Collecting Vintage Magazine Ads

If you love art, are prone to nostalgia, don't have much room, and want something that is inexpensive to collect, you should know that vintage magazine advertisements are beautiful, stir those old memories, are portable, and do not cost much.

Collecting original drawings or paintings is expensive, but some of the truly memorable art of the last century was created for advertisements in magazines. You do not have to go far to see some of it. Many libraries have bound volumes of old magazines like Time or Life. If you pull down the volumes from the 1950s or 1960s, you will see full color ads for automobiles, clothing, aircraft, railroads, you name it. They are beautifully drawn, and the ads from the original old magazines are vividly colored. Today's reproductions can't match the originals for beauty. The library is a good place to learn what you like before you buy, and it lets you see the art work itself, not a computer scan of it.

Start by browsing the decade of your childhood. You will see toys that you used to own, clothing that you used to love, women dressed the way that your mother looked, stoves, interior decorations, hats, suits, you name it. All of them will stir memories from that period of your life. If you enjoy nostalgic feelings, this is the kind of collection for you. My own interest is World War II, and Life magazine ads from the war years have beautiful drawings of War Birds, soldiers, and maps.

Magazine ads are small, most being no larger than 8 ½ by 11 inches. Collectors carefully remove them from the magazine and store them in display folders, or even in manila filing folders. You can place thousands of ads on a bookshelf, and they will take no more space than a 1000 page book. Even someone living in a small apartment can afford the space to store them, and you can take your favorites and frame them, displaying them around the house. The ads are also portable; if you have to move, you will have no worries about your collection. At least at the start, you can put it under your arm and walk away.

Buying ads is relatively cheap. They are available at online auction sites, and many Web Pages specialize in selling them. A typical price is $9.95 for an ad, but you can find them for much less than that, even pennies per ad. Also, if you get good at finding old magazines at garage sales, you can beat the online prices any day.