Collecting Magazines

21 January 2008 Spending on ‘must have magazines’ €500 a year By Paul Kelly, Consumer Correspondent YOUNGSTERS are paying as much as €500 of their pocket money a year for must-have series of collectors magazines about everything from insects to their favourite cartoon shows. And grown-ups into hobbies like model-making or science-fiction shows can spend two-and-a-half years — and up to €950 — on magazines helping them build piece-by-piece models or collecting DVDs of episodes. Newsagents’ shelves are full of the latest new year launches of the serial magazines, which cost as little as 86c for the first issue but then rise to as much as €13.95 once collectors get into the habit of buying. Irish Examiner research also shows buyers have to fork out money every week for as long as two-and-a-half years to complete series about entertainers like Elvis, sci-fi collections of Star Trek DVDs and children’s sets of James Bond 007 stickers. Yesterday, the Consumers’ Association of Ireland said buyers of serial magazines needed to look at the total costs to see if they were getting value for money. “With some of them you can see an additional value as buyers may have a significant interest or want to learn more about a hobby,” said consumers’ association chief executive Dermott Jewell. “But if they looked at the cost then it does not provide true value for money and an alternative would give them as much gratification for a fraction of the price.” One of the latest such serial magazines is The Flying Scotsman Locomotive series, which week by week contains parts so buyers can build a model of the famous locomotive piece by piece. Priced at about €7.50, buyers have to purchase an issue every week for two-and-a-half years at a total cost of €937 before they finish building the model locomotive. But for about €180 they could buy a Hornby model railway set featuring the Flying Scotsman locomotive, three carriages as well as track and a power transformer. The train, the first steam locomotive in the world to reach 100 miles per hour, was built in 1923 at a cost of £7,944 (sterling) — equal to the cost of 13 week-by-week models of the Flying Scotsman today. Other expensive collections include the newly launched BBC Classic Drama — The DVD Collection series, which costs €13.95 a fortnight for about two years. At the end, consumers will have paid out a total of €683.55 for 49 DVDs of drama shows once aired for free on television. One children’s magazine series, called Real-Life Bugs and Insects, costs €9.14 a fortnight for a little more than a year, making a total of €502.70. A new James Bond sticker collection and another about television character Dora the Explorer cost about €220 each to complete. “The advertisers make it a must-buy for the children but the parents are caught between their personal views and the wish to provide something of pleasure to their children,” said Mr Jewell. Yesterday the Convenience Stores and Newsagents Association said the Government’s decision two years ago to impose VAT on serial magazines had hit sales. “People who were used to paying €10 now have to pay €12.10 and feel they are the victim of sharp practices,” said newsagents’ association chief executive Vincent Jennings. “But all that’s happened is the Revenue has decided to impose VAT on the magazines, so sales have waned dramatically.” Yesterday Hachette Partworks, which is one of the biggest publishers of serial magazines, insisted consumers did get value for money. “People buy them because they don’t only want a model of the Flying Scotsman, for instance, but because they want information about the train,” said Celine Thibeouf, of Hachette. “It’s different than buying a model as they not only get the model of the train. It’s about collecting something.” Hachette also said the model was double the size of the ones in train sets and compared favourably in price to model kits.