Value of 1878-9 "Scientific American" magazine?

September 19, 2014 9:57 AM

I ran into some issues of "Scientific American, dated February 23rd, November 30th 1878 and a third February 1st, 1879, all in good shape. I also have one copy of "The Contemporary Review" dated November of 1879, in OK shape. I am curious as to whether they have any collector's value at this point. I have no idea how I came to own them, as these were dated before my father was born.
posted by psc1860 to Science & Nature (4 answers total)

Sadly I think not much, unless there's something special about those particular issues. Ebay lists several from 1878 with "Buy-It-Now" prices of $2.99-$4.99 each, some of which have sold at that price in the last month.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=1878+%22scientific+american%22&LH_Complete=1&rt=nc
posted by crazy with stars at 10:10 AM on September 19, 2014

Yeah, I concur: paper isn't a big-ticket item, being mass-produced means there's less rarity, and researchers can get most large publications on microfilm. $5 is about my best estimate, although Etsy tends to go a bit higher, maybe $9,
posted by AzraelBrown at 12:45 PM on September 19, 2014

The individual advertisements and illustrations may be worth more than the magazine as a whole.
posted by Sophont at 1:12 PM on September 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yeah I have one of these so I looked into it a while ago and concluded $20 at most. But it's way cool to show off to nerdy friends, so I just keep it around for that. And the nice thing is, because it's not really worth anything, I don't get anxious about people picking it up and turning the pages and not washing their hands and stuff.
posted by lollusc at 6:07 PM on September 19, 2014