More good news: SI subscription issues getting their due
Newsstand issues of Sports Illustrated are fueling the surge in graded magazine collecting. But subscription issues — the ugly step-child of the SI collector's market — are starting to earn a seat at the adult's table.
For some magazine collectors, subscription issues are the bane of their existence. The irony is that those subscription issues are what make the newsstand issues so valuable. When I started a subscription to The Sporting News in 1971, the mailing label was attached to a brown wrapper. So every issue of TSN in those days had no subscription label on the actual newspaper. If Sports Illustrated had taken the same approach, the difference between a newsstand and subscription issue would be virtually imperceptible — especially with expert pressing processes evening the playing field — for hundreds if not thousands of issues sent through the mail.
Some collectors have a latent — if not overt — disdain for subscription issues. The presumed concern is that — in theory — if you could remove the label immaculately, a subscription issue would be indistinguishable from a newsstand issue, which would alter the rarity and thus significantly impact the market for graded magazines.
Fortunately, the process Sports Illustrated used to adhere the label to the magazine makes it extremely difficult, if not virtually impossible, to remove a label without some evidence of the label being attached. And also — so far, anyway — the market has determined that true newsstand issues are preferred over a subscription issue with the label cleanly removed, even one with similar eye appeal. "Newsstand" means something, perhaps everything.
Despite that reality, subscription issues are finding their own niche in the graded-magazine market — including issues with the label still attached. It seemed unlikely that issues with subscription labels would be considered a gradable (or marketable) commodity — not only because of the aesthetics of having a label on the magazine, but the awkwardness of having someone's name and address on the label.
But graded subscription issues with labels have sold for significant prices in recent months. And while it's mostly, if not exclusively, high-end issues, the entire graded-magazine market is top-heavy — dominated by Jordan, first-cover, GOAT/grail and/or 9.8/9.6-graded issues. As the hobby grows, subscription issues likely will grow with it.
So while the newsstand vs. subscription issue has largely been settled, it is becoming a win-win for the hobby. Newsstand issues have their undeniable niche at the top — with recent record prices that were unfathomable a few years ago.
Fortunately, while rarity is a factor in the magazine market, so is quality. And while it's true that there were millions of Sports Illustrated subscription issues delivered each week, only a small percentage have survived in near-mint-to-mint condition — issues that would be graded 9.0 or better by CGC or PSA.
Not even if they were never read. I have been a Sports Illustrated subscriber since 1976, and when I graduated from college and moved to Little Rock, Ark. for my first job in 1981, my mother kept renewing my subscription. So I have hundreds of subscription issues that have never been read. But as it turns out, many, if not most, of those issues still have many of the flaws that make it unlikely they will receive a grade of 9.0 or better, even with professional pressing.
That's how difficult it likely will be to find high-grade subscription issues. We'll likely find out for sure as recent impressive auction/sale prices for subscription-label graded magazines lead to more and more subscription-label magazines getting graded. But until then, even the often-loathed subscription issues of Sports Illustrated are just more good news for a growing graded-magazine hobby.
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