Amazing Asbestos

I've just about gone through the entire estate I've been working on and I'm glad to see the end in sight. The Frederick books I posted about last time did sell on ebay. Not for as much as I wished but that's how ebay rolls! The buyer was happy with his purchase.

One of the strange things I've found going through some of the old magazines are the ads. I had a 1943 Time magazine that didn't sell on ebay so I went through and started cutting out the ads to sell. I made more money selling the single ads than I was asking for the magazine by itself! The ad that got the most attention and sold for the highest price was called "Amazing Asbestos!" It was a one quarter page ad in black and white and in 1943 it was touted as the best thing ever invented! It said you could walk through fire wearing a suit made of asbestos and never get burned! They were really promoting building your house using asbestos to make it more fire proof.

Here we are, 66 years later and there are ads everywhere saying you should call an attorney if you or a loved one has been exposed to asbestos. I guess Mesothelioma is the worst disease linked now a days to asbestos. It's a most dangerous type of lung cancer. My own uncle died of Mesothelioma a few years ago. He was an otherwise healthy man who had never smoked cigarettes in his life. From the time he was diagnosed until the time he died was just a few short months. He had worked in an industry that exposed him to asbestos for many many years.

Looking back at what America promoted as wonderful that many years ago makes me wonder what items we are promoting today that will be deemed as harmful in 60 years to come?

Who Says You Can't Leave Your Children a Fortune?

The reason I added vintage paper to my old books blog is that I've found many interesting things to do with old paper that comes from books, magazines, and newspaper. I had a Time Magazine that wouldn't sell on ebay. It was a 1949 issue. The print ads inside that magazine were cracking me up. So I cut the pages out. I sold a 3/4 page ad from that magazine for $4.03 on ebay. The buyer paid the shipping fees. The ad was titled "Amazing Asbestos". It was glorifying all the amazing things that asbestos could do. So now here we are, 60 years later, knowing all the BAD things that asbestos can cause......and that ad seems pretty wrong huh? I mean, hard to believe that just 60 years ago, this country was promoting asbestos as the next best thing since sliced bread! So vintage paper can be sold to those who are interested in a particular subject that they are collecting.

Think of this too: Suppose you grew up in a particular city or town. Now you've moved away and you've been gone several years. Suddenly you notice (on ebay or elsewhere) that you can buy the old newspaper articles from your childhood....from your old hometown. Or maybe an old catalog where your parents used to order all your childhood toys. Wouldn't that take you back? Would you like to go back and read them again? Would you even pay a few bucks for that personal history? Lots of people do!!

Some categories of news clips and magazine articles and ads are popular. Movie stars are popular. Politicians (some of them) are very popular. Sports stars like car racing, horse racing, baseball, football, golf,,,,,, and then old maps, vintage clothing or knitting patterns, you name it someone is collecting it!

So when I titled this post "Who says you Can't leave your children a fortune" I mean, think about what you buy. Think about what you throw away or maybe recycle. Recycling is good for our planet. Thinking of collections to clip from magazines and newspapers is even better. It's a win/win. You clip articles and ads of the things you are collecting. Then recycle the rest that you don't want. Your collections will be held for years. You were going to buy that newspaper or that magazine anyway. Why not save parts of it to earn several dollars in later years? Store them properly. Don't leave them in a damp garage or attic where they will be exposed to humidity or extreme heat. They will either dry rot or become moldy if you don't store them properly.

Don't put newspaper clippings inside other books or magazines. There is something in Newspaper that turns brown with age. If it's laying between the pages of another book, it will make those pages turn brown too. (It may be that newspaper is more acidic.)

In my next post I will show you some clippings of the peanuts comic strips which are popular now-a days. You can't clip them now to save because they ended in 2000. Every peanuts strip now is simply a re-run. So Peanuts from 1950 - 2000 are vintage. After 2000, you may still see them in your daily newspaper, but they are re-runs. I will show you some pictures in my next post.