1,200 vintage glamour magazines going under the hammer in West Brom

It’s the antique rude show that has already caused a stir among collectors of vintage top shelf material.

In one of the year’s most bizarre auctions, next week over 1,200 vintage glamour magazines go under the hammer. For two days, December 28 and 29, the-saleroom.com will be turned into a stocking and suspender exchange. It’s a basque to the future bonanza.

The collection, including real rarities, is being sold by West Bromwich based BTW Auctions and Tim Beddow, an Old Warley resident usually associated with sports memorabilia. Tim said: “There is a real market for glamour magazines from yesteryear and a large number of collectors. We’ve already had a lot interest.”

The lots include titles from the past, such as Parade and Fiesta, and some date back to the 1940s. Back then, the content was tame enough to make today’s prime time TV. Images are mildly saucy, at best, and a long way from steamy.

It’s seaside postcard stuff. With each decade, the content becomes racier, however. “There’s a 1949 copy of Men Only,” said Tim, “and, frankly, it’s about as risqué as Readers Digest. I do look at later ones and think, ‘she must be in her 70s now’. I don’t expect the 1949 magazine to go for much, maybe £4 or £5.”

The magazines have not all come from one collector, Tim stressed. “I don’t know why they are so popular, perhaps it’s a nostalgia thing – taking men back to their teenage years.”

Just a thought…a collector of stamps is a philatelist, a collector of coins is a numismatist. But those with vintage glamour magazines are nameless. Perhaps that’s the way they prefer it.