Antique Publications

[rousseau]

I started a similar thread in the history forum a while back that didn't gain much interest, but why not start another one here? Might inspire some members to get into the hobby..

I've been collecting antique publications for a number of years now. Not very seriously, just buying stuff I'm interested in reading when I find it. I've got books, magazines, newspapers, you name it..

Here are a few samples from my collection:

One of the first books I bought when simply 'looking for something old'..

Philosophy in Sport Made Science in Earnest; Being an attempt to illustrate the first principles of natural philosophy by the aid of popular toys and sports

Published in 1827

Time Magazine

Published in 1938

One of my personal favourites of the collection:

The Canadian Magazine

Published in 1899. Lots of cool material inside this guy

The Hockey News

Published in 1950. Found in an antique market that was loaded with sports publications

Pioneer Days in London

Published in 1921. A history of my city, but with historical value itself.

There's a bunch more that I may post later..

Anyone else do similar?

 

[Bronzeage]

I sold most of my collection when I sold my house and knew I would not have room for several thousand books. There were several themed collections in my library. The one into which I put most of the effort was Pre-WW1 technical manuals. This included large machinery operators manuals, automotive repair manuals, trade school text book, and the like. There was always a lot of editorializing, which one would never find in a current technical publication. I remember a text book on masonry. There was a chapter on fireplace construction, which started with a five page indictment of fireplaces, listing all the reasons a sensible person would never use such an inefficient method to heat a house(this was 1912). It concluded that although fireplaces were a bad idea, people still wanted them, so a mason had to understand their function and construction, because it would be a steady source of income.

 

[rousseau]

I sold most of my collection when I sold my house and knew I would not have room for several thousand books. There were several themed collections in my library. The one into which I put most of the effort was Pre-WW1 technical manuals. This included large machinery operators manuals, automotive repair manuals, trade school text book, and the like. There was always a lot of editorializing, which one would never find in a current technical publication. I remember a text book on masonry. There was a chapter on fireplace construction, which started with a five page indictment of fireplaces, listing all the reasons a sensible person would never use such an inefficient method to heat a house(this was 1912). It concluded that although fireplaces were a bad idea, people still wanted them, so a mason had to understand their function and construction, because it would be a steady source of income.

A big part of my interest in old publications is social: how did people talk, write, advertise, and what were they thinking about at certain times, and so the type of publication I'm willing to buy varies widely. Unfortunately, once you go far back enough hard publications become more rare, and eventually the English is unintelligible.

Oddly enough, one of the most interesting parts of my collection are my Playboys. I made a point to buy an edition for about every 5 years from the magazine's inception to the modern day. Those are packed with interesting things to see, as well as patterns over time.

Anyway, as per your post, you might find these two magazines in my collection interesting:

I mainly wanted the second one as it had an article on the original Disney Land, and bought two because at 10 dollars each, why not?

 

[Bronzeage]

I put my Playboy(70's to 90's) collection in the store and promoted them as birthday cards. This was especially popular for women who wanted to get something for their 20-something boyfriend. They could find the issue from the month he was born. Playboy and National Geographic are two magazines which people carefully preserved and huge numbers of them survive.

 

[rousseau]

Read through a brand new one this afternoon that I found last weekend. An Ontario high-school reader on the History of Britain, published in the 1920's. I was quite happy to find it and it cost me less than the price of a Starbucks latte to buy. Added it to a number of old public school readers and textbooks.

Anyway, it reads pretty much like you'd expect. The author made the history of Britain sound more like a mythology than a history. They were brave, strong and heroic people who basked in the light of Christianity (unlike the wild and untamed people of other religions).

 

[beero1000]

I have a small collection of late 19th and early 20th century math textbooks that I used to pick up from the old book collection at the Strand while I was in NYC. It's still really interesting to see how the notation and expositional style changes throughout the years.

Also, the shift in the level of the content itself is dramatic - 'college algebra' was still something regularly taken at the university level, and a math major would be expected to take geometry, trigonometry, basic (to the modern eye, though I have a book that calls it 'higher') algebra, and calculus by the time they graduated. Then the WWII math/physics boom happened, and today essentially all of a completed 1930's degree in math is already expected of high school students who are interested in math. It's fairly rare for someone to complete a math major nowadays who hasn't already taken calculus before getting to college and students who haven't are almost considered remedial cases, to the point where most departments don't even teach a college algebra course any more.