Reading Around in Old SF Magazines

[RDArmstrong]

I've considered starting a collection for at least 10 years. I did a search years ago and found this thread and tried to piece together some of the recommendations on eBay, but the ones I found were in bad condition or I didn't know the actual worth of them. I'm wondering if there is some sort of "best of" list I could start from.

 

[Hugh]

I've considered starting a collection for at least 10 years. I did a search years ago and found this thread and tried to piece together some of the recommendations on eBay, but the ones I found were in bad condition or I didn't know the actual worth of them. I'm wondering if there is some sort of "best of" list I could start from.

I'm afraid I don't know much about this field. The few pulps I've actually bought (via ebay) were purely to get hold of specific stories I wanted to read that had not been reprinted in book form.

 

[Extollager]

I've considered starting a collection for at least 10 years. I did a search years ago and found this thread and tried to piece together some of the recommendations on eBay, but the ones I found were in bad condition or I didn't know the actual worth of them. I'm wondering if there is some sort of "best of" list I could start from.

I don't collect pulps, sf digests, etc. However I've bought a few over the years without being concerned about condition. They sometimes relate to my interest in the Inklings. Thus, having read Donald Wandrei's "Colossus" as reprinted in a book, I was convinced that this was s story whose author and title C. S. Lewis couldn't remember, but which he acknowledged as a source for his short novel The Great Divorce. He could only have read it in the issue of Astounding in which it first appeared. (I was sure that Astounding was available in England at the time.) So I thought it would be interesting to own the issue and see what else CSL might have read in it. Arthur C. Clarke gave Lewis a copy of an sf digest with one of his stories in it. I thought it would be interesting to have a copy of this issue that Lewis read cover to cover or at least for the most part, since he wrote to ACC about it; so I got a copy.

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

Just what I needed on election night.

The only thing that worked for me was alcohol.

 

[Orcadian]

The only thing that worked for me was alcohol.

*Resists temptation to get into politics*

 

[hitmouse]

I've considered starting a collection for at least 10 years. I did a search years ago and found this thread and tried to piece together some of the recommendations on eBay, but the ones I found were in bad condition or I didn't know the actual worth of them. I'm wondering if there is some sort of "best of" list I could start from.

It depends what you are looking for. I have been picking up old sf magazines randomly found in second hand bookshops since I was a kid. Easy to find now on ebay, or in full runs for free online if you are not bothered about physical copies.

I used to buy them for the covers primarily, with good stories a lucky bonus. My original guide was The Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction ed Brian Ash ( ebay for less than a tenner) which had good pictures of magazine cover and internal art, and loads of information on the short fiction. Cross-reference with the online SF Encyclopdia which is pretty comprehensive and much better organised.

If I was going to collect systematically now, I would start with 1960s runs of Galaxy or F&SF or Science Fantasy, or New Worlds, or the first few years of Omni, or try to work through the published ss of certain authors.