I've decided to have a clear out of my railway modelling magazines (RM mainly), but I'm not too sure how to go about this and I'm loath to throw them in the bin. Any ideas would be welcome on how to go about giving them a good home or homes, bearing in mind that I live in France so it is not just a question of popping along to my local charity shop or whatever.
Kevin
Take them to your doctors surgery , thats what I did
Not sure if it's what you want to do but I am in the process of reviewing my pile of Model Rail magazines.
I take an issue, cut out any useful articles and recycle the rest (mainly adverts). The stuff I want to keep goes into a plastic wallet and a ring binder.
It's amazing how much less space this takes than the magazines.
Skyline2uk
I too have a million billion model railway mags, my first RM dates April 1957!
Mrs Bealman wants me to get rid of them, and I know that would be the sensible thing to do, but I am loathe to do it as it's like my life history!
I can pull a dozen or so mags from the early collection and spend hours looking through them. All these layouts I used to drool over as a kid.
I think I just don't like throwing anything out. :uneasy:
Sadly I've just binned (recycled) over 100 issues of RM but what I do now is read it then pass it on to a fellow N gauger for the cost of a coffee now and then.
Doctors/dentists surgeries are another way out but they don't want too many.
I take mine to the surgery ,hospital and the dentist and now Im 71 I seem to be spending more and more time at the doctors so I have plenty to read while Im.waiting .
By the way I dont actually buy the mags they are handed down by my mate as there is no way I can afford nearlly a fiver a time on a magazine my pension wont stretch that far.
Bob Tidbury.
I do what Skyline2UK does, periodically take out what is of interest to you now and possibly in the future, and recycle the rest.
I suppose if you have intact magazines to dispose of taking them to a Doctors or Dentist could lead to somebody taking up the hobby, or rekindle the interest.
Having sold our house (STC) the domestic Clerk of works, bless her, will be pushing me to seriously downsize the intact magazines I do have!
As Bob Tidbury said they are virtually a fiver each nowadays. An issue has to have an article/s that particularly interest me these days for me to buy one.
My problem is that when I sort through them to pick out the articles I like, I end up liking the entire mag! :uneasy:
In the really old issues, the adverts are an historical document themselves, and make interesting reading. :beers:
My Doctor's surgery will no longer accept magazines. Apparently they (whoever 'they' are) have determined that spread of infection is the reason.
I always thought the spread of infection was primarily caused by sitting next to lots of ill folks in 'their' waiting room! :D
So my old mags now go to the charity shops in town, or to friends and family.
I rarely keep any for long, perhaps making notes of interest, etc, and sometimes taking whole articles out to put in a binder.
Yeah, if I'm honest with meself, railway modelling mags are a limited market, and are probably recycling material. It's a shame, though.
Each year my model railway club, takes them in puts them on a table at our club open day, also at our exhibition secondhand stand, then flogs them off at pence per issue, any left over then, may be passed on to a steam railway society that does the same.
I guess that there is some merit in putting them on display at a show.
I must admit buying a few old ones which, frankly, has added to me problems! ;)
I have quite a few magazines knocking about. Over Easter I sorted the whole lot into a huge plastic carry basket (which is overflowing and I struggle to lift)
I haven't decided the fate of these but I won't be buying anymore as I'm worried about hoarding mags that cost too much and take up too much space!
Going back to OP's question, sort them into date order and put together 1 years worth, and sell them on eBay for 1p start auction with international delivery so people in UK/AUS/NZ/CAN/USA can buy and you can sell them from France. Cover your postage costs in the sale and I'm sure you will shift them. Who knows, you may even make a few bob.
Sell a batch as a trial run, you never know?
Good Luck!
Quote from: Bealman on April 11, 2018, 08:40:40 AM
I too have a million billion model railway mags, my first RM dates April 1957!
Does that mean that you took your RM mags with you when you emigrated to Oz?
Respect.
Kirky
Cheers, Kirky :thumbsup:
No, not initially. When my parents died suddenly in 1990, I had to return to the UK to sort it out. Being the only child, I had to get rid of everything in the space of a couple of weeks.
I arranged to have some of the stuff shipped to Australia, and that included my collection of model railway mags!
So they've been around, those mags, hence my reluctance to part with them. :beers:
George
Having collected many over 50 years I finally decided to rationalise them a few years back. Went carefully through them and carefully cut out the pages that still interested me (layouts, ideas, and modelling techniques), and put them in clear plastic pockets. I now have about four full A4 lever arch files of what I like to think is a summary of all the things I like, or have inspired me. A few magazines have been retained whole for various reasons, mainly those where I had my own articles published. I'm afraid to say much of the remaining bulk went into the recycling bin. (Only a few at a time to avoid the poor Refuse Collectors straining themselves. There must have been at least a ton of it that went that way). Could I have scanned the pages and put them on a CD? Maybe, but that would have taken even longer, so the A4 folders are my library now.
Andy.
Good response. Transferring printed stuff to disc is a lengthy process, and is very greedy on memory.
I'm tempted to keep the mags.
I prefer looking at paper rather than a computer screen anyway. :thumbsup:
However, back to the OP, I still think taking the mags to exhibtions is a good idea. :beers:
Quote from: Bealman on April 11, 2018, 08:40:40 AM
I too have a million billion model railway mags
I've told you a trillion times about over exaggerating :telloff: :stop:
Good morning, Mick. ;D
It's afternoon, George ::) :P :)
So it is. Sorry!
hi all
I joined "www.gb.readly.com"
over 6 months ago cost £7.99 month thousands of mags to suit all
railway wise there is "model rail " and "rail " at the mo along with a German one
they state they will be adding further titles soon and the best bit is most titles you can search back 2 years plus all for £7.99
ps I have no connection with them paul
Thanks for all your comments and tips.
Looks like mine are heading in the direction of the bin. I'll wince very time I drop a bundle of them in it, but that's life.
Kevin
Quote from: paulbeckwith on April 13, 2018, 05:57:07 PM
I joined "www.gb.readly.com"
I have also signed up to 'readly' and have to say that at €9.99 a month, (in Ireland), it is money well spent. Mainly because SWMBO does not have to buy 3 or 4 glossy monthly magazines every month, at around a fiver a time! Then there is the added benefit of not having to dispose of said magazines. Oh and as Paul said, railway magazines are available as well. :thumbsup:
You could always ask and/or donate them to a Heritage Railway for them to sell for much needed funds.
They sell old railway mags at Pickering station on the NYRM for just this purpose (I'm not affiliated in any way, just go there as my Daughter, her partner and granddaughter live near there and the young'un is really into trains...has her own Thomas layout!!)...
I'm sure they said on the program about the NYRM the other month that they need £7 million a year to keep running (could have misheard that figure...!) and other Heritage Lines are probably in the same situation....
Just a thought... :hmmm:
Glyn
Quote from: Bonnyman750 on May 29, 2018, 11:05:40 AM
They sell old railway mags at Pickering station on the NYRM
I was there last year and came across a magazine that was issued in the month/year of my birth, (67 years ago this month :o), which was a nice coincidence. Also, bigger coincidence - it had an article about the Cavan/Leitrim Railway. The original station at Mohill, (about 10 miles from me), is still in situ. So, donating old magazines to a heritage/preserved railway is a good idea. :thumbsup:
Totally agree with the above find your local preservation group and give them a call. Coup!e of years back i was in a similar predicament, somewhere in the region of 15 boxes of magazines, spoke to the north Norfolk railway and they said yes please bring them over to us. I need to make another trip as I've now found another three boxes. The N.N.R were at that time raising funds for a passenger coach restoration so were glad of the help. If I remember correctly i think I got a free coffee as part of the bargain.
Regards Stuart
I pass some of mine (Brm,model rail , rail express , etc ((bar my rail modeller-into mag files for the whole year -then into man cave no1 s filling system )) on to my mate -who reads them then passes they on down the line till they arrive a Southports model rail club -were they do the rounds there -then they end up on the sales stand at the show - and move around a different circle !! Works for us !
Some places have actually stopped taking old magazines as there isn't the market for them anymore and they take up an awful lot of space.
I know the GCR at Loughborough will only take recent issues, and then only certain magazines, and the local Museum I am involved with stopped taking them altogether several years ago. If any are given to us, they go straight in the recycling bin!
Why not give them to someone involved with railway exhibitions as giveaways.
Just a thought.
Bobbyabc
It is indeed interesting that this thread continues.
I have heaps of Railway Modeller magazines. My wife desperately wants me to get rid of them, and I can understand that.
Problem is that to me they are historical documents, and an exercise in nostalgia.
We can still learn a lot from the layouts of the fifties and sixties, and it's all there, in the mags, in glorious black and white!
A couple of years ago, moderator Caz asked if anyone had a Cyril Freezer plan for a through terminus, published around 1962, or so. I replied excitedly saying, "I think I've got that!"
Sure enough, I did, promptly pulled it from the shelf, and scanned the plan to her.
I still haven't been able to squeeze that issue back into it's place on the shelf, Caz >:( ;)
Anyway, it's a shame, because so many museums and places in the world are choc a bloc with historical documents, but ours are valueless, it would seem. :(