Miscellaneous > Vintage Adult Magazines
November 8th, 2021
This definitely isn’t a universal gift and is tough to find, but a vintage Playboy magazine is an excellent gift for the right person. For a start, there’s no way they own it already.
But mostly it’s a time capsule: the topics, the photography, the design, the adverts. The adverts! Reel-to-reel tape players, cigarettes, clock radios. And the quality of the writing might surprise you - the canard “I buy it for the articles” is rooted in truth. Just look at the list of contributors: Truman Capote, Philip K Dick, Dick Gregory, and Henry Miller. When you think “Playboy”, you probably don’t think “First person accounts of life in Iran”… but here we are.
You might find these in a vintage store, and there’s always eBay. Stick to the highbrow publications to avoid pure porn - Playboy and Penthouse are safe bets. If you’re buying this for a birthday present or an anniversary, try to align the issue date with the event. And be cautious of any issues newer than 1990 - the magazines swung more towards pornography in the 90s, but it’s also closer to the present day. The whole fun of this gift is “the past was weird” and “I’d forgotten all about that” - so the further back you go, the better.