MERRY CHRISTMAS! Huh? Oh, just referring to the cover date of this issue, which is Christmas Eve, 1927. That'll be our Random Issue this time around, so we may as well all adjust to the date right from the start!

COLLIER'S 1927:Actually this edition of the newsletter hits you with a three-pronged attack of Collier's from 1927:

1. Our Random Issue is Collier's Magazine from December 24, 1927
2. A new page covered below under the New For You to Read heading details Collier's Magazine from October 8, 1927 through January 7, 1928
3. These same thirteen issues of 1927-28 Collier's Magazine are available at auction on eBay this week

So I've got myself in a 1927 frame of mind (which is tough considering it's nearly 45 years before I was born!), even though my choice of Random Issue was made at the last second. Why's that? Well, I have an issue of LOOK Magazine from 1942 with a long tear through the back cover and last few pages that I had pulled out a month ago and started dog-earing for this issue. It was just a few days ago when I sat down with that issue to compile my final notes when it occurred to me that the time period may be becoming somewhat redundant: Issue 1 covered a late-1941 issue of TIME and Issue 2 covered a 1946 issue of Newsweek. I saw this as an interesting comparison between the news at the beginning of America's entrance to World War II and the time shortly after the end of the war. A 1942 issue so soon began to seem like overkill to me.

I'll certainly get to that issue of LOOK one of these days, but for now I thought it would keep this young newsletter fresher if I were to get out of the 40's and travel somewhere else in time. Then I began work on the Collier's issues for eBay and it seemed like a natural fit. So that's how I came to choose this issue's Random Issue.

BUY ME! Besides the Collier's issues I have several interesting magazines available at auction on eBay over the next week, and plenty more coming soon! Ending Thursday night there will be several issues of TIME Magazine from both 1955 and 1956. If you're high on condition the 1955 issues are actually a little better off than the '56 issues, as most of the later editions do have some form of moisture staining on them. The '55's are for the most part pretty clean though, and include a couple of demand baseball covers in Casey Stengel and Roy Campanella. I've noted cover artists for each issue either in the auction titles or descriptions, so if you're searching for Ernest Hamlin Baker or Borises Chaliapin or Artzybasheff you should be able to find them.

Friday night on eBay brings another round of 1970's issues of Newsweek, which have been selling pretty strong, and another dozen or so wrestling magazines from the mid-1980's. The 1927-28 Collier's issues will be ending Monday night. Over the next few days I'll be listing several 1940's issues of LIFE Magazine, a few 1950's Saturday Evening Post and possibly some mid-1960's issues of the Post as well (though my last sale of these high-grade pubs was miserable), several issues of the 1950's digest Focus, and in the coming weeks several 1930's editions of Newsweek (including earlier News-week issues).

The item count in my eBay Store is now up to 1,432 listings, which does include 95 auction-format listings. A break-down by category, and these numbers will add up greater than 1,432 due to cross-category listings, is as follows: TIME 122, Newsweek 170, LIFE 82, LOOK 37, Saturday Evening Post 68, Movie Magazines 78, Playboy 12, Sports Illustrated 234, Misc. Sports Magazines 168, Wrestling Magazines 279, History Magazines 41, Other 20th Century Pubs 137. I left out any categories with fewer than 10 listings because you're not running over to the store to see those anyway. But as you can see, inventory is growing day by day.

NEW FOR YOU TO READ It's been a busy month on collecting-old-magazines.com with five new pages going up since our last issue. In case you missed announcements of the new pages on the blog , here's a quick list of them:

The pages for both The Atlantic Monthly and The Sporting News are similar to other standard anchor pages on the site. They give complete histories with notes for collectors interspersed throughout the articles.

The page about selling LOOK Magazine accomplishes a couple of things: first, it gives step by step advice about preparing a grouping of magazines for sale. Secondly, it takes a look at several issues of LOOK from 1942, including cover scans, a complete index listing, additional details on articles for clarity, and even a prices realized listing for those issues that sold at auction.

The 1927-28 Collier's page is similar to the second portion of the LOOK page. I actually only created this Collier's page last night to go in conjunction with both the current auction of these issues and the Random Issue that we'll be taking a look at below. I thought that a somewhat detailed look inside several consecutive issues of Collier's from this same period would paint an even better picture of the time and publication.

The page including links to magazine checklists and cover galleries is far from complete, but for regular visitors to the site, such as myself, I thought it'd be handy to have these helpful resources all in one place. I'll add others as I come across them. Feel free to write and point out any similar pages that you find helpful, if I like them, I will include them, however please do note that the Checklist and Cover Galleries page is not intended to be a standard links page. Currently collecting-old-magazines.com does not have a link exchange program as the site is still in its infancy and I feel it would presumptuous to seek out such links at this time. There will likely be such a links page in the future, and at that time I'll be open to the idea of swapping links, but until then the Checklist and Cover Gallery page is intended as a gateway to a narrow section of information, that being comprehensive magazine checklists and cover galleries hosted on other sites.

As promised, I also updated the popular Photoplay Magazine Checklist back on January 16. A new update will take place sometime in February.

Finally, I've eliminated the pop-under screen advertising subscriptions to this newsletter. I may put it back in the future, because I do believe it works, but I figured that if it irritates me, the site owner, than it probably really ticks off some of the people who are just visiting!

If you don't follow updates through the blog , another good place to check for new features is the collecting-old-magazines.com sitemap .