Old media guides: Save or toss?

I'm about six months late getting around to my spring cleaning, but I've come across a box of old media guides, mostly pro football stuff, from 20-25 years ago. I don't know when the last time was that I actually looked up anything from these 50 or so. I thought about donating them to my local public library, but I can't imagine they'd actually get any use.

Keep 'em or get rid of 'em?

 

eBay?

 

I'd check around to see if anyone can use them. If not, chuck 'em.

 

You might be able to make some scratch there, actually.

I saved my first D-I football media guide and all of my MLB guides, but other than that, I toss them when I'm certain I won't need them again. If I had 50 of them laying around, I'd give them out as gifts to football junkies, like your sons, daughters, nieces, nephews or close friends. When I was younger -- shit, even now -- I'd love to get my hands on old baseball guides.

 

Are there any sports museums in your area? Might be something they'd be interested in keeping or even putting on display.
Of course, the way media guides are designed nowadays, you might need these to actually keep up with teams' records.

 

If they're NFL, there's definitely a market for them. Second the eBay suggestion.

Unless any of them happen to be pre-1968 Bills guides, in which case you can drop me a PM and I'll make it worth your while...

 

Trash 'em.

Speaking as a librarian who is in charge of our sports book section, my library would have no use for 'em, no matter what the teams. Now, if your local library has an archive, that's a different story. Or maybe there is a local history archive near you that could use 'em.

I just checked on ebay and did a search for "media guide" -- there are ton on there that no one is bidding on. A small amount have some bids. Probably wouldn't even be worth the time spent posting them.

 

I'd try eBaying the Cowboys, Packers -- teams like that. Toss the rest.

 

Make a list of what you've got and see if any of your fellow SportsJournalists.comers want to buy any off you before e-Baying them.

 

Do you have a column? Put a note in the paper saying you'll give them to somebody who wants some or all of them. Don't trash them. Someone will have use for them and be glad to have them.

 

I know -- call Tradio!

 

I've tried to sell some guides and yearbooks over the years, but you really don't get much for them unless they are more than 30 years old.

One trick I used -- sell them as a group. I sold 12 Red Sox yearbooks together once, and did OK with it as I got $25 or $30, I think -- since individual books didn't get any sales at all. Start the sale really low ($1?), make the buyer pay for postage (media mail should only be a handful of dollars), and see what happens. At least you'll get them to a good home.