First of all, I'm no expert on this, so what I have to offer is only a
suggestion of one way to get a sense of the market.
One source of evidence for the potential worth of such a collection
would be eBay. I say "potential" because I personally think the eBay
market can be pretty volatile, as you can see from some of the
examples below (e.g., a small lot of 5 issues selling for over half of
the closing price of a much larger lot). So it's hard to predict the
actual worth of the collection unless you can find enough comparable
items to make a reasonable judgement. On the other hand, if you are
thinking of buying the collection to resell, eBay is probably one of
the most accessible avenues for resale.
I would suggest doing a search using "vogue magazine" (without the
quotation marks), and then once you have the results, scroll down the
page and click on "Completed" in the sidebar. (You can filter the
results somewhat by adding a "-knitting" as part of the search if, for
example, you have no Vogue Knitting issues.) Then click the search
button again. That way you'll come up with all the completed items and
can scan the search results to see the selling prices (or if they sold
at all). It would also give you an idea of what issues might be in
particular demand (looks like the most wanted ones are pre-1980,
unfortunately). I would do this for both ebay.com and ebay.co.uk.
(There are UK items listed on the US eBay site, but it's helpful to
check both sites. If you need to do price conversions on the UK site,
you can use xe.com.) At least from my cursory examination, it seems
that the UK issues of Vogue are much less in demand and worth less
than the US (or Brazilian or French) editions. I have no idea why this
would be so, but I'm sure there are others much better informed than I
who can give you a more complete answer. On the other hand, a large
collection might generate interest that might not normally be there.
Having scanned through a number of pages of completed items, I found
very few lots of Vogue, and most of the ones I've listed below are
American editions, not UK editions. However, here's one recently
completed auction on eBay for a lot of Vogue magazines (US version, I
presume) of roughly the same vintage as the collection you describe
above:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Vogue-Magazine-lot_W0QQitemZ7038541273QQihZ014QQcategoryZ280QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
And here are some smaller lots:
1980 (5 issues)
http://cgi.ebay.com/5-1980-VOGUE-FASHION-MAGAZINES-MARCH-APR-MAY-JULY-NOV_W0QQitemZ7033794629QQihZ014QQcategoryZ280QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
1981 (4 issues)
http://cgi.ebay.com/Lot-of-4-Vintage-Vogue-Magazines-1981_W0QQitemZ7034879666QQihZ014QQcategoryZ280QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
1985 (5 issues)
http://cgi.ebay.com/5-1984-VOGUE-FASHION-MAGAZINES-JAN-FEB-APRIL-JULY-AUG_W0QQitemZ7033791963QQihZ014QQcategoryZ280QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
1985 (7 issues)
http://cgi.ebay.com/Lot-of-7-Vintage-Vogue-Magazines-1985_W0QQitemZ7034883923QQihZ014QQcategoryZ280QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
In addition, here are also a few examples of single issues which
brought a higher-than-average price. Again, only a couple of these are
UK editions.
$40 [UK ed]
http://cgi.ebay.com/MADONNA-1989-Bristish-Vogue-magazine_W0QQitemZ7036907962QQihZ014QQcategoryZ280QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
$26
http://cgi.ebay.com/Vogue-Magazine-October-1980-Brooke-Shields_W0QQitemZ7035967343QQcategoryZ280QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
$46
http://cgi.ebay.com/Vogue-Magazine-Feb-1980-Brooke-Shields_W0QQitemZ7035965794QQcategoryZ280QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
$121
http://cgi.ebay.com/Vogue-Magazine-August-1980-Gia-Carangi_W0QQitemZ7035948544QQcategoryZ280QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
$36
http://cgi.ebay.com/Vogue-Magazine-January-1980-Nancy-Donahue_W0QQitemZ7035914441QQcategoryZ280QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
$34 [approx; UK]
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Kate-Winslet-Natalia-Vodianova-UK-VOGUE-MAGAZINE-1-2003_W0QQitemZ6619001351QQcategoryZ101077QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem |
