173 Understanding newsletters originally owned by James Wardle showed up on eBay a couple weeks ago and DFDC is now the proud owner! Pictures below the fold.
They arrived in string bound bundles and ended the day in their own individual plastic 3.3mil sleeves. I purchased them for $400US in the hopes it would plug some holes in our online collection, but alas, the existing collection is really complete. The good news is that the Wardle collection had an original #1 in it, which although not in great condition, it is nice. The collection must have been stored in a fairly high humidity environment at one point because most of the staples on the fifty year old plus newsletters have completely rusted away. I went through every newsletter and pulled out the staples that were really badly gone. I also unfolded edges and brushed dirt away. You can tell a lot about the individual who owned them – it must have been a fairly dusty place to live in given the small strands of grass I found on top one of the issues. Mr. Wardle must have owned a pet, mostly likely a dog who rubbed up against a few newsletters at one point. We can also tell what books Mr. Wardle was reading because he put check marks beside the ones he ordered.
Some even have original stamps on them, which in the long run are probably going to be worth more then the newsletters themselves. Lol. I did learn a few things, for example, the October 1957 issue was mislabelled as #9 when it should have been #10.
