While Nintendo Power topped the list, Pokemon, Wayne Gretzky, and the first publication of Dune vied for attention! The Hottest Magazines is a curated list of the magazines moving up the eBay sales lists. GoCollect pulls the stats straight from eBay and sorts them by volume moving in the marketplace over the past 30 days.
It is the top issue of all modern magazines – Nintendo Power #1. It regained the crown with 11 sales so far in June. The highest was a 7.0 going for $700 in a fixed price eBay sale on June 11. The highest price paid for this king of the modern magazines was $108,000 in an April 2023 Heritage auction. With a number of big pulps currently available in the Heritage auction, will Nintendo Power #1 keep its crown?
Pokemon is so wildly popular that even issues of Time Magazine with characters on the cover garner interest from fans. Celebrating 25 years of Pokemon, this issue was just released this year and is one of four covers featuring favorite Pokemon characters. The Charmander Cover has seen six sales since April 19, the highest being a 9.8 sold on that date for $121. However, as the census count has risen, prices have dropped a bit, so don’t be in a rush to pick one up if you’re a Pokemon fan. Not to be outdone, the Pikachu cover came in at #7 on our list. Alas, the Bulbasaur and Squirtle covers failed to show up as Hottest Magazines.
This September 2008 issue featuring actress Anna Faris, timed for the release of her film The House Bunny, likely jumped in sales due to her showing up in the news. This time, it was due to ex-husband Chris Pratt – with whom Faris shares a son – snubbing her in a Mother’s Day social media post. Since then, there have been three sales: a 9.4 for $76, a 9.2 for $36, and a 9.0 for $50. Expect the sales volume to decrease as Faris fades from the news.
There’s no denying the Great One his place in sports history, and this issue features his first Sports Illustrated cover. With only 13 graded copies of the subscription edition in the CGC census, this Wayne Gretzky cover is typically a quick seller. However, value has taken a bit of a hit. An 8.0 sold in an eBay auction on May 17 for $349 but then dropped down to $232 in a June 8 Goldin auction, much closer to the $245 it went for in a March 28 Goldin auction. There will likely be more graded copies coming on the market in the future. For now, try to keep purchases below the $300 mark.
Featuring the first publication of Dune, Analog #v72 #4 has been drawing attention from collectors. Written by Frank Herbert in 1963, this issue contains the first part of Dune World, just one small portion of an explosive universe that Herbert would construct over many years. While it’s a later pulp or digest sized magazine, those with key stories by favorite authors typically go for higher amounts than average. A 7.5 sold in an eBay auction on June 3 for $535, the first sale in this grade. Earlier this year, an 8.0 went for $1,250 in an eBay fixed price sale.
