The Magazine

good place to buy very bad place to sell. i had been shopping at the magazine for decades and during that time found a great many goodies. porn and non porn. recently i decided to sell my collection of over 700 items. i carried down my first bag of 42 magazines the majority purchased at this store… i was offered $ 1. i pointed out that i had paid anywhere between $ 3 and $ 14 for these items. they still had the stores price stickers on them. i was told sorry that was all they would pay. it amounted to 2 ½ cents each. 1% of $ 3 is 3cents 1%of $ 14 is 14cents. so i was offered a microscopic fraction of a penny for each dollar.
i took the $ 1 as i did not want to lug that heavy bag home.
i am now throwing a handful of mags in the trash every day. i would rather throw them away than accept what the owners of the magazine offer to restock their store.

i love this place. i live two blocks away and always look in the window display to see which celebrity recently passed away…
tons of old magazines and new… great selection of porn too!

This is a little gem of a store in San Francisco, easily the best selection of vintage magazines, videos, books and some sexy content too hehe. I love spending time here going through old issues of Monocle or Architecture Digest. Finding new coffee table books, looking at the posters and admiring the evolution of print design over the years.
Such a great store!

Three stars because time heals wounds.
Seriously, plenty of old movie fan magazines from the 1910’s-1950’s to peak at. Maybe not the best source for your paper but a good way to pass the time. Plus it’s closer than the UCLA library.

I’ve been coming here since 1974! It was and is the best place to buy porn. And i discovered it as a college freshman because it was a non judgemental place to buy mags for a very self concious person. I resumed buying stuff 12 years ago and have built up a tremendous collection. My favorite store in San Francisco.

I’ve been coming to this place since ’91 or so… it hasn’t changed. Incredible selection of ephemera, porn (you need super-​8, they’ve got it) and a great mish-​mash of stuff. Clean and well organized, super friendly staff (They even helped with an article on vintage smut for the old Nose magazine «Is This Your Mother?» issue). I usually try and hunt down some old National Lampoons (usually $ 1.25) before tearing into the rest of the smut, memorabilia and awesome randomness of ephemera. I once scored a certificate to import cocaine from the early 1900’s for $ 10. ‘Nuff said!

The name of this store says it all… MAGAZINES.
Vogue, GQ, National Geographic, TIME, Allure! Seems like any magazine you’ve ever seen is here!
I came in here because they had a whole bunch of Elizabeth Taylor covers and pictures in their front window and anybody who creates a mini shrine to her is awesome in my book! :)
Basically, The Magazine carries all sorts of magazines, with porn and erotic stuff in the back area (uhh…no comment).
I found some pretty sweet vintage Rolling Stones and relatively recent beauty mags for less than a dollar! :O The Magazine is fantastic if you’re too cheap to buy magazines from the grocery stores… just wait a bit and TA-​DA! It will probably be here soon! Then you can buy it for cheaper: D
Plus, I asked the guy working there about donating magazines and he said they generally give 10 cents/​magazine, otherwise, they’ll just take free donations! Whoo hooo!!! Can finally clean out my hella old Seventeen magazines from my high school days! haha

Mountains of pornography, gay, straight and otherwise. You’ll find that in the back half of the room. Vintage erotica and muscle mags, hot rod ephemera, old periodicals (non-​Rockwell), a strange mix of not-​quite-​current newsstand titles, ancient maps, San Francisco history, pulp and a poster drawn by one Bobbie Crumb. This place if floor to ceiling of the strange and amazing, the run of the mill from some fargone day, the interests of another time. God, I love the smell of old paper on a soggy day.

What an amazing little shop, awkwardly placed on the edge of the TL about a block away from the strip joints.
This wonderful little store carries an astonishing assortment of print media, just about anything requested. Ask for something, any topic, and they’ll disappear through a doorway and come back with a box of exactly what you are hunting for. «Vintage pin-​up pictures?» Out came a box, nothing but pin-​up shots from the 40s –70s. Calendars and magazines, advertisements and promotional items. «Disney related?» Two boxes this time. Magazines and Disneyland tour books, old Disney film slides to coloring books, ranging 1940’s to 90’s.
Oh what’s this? Stockpiles of porn? I was on a strict gift hunting mission with no time to peruse the porn, but I noticed quite a variety of current/​retro/​vintage porn, gay and straight. I guess it matches up with the nearby strip clubs more than I thought.
Interesting mix. You can leave with a stack of cook books from the 70’s, a theatrical poster from your favorite flick of the 60’s, and cap it off with the porn of your choosing. That’s quite a score indeed, don’t you think?

My friends and I have been watching this old David Lynch TV show called Twin Peaks, and I have developed a crush on Sherilyn Fenn. And I guess I’m not the first: I knew she had been a Playmate and the internet told me what issue to find her in. But, as another reviewer of this establishment has remarked, buying something like this off the internet is too easy. I needed to browse the racks (no pun intended) of a vintage magazine/​porn store.
SUCCESS! Thank you, The Magazine, for parting with December 1990 in near-​perfect condition, for $ 3.75 + tax. I shall treasure it always.
Surprisingly clean and discreet, this place. Their awning is almost hidden by the tree in front and the awning next door. The staff is helpful and unobtrusive.

Loved this little cavern of vintage paperback awesome!
I was on a mission a couple months ago for some fun paperbook action. The bday boy I was buying for, you see, is quite the fan of vintage paperback covers so after digging a little, this here store popped up as the perfect stop. I probably spent a good 30 minutes copped all squat like in front of the section perusing and giggling at the hundreds of books here. There were some real winners here for sure and I left with a nice thick stack and what do you know… the gift was a success!
What I loved about this store is how organized everything was. Before entering this place, my mind thought, old bookstore, dust, piles upon piles of dying paper, but that was not the case at all. They were clean, organized and the guys working here had the perfect amount of sass in their delivery. Definitely would recommend this place if you are on the hunt for something cool :)

This place is fantastic. The plethora of porn here is a beautiful thing. I got a bunch of vintage porn for my friends housewarming. Nothing says I love your new bedroom than a bunch of naked S&M, sexy women wrestling, and other kinky 70s mags.

After being lured in by the newspaper headlines in the window that blared «I SOLD MY DAUGHTERS AS SEX SLAVES» and «ALIEN MONSTER ATTACKS WOMAN,» I wandered in and thought to myself, «Wow, they have all these old magazines and newspapers. How interesting. Perhaps I shall enjoy a vintage Time magazine and then sip a classy beverage. This truly is a great time to be alive.» However, I then looked to my left and saw VHS boxart wherein a man was pleasuring himself orally. I then noticed that the store’s clientele consisted entirely of men, and they were all congregated in the second half of the store which consists entirely of gay pornography. And hey, that’s cool and all — I was just thrown off by the exterior. This is a good place to take your parents if you get a thrill out of toying with their emotions.

I’m fairly 0:). So imagine my: O when 5 feet into The Magazine, there were lots of
C===8’s
and
(o Y o) ies
and
(Y)ies.
videotapes, magazines, you name it. you got it. Got a hairy fetish? There’s a hairy magazine for you with your name on it.
You’ll find The Beatles and other vintage magazines displayed outside and some regular magazines on the wall to your right.
OMG. X-​O
bow chika bow bow… ;)

Watch out! This place can be very deceiving from the exterior. The front of the store is mostly just regular art and culture magazines. There is a great selection of both mainstream and rare reads, but walk just a little further back and you find yourself in crazy retro porn land!
Why not give it a shot, just for fun. If you are into vintage /​pop culture this place is definitely worth a visit.

Maybe if I had been in a more outgoing mood, or hornier, I would have enjoyed the abuse that accompanied my visit to the Magazine.
I walked in and was accosted by a skinny dark haired man who wanted to buy my $ 250 vintage-​from-​paris sunglasses. I can’t blame him, they are fabulous, but he wouldn’t even name a price – only wanted to know if they were for sale. When I said no, he lost all interest in me. He also has an annoying affinity for rhyming words in a desperate attempt to be like andy warhol.
The vintage playboys are pretty cool except when you see the creepy dudes coming in to sell them. I asked skinny boy if he was interested in buying the first three issues of nerve.com’s print magazine that no longer exists, and he replied with simply, «not from you,» and went on to suggest that my male friend and «known troublemaker» bring them in instead.

I have been a customer of this establishment for many years, and I am always amazed at the kinds of magazines they have.
But their big draw is the adult material.
Straight, gay and in-​between, if it was published in the last century,
(or this one) they probably have it or can get it.
They also have some other ephemera of interest to movie buffs,
and other media junkies.
One of my favorite places to browse AND spend my money.

Makes browsing through porn the classy experience it was meant to be. The smell of this place is indescribable. Maybe like dust, VO5, and Elmer’s glue? It hardly matters. Whatever it is, it’s perfect.
There are boxes filled with pervy photos, proper ones, on photo paper, taken under god-​knows-​what circumstances. This is not porn for distribution, these are keepsakes, and they are somehow yours for the buying, for around a dollar each, suitable for framing, and perfectly, ineptly, unerotic. Somehow almost sweet. There are dirty postcards from any decade of your choosing. There are back issues of everything, dirty and clean, amazingly cheap, all of it. It’s all so silly that you remember what a giddy, naïve thrill porn can be when it’s freed from an atmosphere of desperation.

A perfect place to pick up porn mags AND even that old Dynamite magazine with Leif Garret and Kristy McNichol on the cover ! Who does not love old teen beat magazines with all those teens in tight pants… twinkalcious.
It is an easy place to spend an hour or so in.
I also like they have old Gourmet mags there too.

Holy smokes, I’ve been looking for Playboy and Penthouse issues from my birthdate for awhile now. Sure I could go to eBay, but that’s no fun, I want to search the natural way, Google can suck an egg.
Well just last week, I stumbled upon The Magazine what a find — I can’t believe I had never heard of the place!
They seem to have all manner of magazine (hence the name) here, although there certainly is an abundance of gay porn (with dirty old gay men to support it).
The storefront is connected to a small warehouse in back where they keep most of their collectible back issuses, and that’s where I found what I was looking for.
The store managers were really helpful too, good people!