 gets my August 10, 1972 edition. Again, you get the picture.

Unique gift, and I would rather give them away then get $4.50 for them.

[comicguy]

I ended up with a large number of SI issues when i bought a comic collection (package deal)

I sold almost all of them

The swimsuit issues generally sell well

Other issues depending on who is on the cover (Jordan, Woods, Secretariat, etc..)

The special issues I sold on ebay (made about 1200 total)

The rest, I sold in a yard sale for 1 each. ended up recycling about 6 or 7 issues after all was said and done.

Made 1900 total, made about 1200 profit (400 cost of the original buy, remember I wanted the comic books, and ebay/paypal fee) plus I made about another 850 dollars on the comic books that I did not want to keep.

[Arielfan98]

What about donating them?