Where to find slip cases for 1958 and older?

[j mitch]

I have slip cases for all years 1959 to present .. is there anywhere that sells them for magazines older then 1959?

[Joshua Dylan]

If my memory serves me correctly, there are no slipcases for pre-1950. They made the Gold and Maroon cases from about 1950-Present (which are still sold on their website http://shop.nationalgeographic.com/product/669/1081/105.html) as well as Undated Slipcases which can be used for those years before 1950. If Not, may I suggest Mylar Sleeves for keeping those in good shape. If you would like them all in slipcases, they do sell some other models of slipcases which can be found all over the internet which were a cardboard like material painted red or yellow holding 6 and 12 months respectively. If you find a better solution, let me know. I am working on my collection of slip cases as well. Best of luck

[John W Kefalas]

Dear Joshua
Thanks for the info. I have the scarlet and gold slip coers from 1990 all the way to 2007

Minus: /Sep to Dec 1990- 1993 both- 2002- 2003 don't have Nan thru June- 2006- 2007

Except for those I have all the restIn other words I have both boxes for 1991, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2004, 2005,

Now, I see in National Geographic that a set of boxes like these are selling for, I believe, 15.95 each set. You can buy all of the book, last 120 years, for 59.95. I have most of the books just shortr on boxes.

That is where I am. Don't know whether to sell the boxes, keep the books or just keep it all.

Let me know what you have in boxes and how much

Thanks

John

[Paul Crist]

Unless they are out of stock, Society printed 1950-1959 on the marroon leatherette like you have. They have blanks with no volume and year, that one can either label in a manor they like to even havving them professionally stenciled to look almost exactly like the Society's. A very expensive proposition at $14 a pair or whatever Society now charges (I have stoped ordering even the current year's, as they miraculously show up on auctions at about half price), plus $10-$20 per pair for the stenciling. Unless you have an art college or similar place that will do at a discount, the "investment" is not worth it

Happy collecting
Paul
Houston

[j mitch]

Well i was hoping to get as complete a collection as possible and i wanted them in identical cases .. i have some frmo the 30s but they are red cardboard. Yea it does seem like buying them online is cheaper then getting them from national geographic

i bought 1959-2009 in cases for $125

[Joshua Dylan]

I tend to find that If you go on eBay you can get lots of these cases for almost nothing. Well compared to what you pay to NG Directly.

[j mitch]

Is the a way to relabel years bought off ebay to avoid paying the $15 NG sells them for .. it would be way to expensive to buy 20+ years of slipcas.. has anyone done this and it looked good?

[Dave Coopersmith]

Absolutely. Staples carries a number of different platicized gold labels that fit into any laser printer. The ones that I buy cover the years supplied by NG perfectly, and I think they look better than the originals. My entire collection back to 1906 is in the maroon slip cases, and they look great. I purchase 30 or 40 slip cases at a time from E bay are rarely pay more than $20.

[Jonathan White]

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, several companies (Okidata and ALPS Electric, and I think others) offered ribbon cartridge printers which had the ability to print special inks such as white and metallic colors. These printers and their supplies were very expensive, but they were a boon to the scale modeling community, and many modelers bought these printers in order to produce custom waterslide decals for scale models.

As a model railroader, I knew a friend who owned an Okidata printer and I often commissioned him to print decals for me, including a run of re-dating decals for NGM slipcases. He used Microsoft Word to create the artwork - the included font Cheltenham Condensed Bold 20 point is an almost exact match for the typeface used on modern commercially produced NGM slipcases. I acquired a number of secondhand slipcases and used a mix of various art store acrylic paints to create a match for the slipcase maroon so I could paint out the old numbering (and in some cases the month lettering too) and apply new decals in place of the printed lettering/numbers.

Thankfully I had him do enough for my needs all at once, since his printer (almost 20 years old at that point) ceased working several years ago. These kinds of printers are long out of production and I'm sure the number of folks out there with working printers and the supplies to run them are hard to find. I don't know anyone else in my circle of model railroaders who still has one, but maybe someone who's more adept at social media than I am can reach out and find someone. It was really nice while that technology lasted, but for some reason it seems it never really caught on...