1953-1954 "Playboy" First Issues
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GUEST:
They were my grandfather's. He loved beautiful women and taking pictures of beautiful women, so when Playboy came out, he thought, "What a perfect magazine." Got them each one by one, saved them all, and over the years, Grandma kind of lost her pizzazz with them.
APPRAISER:
She knew about your grandfather owning them?
GUEST:
Oh, yeah, she had no problem with him owning them.
APPRAISER:
They weren't under the bed or anything?
GUEST:
No, out in the open. They didn't have any problems with it. It was just when it came time for them to move or when she wanted to clean the house, she'd want to throw them out. And he kept saying "No, no," and then finally he would agree and he lowered his collection incredibly down to just this. When he passed, she still wanted to throw them away, and we said no.
APPRAISER:
Right.
GUEST:
So...
APPRAISER:
Oh, good, so someone had sense in the family. Well, it's an incredible collection. Thank you so much for bringing them in. They're really interesting. What we have here are the first 12 issues of Playboy. So the first issue of Playboy, the one with Marilyn Monroe, was issued at the end of 1953. We have monthly editions into 1954. Have you read them, may I ask?
GUEST:
I have looked through a few, but it was when I was younger and I wasn't supposed to, so I vaguely remember the details of what's inside.
APPRAISER:
They're very interesting. Obviously, the very first issue, which we have out here, had Marilyn Monroe on the cover. She was not actually the centerfold. They didn't call it the centerfold then. She was the sweetheart of the month, which obviously is a very quaint way to call it. The interesting thing is that Hefner was very enterprising. He worked for Esquire magazine and then decided to start this magazine for men, as he called it, and borrowed $1,000 from his mother to start it, and produced the mock-up of this first copy in his kitchen in Chicago. One of the things that these are prized for, actually, is not just the, so to speak, illustrations, but of course the articles and the writing. Many of the great writers in America published in this publication. We have one of the first serializations of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, one of the most important works of post-war literature. Kerouac, Kurt Vonnegut, Ian Fleming, who wrote James Bond, also published in Playboy. So they're not just a pretty face, so to speak. One other interesting thing is that the Playboy logo of the bunny that we see and know very well was not actually in the first issue. He commissioned an art director to make it, and it appeared in the second issue and on from that one forward. Obviously, it's on the cover here of the fifth issue in April of 1954. Have you ever had them appraised or have any sense of the value?
GUEST:
No.
APPRAISER:
Well, the thing about magazines like this: it really comes down to condition. It actually turns out that it wasn't that uncommon. The first issue was printed in over 50,000 copies, which of course for publication is a modest number, but it means there's a lot of them out there. And for collecting purposes, people really prize the ones that are in perfect condition as more valuable. Some have sold for $5,000, $6,000, $7,000, the first issue.
GUEST:
Whoa.
APPRAISER:
But this one and the rest of the ones that you have, because they were obviously read and well-loved, are not in the best of condition.
GUEST:
No.
APPRAISER:
Nevertheless, I'd say they're sort of in the middle range. For a set in this condition, I would estimate at auction that it would have an estimate of $2,500 to $3,500.
GUEST:
Oh, my goodness!
APPRAISER:
So it was a good idea of you to stop your grandmother from throwing them away.
GUEST:
Absolutely.
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