Finding Back Issues of Ranger Rick

These back issues are from 1983 and 1984.

Written by Adam

I've had people ask me where I've gotten all my issues of Ranger Rick. I've mentioned it before that all my copies have come from one of four places:

1.) http://www.ebay.com (my 1960s issues, some 1980s issues, and most 1990s issues)

2.) From a family member (my 1970s issues were my mothers when she got them and the 1995 ones were my sisters)

3.) From a yard sale (most of my early 1980s issues came from one yard sale!)

4.) From a library discarding old issues (my issues from 1986, 1988, and 1990 came from a library about eight years ago)

That's really all there is to it. Your best bet to get early issues is to look at online auctions on ebay. The likelihood of finding twenty year old issues at a library by now is slim. Same story for yard sales since most I've ever come across sell books, not back issues of magazines still in publication. As that darn pigeon from An American Tail always said, "never say never". You might get lucky like I did. Who's to say?

If you're going the ebay route, remember these tips:

1.) Always look for auctions selling more than one copy of the magazine at the time. This will prevent the seller from giving you a raw deal on shipping the item to you. Usually shipping isn't that bad for many issues all at once as the price per magazine is significantly lower.

2.) Wheel and deal if you can. One auction I came across was selling an entire home-school collection of Ranger Ricks from 1967 to 1985! I didn't need the 80s issues, but really really was interested in the issues from the 1960s. I politely told the seller I was seriously interested in the early issues and wanted to know if the lot could be broken so that I would only have to buy the ones from the 60s. The seller was nice and agreed to do so provided nobody bid on the entire set of the original auction. Fair enough. No bids were placed on the massive collection, and the seller and I set up a time and quick 'buy it now' style auction and I had my 1960s issues for a very low price considering their rarity. Do realize, not every seller will be so willing to split up auctions. I think it made sense in this particular one to split up the years a bit more when nobody was interested in the entire set as one, and that is the only reason I was able to get the issues I wanted. Can't hurt to ask.

3.) Don't pay insane prices to simply get older issues of Ranger Rick. Like all free markets, there is a certain price that old magazines generally sell for. The most I ever paid for Ranger Ricks is about $1.50 per magazine, factoring in the cost of shipping to my apartment. That happened to be the 1960s issues, in which case, some were missing from 1969, so there were only about 30 issues, instead of 36. For a rare magazine, that's a good deal....a VERY good deal. Current subscriptions in the year 2010 are $19.95 per year for 10 issues (wonder which months have no issue?) so that's about $1.99 per issue. That's reasonable right there. If you're spending more than double the price per issue ($3.00 - $3.88) in my opinion, you're spending more than you need to. Sales for single copies of old Ranger Rick's are about $2.30 and up, not including shipping. Such a price for one magazine is really high which is why its good to watch how much you're paying per magazine when bidding.

Happy sleuthing and best regards to all of you seeking back issues of Ranger Rick!