WELCOME BACK: Back to school, back to work in many cases, and back to the latest issue of the newsletter. We're at the start of a great time of the year for anyone involved with collectibles because this is when business picks up. Beach season is ending, weekend barbeques cool down, and more people move to indoor activities. Ten-fifteen years ago I'd be gearing up for bigger crowds and the shows and conventions, now I'm getting ready for more people spending more time online! Okay customers may find themselves upping their bids in order to win auctions, but we should be seeing more completed sales in online stores too with the benefit for buyers being the more that guys like me sell, the more new goods we buy to turn around and offer to you. Finally, if you're hunting down a special magazine for a holiday gift, I know it seems far off now, but collectibles by definition are rare: it's time to get shopping!

UPDATES: I just noticed as I paid my annual renewal fee, it's the one-year anniversary of Collecting Old Magazines.com! Hope you've enjoyed the growth of the site over the past year, and thanks for sticking with me!

Okay, I didn't do a lot of work on the site this past month, as I've been incredibly busy working to customize the new store (I swear, it will be unveiled soon!). I've got the storefront pretty much looking the way I want, but I'm having a heck of a time customizing shipping and other features. Day by day though, it's getting there! For those of you with an aversion to PayPal, I'll begin accepting credit cards the old-fashioned way too once the new shop opens up.

I did manage to put together a new magazine profile page in recent days, this one for U.S. News & World Report with our story concentrating mostly on the early days of the two separate publications United States News and World Report, as those are what's in stock. Also, I've been promising special subscriber only pages to the site and I've completed two which are being announced for the first time as I type this. Both pages are older archived information which had appeared in one form or another on the site, but which do in time disappear seemingly forever. Not for you though, here are the new pages:
 

I'll announce a new password in each issue. I figured I'd keep it the same for both pages to keep it simple, but I wanted to change it up on a per issue basis in case any non-subscriber's gained access. That said -- if you want to share this info, that's fine. I prefer you forward an entire issue of Random Issues if you do share with your friends, but I figure if you share enough your friends will want to eventually sign-up themselves anyway.

Regarding these two pages -- The Buyer and Seller Tips page is simply a collection of all of the blacked-out sections of this newsletter. In other words, stuff that you see when your issue is delivered, but which is blacked out for non-subscriber's on the site. If they want this info, then they'll have to subscribe just like you. The "Tips" are listed on the page with the latest at the top, so in other words any blacked out portion of this newsletter will soon appear at the top of the "Tips" page. As you scroll down the page the "Tips" will get older and in some cases may be outdated, though in many cases will still be relevant. I figure this will keep you from having to save old issues of Random Issues in your e-mail and creates one convenient place for you to find all of this information.

The Blog Archives -- Random Notes page is one that even saving old copies of Random Issues won't help you out with. If you've visited the Collecting Old Magazines blog you'll notice that it is made up of two components: 1) Either new or updated pages from the site; 2) Random Notes that I've written including interesting info about individual magazine issues that I've recently handled. The most recent such "Note" is about James Michener's "Tales of the South Pacific" appearing in an issue of the Post pre-publication. The blog only shows the ten most recent entries, which includes both types of entries. Obviously pages on the site can be found ... on the site, but once the "Random Notes" roll to the bottom of the page and off, they're gone forever. They're not even actually archived anywhere on the back-end of my site. Luckily I have a file that I've been keeping them in, and so now you can read them all at once on the the new "Blog Archives" page.

Why do you need a password for these pages? Two reasons, and these are pretty honest. 1) As a Random Issues subscriber I feel you're entitled to something more than any Tom, Dick or Harry visiting the site; 2) Maybe Tom, Dick, or Harry will become new subscribers to Random Issues in order to get the passwords. That's the truth. By the way, when the store I mentioned above finally opens, I'll be issuing subscriber-only coupons and discounts through this newsletter as well, so there are more benefits to come!

AUCTION HIGH SPOTS: As much as I'm looking forward to the current-selling season, I must admit, August was a pretty good month. The week of September 11-15 features completely new listings four out of the five nights. Neat stuff too, the last of the 1946 Saturday Evening Post issues will end Monday night the 11th, another thirty issues of TIME from the World War II years featuring issues with Himmler, Mussolini, and even Ingrid Bergman gracing the covers ends Tuesday night the 12th, Wednesday night features a couple dozen relists -- you may have seen these magazines before, but not with these low minimum bids! --, Thursday night features 20 issues of Liberty from 1940 with more to come next week! Ten issues of 1920's-30's Atlantic Monthly have been listed for Friday night, one of which includes early fiction by John Fante. Also listed for Friday night, starting with a low $9.99 minimum bid and no reserve is a September 16, 1916 issue of the Saturday Evening Post which features the fourth-ever Post cover by Norman Rockwell! The other three were from the same year, so this is very early Rockwell. This was a great issue to go through, having a little something for everybody including the first part of a serialized story by P.G. Wodehouse, a pretty long Hollywood article by Mack Sennett which includes a section on Charlie Chaplin, and a great ad for Tuxedo Tobacco which contains photos of six baseball Hall of Famers including Grover Cleveland Alexander, Christy Mathewson and Ty Cobb! Go here to view all of this week's auctions!

Collector and Dealer Tips are up next, an area which I know some of you look forward to and others hop over to get to the Random Issue itself. If you're part of the latter crowd this line will jump you ahead to our Random Issue. (First time I've tried this piece of html, so I do apologize if it fails!)
 

OUR RANDOM ISSUE: As I've said before, every magazine is different, and so too will be our approach to each Random Issue. This issue is dated Spring 1927, but the actual date on the cover of The North American Review is March-April-May 1927. The North American Review is similar in scope to vintage issues of Harper's and Atlantic Monthly, however without any fiction during this period of the magazine. So what we have in The North American Review is a periodical filled with text, no photos, no illustrations, just articles. I didn't read the entire issue, but I did read a few articles which we'll look at to set our timeframe, but this Random Issue will instead open with a brief history of The North American Review.
 

WRAP-UP: Hope I didn't totally clog your inbox with this one! I'll be back with the next one around the 1st of October, probably a few days later as has become my usual habit. In the meantime you can always check for site updates on the blog, and be sure to check out my auctions for my latest magazine offerings.

Thank you!