If you frequent garage and estate sales, you’ve probably seen piles of Life Magazines on multiple occasions. I have an ongoing joke with Erin about my inability to resist these piles, but these days I seem to do much better. I’ve learned my lesson. The truth about Life Magazine is that very few issues are valuable. They’re also a complete pain in the tookus to ship.

The Marilyn Monroe issue seems to be the top seller. I’ve never found one of those, but I have found multiple copies of the various Beatles issues, and I’ve found multiple copies of the Charles Manson issue: 

Copies of this issue sell between $15 and $40 depending on the condition and how many others like it are up at any given time. The article about the Manson family is also pretty lengthy and interesting, so I can see why people want it. Anyway, the first time I sold one of these, someone offered me $20 for it. I quickly accepted, because old issues of Life should only cost you a dollar or two at estate sales (and in this case that was true), so this is a decent profit. 

This time around, I listed the issue for $23.99 and had no takers, so I relisted it a day or two ago for $17.99. Last night, I received an alert that I had a best offer of $14.50. This seemed fair, so I logged into eBay and in that short time span, discovered a new message: 

First, I had absolutely no idea that you could do this. That just seems wrong! Second, if you DO decide to do this, you must give a reason. This person’s reason was “entered wrong amount.” Uhm, no you didn’t bro, because since then, you haven’t entered ANY amount. Or maybe he meant that the “right” amount was zero dollars? 

I guess I should not be surprised that this happened, considering the probable eBay market for this item. After all, if you asked yourself, “WWCMD?” (What Would Charles Manson Do?), he would probably retract bids on eBay too. 

-Sarah