Don't Overlook Magazine Back Issues At Book Sales

I'm guilty of not thinking outside the bookcase when searching through stacks of old used books at fundraising book sales. Just recently, as I was paying for two boxes of great deals, I noticed several copies of glossy magazines devoted to car restoration. I quickly pulled up the info with my smartphone and was surprised to see how many times these draw completed sales on Ebay. I bought them, 50 cents each. They look brand new. Here's what I got:

The selling price per magazine isn't a lot....perhaps $3 - $5 each, plus an average of $3 for s&h.

Here are some completed sales on Ebay:

On Amazon, the pricing for back issues is higher. I don't know if they sell as well, there's no way to see the Completed Listings results like on Ebay. But it's interesting to note that pricing on individual copies of used magazines sell so much higher than the New prices:

One thing to keep in mind: you won't be able to use the economical USPS Media Mail rate on magazines like you can on books. I'll price mine slightly higher than I normally would to cover the cost of mailing them First Class, and limit to U.S. addresses only.

Bottomline: it pays to watch out for niche publications, no matter if they are books, magazines, textbooks, health reports, cooking and recipe collections, even U.S. government publicaitons. The lot I purchased won't likely return a big return on investment, but I'll make my money back and then some.You never know what valuable finds you might uncover! In fact, these remind me to get busy on a new Kindle book I've been researching, on how to make money selling old magazines! Stay tuned!