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An early attempt at preserving newspapers…
July 6, 2009 by TimHughes · 1 Comment
You may have noted many of our descriptions of the New York Times from the 1927-1953 period are described as the “rag edition”.
Fellow collector Paul Sarna passed along the following information taken from “News-Week” magazine of Oct. 28, 1933. It’s an interesting report from 76 years ago of the creation of the “rag edition” as a means of preserving newspapers for posterity, which remain a concern for present-day institutions as well.
A brief piece from this 1933 magazine tells of its beginning:
“To preserve valuable newspapers, libraries from time to time have resorted to sprays, rejuvenators, and glassine covers. But none has been to successful. With an eye on this problem the New York times, in 1927, began printing an edition on enduring rag paper. the idea had two disadvantages: the subscription price of the rag edition was $170 annually, and it filled about 870 ft. of new shelf space each year.”
The rag edition was produced on a very high quality newsprint, with a high percentage of cotton & linen content allowing the issues to remain very white & sturdy many years into the future. Given the subscription cost it is not surprising that libraries rather than individuals were the primarily subscribers. We have never seen a never-bound rag edition of the Times although they might exist.
The Times discontinued the rag edition in 1953. A few other newspapers also produced a rag edition during the early part of the 20th century as we’ve encountered a run of Detroit News in rag edition. Is anyone aware of other titles?
Setting values for collectible newspapers…
September 19, 2008 by TimHughes · 9 Comments
We are often asked “What’s my newspaper worth?” in phone calls and email messages. As one might suspect, there are many factors which determine value and much like a jeweler cannot give a value of a diamond by an email or telephone inquiry, our ethics do not permit us to place values on newspapers without seeing the issues in hand.
Many factors determine value. The more important include condition, desirability among collectors, extent of coverage, completeness of the issue, proximity of the city of publication to where the event happened, time lag between the event date and the reporting date, dramatic appeal (more so with 20th century issues), and location of the report within the issue (front page? page 3?). Other factors come into play with more significant events but those noted are the prime determinants of value.
From a personal perspective setting values has been an interesting process, as no guide book of values existed 30+ years ago when I started the business. I priced an item in my catalog for $10 and if I had twenty orders for it I knew the price was too low. If no one ordered it the price was too high. Through the years, and by data basing sold prices (on index cards prior to the computer!), I’ve honed my own “price guide” based on actual sales, and it is this now-sophisticated database which we use to set values for new inventory as it arrives.
Do values continue to rise? In general, yes, but we are careful to never recommend the purchase of early newspapers for investment purposes. As is true of most collectibles, rarity and desirability determine where prices will be for the future.
But providing an historical perspective from our own files, back in October of 1981 we sold in our catalog #26 the NEW YORK HERALD of March 5, 1865 reporting the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, very nice condition, for $70. Just four months ago we sold another issue of the NEW YORK HERALD of March 5, 1865, also in very nice condition, for $535.
This is the first in a series of posts where we will compare the past and present values of newspapers based on actual sales. Stay tuned for more.