Sunday, October 1, 2023

Happy Anniversary The Wrapper Magazine


 I was going to make this post my September post, but I decided on the afternoon of the last day of the month (yesterday 30 Sep) to do something else because I wanted to show some cards. This post doesn't show any cards because it talks about a card magazine. So...

October 2023 marks the 45th Anniversary of the non-sport trading card magazine The Wrapper and their current issue #350. The magazine is published quarterly and still has the feel of the late 1970s, early 1980s when it first started. With the exception of the outer covers that usually have 3 colors the magazine is black & white. Very simple format and low budget as it has been self published by the same guy Les Davis.


Each issue starts with a feedback section/news section "Non Sport Talk". Then there are three or four (I haven't actually counted for each issue) nice articles on some non-sport set from the past usually vintage and often sort of rare and sometimes all but forgotten.

Each issue also has a giveaway/contest called "Wrapper Drawing" that I usually forget about a couple of days after skimming through the issue. Some of the prizes I had been interested in, but never got around to entering or sometimes even checking on the entry details.


Most of the content of magazine is ads and sales lists, maybe some of them are want lists of the dealers. There is also a cartoon, comic on the last page that sneaks an advertisement for some monster related thing or the magazine itself. I didn't scan that. The size is usually 70-some pages.


As I said the overall feel of the magazine is the late 1970s low budget homemade newsletter style. It is informative and the writers of the articles for the sets featured are usually quite enjoyable. I forget when I first found the magazine, but I do think some years back I had to look for it again because I had let my original subscription end, forgot about it and thought like many hobby related sources from the 1970s it had ended.


Again HAPPY ANNIVERSARY (Cardiversary, Wrapperversary) to THE WRAPPER Magazine.


2 comments:

  1. Fun to read the old scans. I noticed George Vrecheck's name in there. He's just published an article on the 50th anniversary of Sports Collectors Digest. Very similar from the Sports side. https://oldbaseball.com/refs/SCD_50_years.pdf

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  2. I've looked into this magazine before, but for me the price is a bit too much for so little actual content. I understand that they need to make money to keep it going, but one would think that they could afford to get a few more real articles in there.

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