im gaining on having a pretty hefty collection of old books and magazines and im really getting worried about them getting damaged while sitting in stacks so i was tring to figure out ways to store them the "little" magazines appear to mostly be about 8"x5.5", basically half of a sheet of paper i was thinking that someone might make a 3 ring binder with clear pages to fit 2 of these per page...or a smaller binder to hold one per clear page.... this way i can have a binder for every so many magazines and flip through and then pull out whichever one i want at that time making it easy to find, sort, and safe to store them unfortunately i cant seem to find clear pages to hold them in? i can find the binders in 8.5x5.5 though just no pages? does anyone have any ideas or places that might have these? or really any idea at all how to store the magazines better i really wanted to stay away from standing them on edge like on a bookshelf as that seems to be hard on the pages and also hard to find a magazine when your looking for it...and hard to replace it in line without damaging the covers all ideas welcome thanks alot Zach
MILKCRATES, I have stored my magazines this way for 30 years starting with the ones my dad gave me as a kid. If you stand the milkcrate on its side, neatly stack in the the magazines in two piles side by side until they cant shift. Then reright the crate. If you pack them full, they will not get damaged.
Plastic or cardboard magazine storage files at Office Max or other supply place. Get the ones that are SOLID on the sides, not open or a decorative open mesh. When you slide the magazines in, the corners of the pages will to through the open edges and get torn. I used to have a stack of mags from the '80s and '90s...hundreds. Car Craft, Chevy High Performance, Hot Rod, R&C, and several others. Then I realized I wanted the space more...went through them and did nice color photo copies of all the tech and feature articles I wanted and thought would actually be good reference material in the future, then stuck those copies into a 3-ring binder, with sections in it such as "BRAKES", "REAR END" "TRANSMISSION" etc. Now when I want to refer back to an article I need, I can do it in seconds, rather than flipping through hundreds of magazines until I stumble on it. -Brad
I have a couple of the normal size binders and clear sheets for the normal mags, but i can't find the small sheets either, some one has to make them. I have a collection of popular mechanics shop notes from 1930 up to 1960, i need something to put those in.
I'm convinced that there is no good way to store magazines, so they will be safe from damage, yet easy to find, take out, and put back. I've tried several different ways of doing it, most are a pain and they don't get put back right away because it's so much trouble. here's the latest attempt...the Randy Wilson Memorial magazine boxes....
Do not store them up right with the back out in an open book case if you have cats in the house. They think they are a scratching post and shred the outside covers so that they just fall off when you take them out. I have a friend who always stacked them along the wall on the floor until one day the floor gave way because the termites had eaten through the sub floor and the finished floor to reach the magazines and had eaten through about half of them.
Looks like you guys don't make many trips to vintage comic book stores! They have the plastic bags and sleeves specificly for magazines. You can also get cardboard inserts that will keep the magazines flat and help prevent them from turning brown. Give the comic book stores a look see. I know you'll be impressed.
thanks guys i was just thinking....i wonder if you take the full 8.5x11 clear pages and use a bag sealer right across the middle. then slice one side open with an exacto knife... you could fit 2 magazines per page safely? just gotta find a bag sealer! anyone else have any ideas? i may have found a solution for "hot rod" magazine though thanks Zach
First, you store them in an open magazine rack an arm's reach across from the commode in the bathroom for about six months to a year, then one day the stack gets so deep you bet the inspiration to cull the strata of collectibles and put the perpetually damp and "biologically active" gems in air tight plastic bags, sealing in all that living goodness and plant them in a box in the nice warm attic where they can grow into there soon to be fine musty moldy splendor. After that, if you have time to remember you even saved them, you can still enjoy reading them on the back stoop, as long as you hold them at arm's length away from your nose and down wind... I keep mine in open breathable self drying boxes like the one's squirrel showed, in a closed storage closet away from the cats.
The boxes Squireel showed are often on sale at Office Depot, Max etc. for a good price. Magazines deteriorate by nature as they are paper products. You can spend money on acid-free storage etc. but why bother? Enjoy them for what they are, glimpses of the past with humor and history. They won't disappear before we do. When we die they'll go out to the curb with the rest of our treasures.
For those of you who like me like CATS The #27 and #38 LB "Tidy Cats" cat litter comes in a plastic pail with a snap closed lid that is handy for storing a lot of stuff. The lids and bottoms are designed to interlock when stacked too. Just remember to felt pen the contents on them before stacking though. I keep everthing from bicycle and car parts to road maps and book keeping in them.
That's what I did... When I'm done fixin up the garage a bit, I want to get a convienience store rack to display my magazines in. I saw a pic on the garage thread of someone that did this. Looked like a neat idea, so I think I'll steal it for my garage
Alternately, if you are serious about conservation of your pile of little books - head to the "real" photographer hang out in your burg. They have achival storage boxes in various sizes, which contain no acids or things that might hasten your favorite magazines trip back to pulp form...
I've been collecting magazines since about 1956 and know what a pain in the *** they can be. I've got a lot of magazines and no real dedicated "reading" room in which to keep them. I've got them in an ***ortment of boxes, some specifically for magazines and some that I just got from the liquor store as they are really stout boxes. One thing I have been doing religiously for the past several years is to store each magazine in its own open top plastic bag. I may even use zip lock bags if I can find them at a good price, but I generally just use 2 mil storage bags that can be easily found online for not a lot of money. I get mine from uline.com. I then have my wife make up individual labels, such as mailing labels, for each magazine identifying the ***le, month and year for each. That way each mag can easily be identified for future reference. Somewhere I lost control of this magazine collecting hobby as my personal stash is now way over 4000 mags. Is there an intervention group somewhere willing to help me out???
Zack-I've been using ziplock 2 gallon FREEZER bags for years. You can get approx 2 years of magazines in each bag. TwoChops
OK.. I'm gonna throw something at ya, I bet no one has thought about. I have 100+ old Winston CUP (Nascar) Race programs I have collected from going to CUP races. Needless to say I'm like you and want to keep them in good shape. I saw a hint many years ago that covered your question, and have been storing my programs like this for 20 years. FIRST get a wire coat hanger. open the book to the very middle (where the staples bind it all together) Put the coat hanger in the middle and let the book d**** down. It hangs flat, no rubbing on the edges, and no wear from standing up. Clean out a place in the closet and hang all the books up. Can even create a filing system (think something like they use to show pants sizes on a clothes rack) Sort by year, Name of magazine, etc.
I go to a box store and buy wine boxes and cut them in half, now I have two boxes without lids. For the lid, the box store usually has a box the next size up (larger than the wine box) that I use for the lid. Boxes cost from about 50-75 cents each, one box and another for the lid, will make two storage boxes.
This is a long shot but maybe you'll be as lucky as I've been. Over the years I've worked at some places the had an extensive product line. Sales and service were supported by catalogs/parts manuals which consisted of loose leaf binders filled with the pertinent preprinted sheets. In the offices were steel cabinets known as "literature files". Each cabinet was(is) 30" wide X 36" high X 12" deep and contains 30 drawers each designed to hold about 1 1/2 reams of paper. (3 wide by 10 high). When the companies became computerized, all the catalog pages and parts lists were printed on demand-there was no longer any need to inventory hundreds of sheets of printed matter. The cabinets became surplus and fortubnately I was in the right place at the right time and now have 5 such pieces lined up in rows and holding my many years of all the good stuff. I've p***ed this on in case any of you know of a business that is about to close and which might have something like this. Print shops, mfrs of proprietary products, sales outlets and distributors---watch the auction pages.
Zach, go up on Walnut St. H-burg to state surplus and get a few filing cabinets. They usually sell for $10 or $20 bucks.
i think i can help man!send me 200 per week....and when your comfortable with that number, send 300...and so on....soon you will be free from addiction! hope this helps...
For the clear pages that will fit in a binder, look for a place on the net that deals with photography storage. I was gatting a catalog for a while till I moved, and then I quit getting them. The had the clar binder paes in lots of different sizes and gave quanity discounts if you bought a bunch.
For years I used Tide cloths washing machine powder boxes,,trimed down at an angle,,that is before the re-designed them to almost a square cube! they worked good and kept the magazines from having a musty smell and as a bonus they seemed to repel any silverfish and bugs that like to dine on paper. That was when they were stored in the shop,,,,I broke down and bought some plastic holders,,,I also use plastic coke crates,,,and I also have a couple of big piles of magazines I need to sort thru,,,HRP
This might be a long shot, but here goes. Once apon a time my parent got a whole **** load of dear meat from the neighbor after deer season. They used some sort of vacuum sealer to seal the meat in plastic. The reason I tell you this is because the meat came in different sizes and when the meat thaws out blood doesn't leak out. Just get a piece of thin wood the shape of your magazine and press the edges together, then cut the excess and pull out the wood. And voila you got a sleeve that is made of a really tough clear plastic. Punch some holes into the side and now you can store them safly in a binder. The pages wont pe pressed together and it wont be too hard on the edge of the pages. Your magazines can be super organized in three ring binders. your magavines will be in order and so will your freezer.
I use the Polypropelene 8.5 X 11 sheet holders for all my little pages. You can put 4 in each holder. With 4 in there it is not incredibly tight and with 4 they do not shift position in the sleeves themselves. I got mine at a general office supply store. You can go fancy and get basically the same thing just quite a bit more in cost from photo houses. On the web you can find sheets that have archival sheet inserts that fit between the issues. Google archival storage and you should find lots of options. I've thought about the bag sealer thing myself but never tried it. The old HopUp binders as you know had strings that went between the pages to hold the issues in. I've been trying to get some of those for some time. I know you just won one on the bay that I even had bid on myself. BR
I use clear plastic sheet protectors for the big ones - the record & comic collectors have always used Bags Unlimited stuff.
thanks everyone....lots of good options to explore I'd really like whatever i come up with to be fairly presentable so that i can store them in a library/showroom/office area these are my refrence material and if i ever end up with a full blown shop i would like to be able to use them when talking with customers to show examples of ideas and whatnot so something professional looking would be best.....i'll keep working on it though some of the magazines change size over time.... speed age for example...it fits in a 8.5x11 page through 1947....but 1948 grew ever so slightly that it wont fit!! and motor trend started larger then shrunk.... anyways...i'll keep hunting and working on it!! thanks for running up my bid i dont think anyone else had a chance on that one Zach
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