Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut
- Uncle Wiggily in Conneticut
- J. D. Salinger
- New Yorker Magazine, New York, March 20, 1948
Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut made its first appearance in this 1948 edition of the New Yorker, but is probably better known as one of the short stories from Salinger’s collection Nine Stories, published by Little, Brown and Company five years later.
A small flood of vintage magazines containing Salinger stories came onto the market, most at very high prices, immediately following his death in January, 2010. But the flood is already petering out. Today, I could find no copies of this particular edition for sale on any of the internet bookstores, although there is a nice one for sale on eBay for a quite reasonable $240 plus shipping.
If you were lucky enough to find a copy of Uncle Wiggily a few years back, you might have expected to pay up to fifty dollars for it. Today, the cost would more likely be between $225 and $400.
I would rate the condition of this copy very good plus, as there are only a couple of tiny nicks on the spine. It has neither the common front cover crease, nor any signs of an address label. The colours inside and out are still vibrant.
The owner before me got this magazine directly from a distributor, and thus it has been kept pristine from day one.
Some common issues with these old magazines can be: browning pages, especially around the edges; loose middle or outside pages; faded, folded, torn and chipped covers; writing or staining inside and/or outside; and missing covers and/or centre pages.
Often, comics, or ads, or recipes have been clipped or torn out. I have seen a couple come up for sale which were missing parts of the story itself. Those, of
course, are much less valuable than even a poor condition, but complete magazine.
It is worth it to collect these old New Yorkers for their advertisements alone. Check out this back cover cigarette ad. Wow.
If you have any valuable magazines in your collection, it is in your best interest to pick up some protective mylar sleeves for them. The sleeves can be bought in different sizes and strengths, and mylar is the strongest and clearest archival plastic on the market.
