How much would it have cost you to build up a "complete" collection of fantasy and science fiction prozines? I do not mean via the second hand dealer, either at bargain basement prices or at today's inflation prices, nor by subscription. The prices I mean are the news stand retail prices printed on the cover.
The "complete" collection I refer to includes English language publications only; and not every "minor variety" of even these. Excluded, for instance, are the Canadian Weird Tales of the '30's which differed only slightly -- retouched covers and contents page, and different cover advts, -- from US copies; although the Conadian WT's of the '40s are included. Also excluded are the Ziff-Davis reissue Quarterlies, and the Australian editions of the Street and Smith pros which differ from the British editions only in price (1 shilling instead of 6, 7, or 9 pence during the war; and 1/1½ in '46).
The price on foreign publications has been converted into dollars and cents, with the accent toward the high side, if any, which will to some extent offset importation expense which is additional to the retail price in the country of publication. The price on certain issues of a few magazines has had to be estimated, because complete information is not available. Included here are: Oriental Stories 1932; Magic Carpet 1933-4; Unusual Stories 1934; Terence X. O'Leary's War Birds 1935; Flash Gordon mag 1936; Ghosts and Goblins, Tales of Terror, and Tales of the Uncanny 1938; Yankee Science Fiction and Yankee Weird Shorts 1940-1; Canadian Uncanny Tales and Canadian Astonishing 1942; Canadian Weird Tales 1941 (also number of issues here and in 1940), and 1947-9; and finally, the Canadian Bizarre of 1949.
We present our summary of information by years, based on the year-date given on the magazines themselves. Then the number of titles appearing during the year. When two different numbers occur here, the larger figure includes title changes of a magazine; the smaller, the actual number of different magazines. Not included in such title changes are the Marvel (Science) Stories (Tales) nor the Super Science Stories/Super Science Novels switches, nor Astounding's various titles. Next appears the retail price on the issues of the year, then the cumulative total price to that date. The final price given is the number of issues appearing during the year, and the cumulative total number of issues by the given date.
In pre-1900 issues, many dime and half-dime novels have individual issues which are entirely fay or stf, but the general run of the mags of a single title would not be entirely within our field, except in a few cases, such as Frank Reade Library. Also exact information on many of these oldies is extremely scarce, so for our purposes, only Frank Reade Library will be included in this tally, of all the pre-THRILL BOOK publications. Some borderline publications, such as Mystery Magazine/Stories, Mystic Magazine, True Mystic Science Stories, Terror Tales, Horror Stories, Eerie Stories, and the US Uncanny Tales, are likewise not included in this tally.
We have concluded the tally with 1949. The 1950 issues are not all available yet and what with all the magazines being revived, and some of the others changing publication schedule, not to mention entirely new titles coming on the scene; we can't give any too reliable a forecast. Maybe if Rapp wants it, he'll ask us to prepare a 1950 tally later - or will prepare one himself. At any rate, with Thrill Book being publisht in 1919, an ending with 1949 rather rounds out the 30 year period.
| year | titles | cost for year | total cost | year's issues | total issues |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| pre-1900 | 1 | $9.55 | $9.55 | 191 | 191 |
| 1919 | 1 | $2.00 | $11.55 | 16 | 207 |
| 1923 | 1 | $2.00 | $13.55 | 8 | 215 |
| 1924 | 1 | $2.00 | $15.55 | 7 | 222 |
| 1925 | 1 | $3.00 | $18.55 | 12 | 234 |
| 1926 | 3 | $6.75 | $25.30 | 27 | 261 |
| 1927 | 5 | $9.75 | $35.05 | 38 | 299 |
| 1928 | 5 | $12.00 | $47.05 | 44 | 343 |
| 1929 | 8 | $14.85 | $61.90 | 55 | 398 |
| 1930 | 13/10 | $22.65 | $84.55 | 85 | 483 |
| 1931 | 12/11 | $20.00 | $104.55 | 76 | 559 |
| 1932 | 9 | $15.65 | $120.20 | 59 | 618 |
| 1933 | 8 | $11.15 | $131.35 | 46 | 664 |
| 1934 | 9 | $13.60 | $144.95 | 74 | 738 |
| 1935 | 8 | $11.45 | $156.40 | 54 | 792 |
| 1936 | 7/6 | $7.85 | $164.25 | 37 | 829 |
| 1937 | 5 | $8.05 | $172.30 | 37 | 866 |
| 1938 | 12 | $10.70 | $183.00 | 50 | 916 |
| 1939 | 21 | $18.32 | $201.32 | 103 | 1019 |
| 1940 | 27 | $24.86 | $226.18 | 151 | 1170 |
| 1941 | 30/29 | $25.05 | $251.23 | 145 | 1315 |
| 1942 | 23 | $25.75 | $276.98 | 129 | 1444 |
| 1943 | 20 | $18.90 | $295.88 | 92 | 1536 |
| 1944 | 13 | $13.20 | $309.08 | 66 | 1602 |
| 1945 | 15 | $13.20 | $322.28 | 68 | 1670 |
| 1946 | 19 | $16.85 | $399.13 | 77 | 1747 |
| 1947 | 19 | $19.85 | $358.98 | 90 | 1837 |
| 1948 | 19 | $25.35 | $384.33 | 97 | 1934 |
| 1949 | 23 | $28.34 | $412.67 | 106 | 2040 |
To make these figures even more realistic, we present the data in graph form:
purple: Price
blue: number of mags
green: number of titles
Text versions and page scans Judy Bemis
Data entry by Judy Bemis
Updated June 19, 2015. If you have a comment about these web pages please send a note to the Fanac Webmaster. Thank you.