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CONDITION — : Fair vintage condition overall. These are 116–124-year-old magazines and they show it. Every issue has substantial age-related wear: edge and corner wear, chipping, tears, creasing, surface wear, staining and soiling, discoloration, and paper loss at the edges. Several issues have extensive old clear-tape repairs and reinforcement along the spines, edges, and tears — the tape has aged and is now yellowed/discolored. Some covers are weakened or partially pulling at the spine. Interior pages show the expected toning for paper this age, with occasional staining, edge tears, and handling wear. That said, all ten issues appear complete from front to back with no missing pages observed, the original color covers are present and still attractive, and the period content — stories, illustrations, and advertising — is intact. Please study the photos carefully; they are part of the description.
THE LOT: Ten genuine antique magazines — nine issues of McClure\'s Magazine (June 1902 through June 1910) plus one issue of Pearson\'s Magazine (December 1906). McClure\'s was the great muckraking monthly of the Progressive Era — the magazine that published Ida Tarbell\'s Standard Oil exposé, Lincoln Steffens, Willa Cather, Rudyard Kipling, O. Henry, and A.E. Housman, illustrated by N.C. Wyeth, Maxfield Parrish, Howard Pyle, and Jessie Willcox Smith. This lot touches all of it.
CONTENT HIGHLIGHTS:
- The key muckraking issue of the lot: October 1904 contains the CONCLUSION of Ida Tarbell\'s “History of the Standard Oil Company” — the final installment of the series that helped bring down the Standard Oil monopoly
- December 1904 carries a contemporary review of Tarbell\'s “History of the Standard Oil Company,” published just two months after the series concluded — plus a Maxfield Parrish frontispiece and illustrations.
- July 1905 features Tarbell\'s “John D. Rockefeller: A Character Study” with Rockefeller\'s portrait on the cover
- May 1906 opens Kipling\'s new “Robin Goodfellow” series and prints Housman\'s “When I Was One-and-Twenty”
- Two Willa Cather stories: “The Profile” (June 1907) and “On the Gulls\' Road” (December 1908)
- Illustration royalty: N.C. Wyeth cover (November 1906), Maxfield Parrish (December 1904), Howard Pyle and Jessie Willcox Smith (November 1906), Bessie Pease Gutmann cover (Pearson\'s December 1906)
- December 1908 includes a hitherto-unpublished eyewitness account of the Lincoln assassination
- June 1910 has the second-ever Dr. Thorndyke detective story by R. Austin Freeman
PERIOD ADVERTISING: The interiors are loaded with fantastic early-1900s full-page ads — Edison Amberol phonographs, Victor talking machines, Tiffany & Co., Colgate\'s 100th Anniversary package, Swift\'s Premium Hams, Grape-Nuts, Woodbury\'s Facial Soap, Williams\' Shaving Stick and Talcum Powder, Royal Baking Powder, Hawthorn electric fans, Ralston/Purina, Sanitas corn flakes, and a Parker Brothers Sherlock Holmes game. The ads alone are a collector draw — the magazines are being sold intact, not broken up.
MEASUREMENTS: Each issue approximately 6-3/4″ × 9-3/4″. Sold as a lot of 10 only
CONDITION SUMMARY: Fair vintage condition. Complete issues with original covers; heavy age wear throughout — edge chipping, tears, creasing, staining, soiling, and extensive old yellowed tape repairs on spines and edges. Interiors toned with occasional staining and edge tears. See photos.
SHIPPING & RETURNS: Free US Shipping / 30 day returns - Must be returned in original condition
