The Greatest Men's Magazine Ever...?

[SteyrAUG]

One of the many things I collect is men's magazines. I have fairly comprehensive archives of Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler and similar titles. They mostly end around 2001 and I let all my subscriptions run out. In addition to being married, not really having time to even read them (I was building a new business at the time) and recognizing I was starting to have a space / storage issue they were simply getting boring. Many mainstream titles were transitioning to hardcore content and honestly if I want to see penetration I have something on the order of 2,500 adult DVD titles and still photography isn't nearly as interesting. While many claim porn turns you into a sex addict who craves more deviant content, I've gone the other direction and I honestly find the classic pin up more interesting than a tattooed chick with implants doing porn.

As a result I've began collecting lesser known and rarer titles from before I was even born. And I just may have found the perfect adult men's magazine, ironically titled "Modern Man."

Here is one of the more difficult issues to find in good condition. The February 1955 issue. As a general rule nobody willingly throws away girlie magazines (which is why all those collectible Playboys from the 70s and 80s are still only worth about $1 on ebay) but they generally don't stay in excellent condition for 60 years so titles from the 50s can command a premium.

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And the cover is the amazing looking Betty Brosmer, but quite honestly she was on the cover of a few dozen mens magazines in 1955. So what makes this issue so special, how about a feature story on Stembridge Gun Rentals?

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And it seems Modern Man would regularly feature articles on firearms, cars and other things of interest. Since there was no such thing as the 1968 Gun Control Act, there were lots of great ads for mail order firearms and catalogs. Check out that ad for those crazy new things called "seat belts."

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But it is probably the "other" Betty in this issue that makes this one so sought after by collectors.

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[thei3ug]

I want to know more about becoming a millionaire. I'm guessing the article begins with "never have kids," but I'll wait for the scan of that page.

[Eurodriver]

Nofap 2015 is quickly fading...

2,500 adult videos? Bro...

[Moose-Knuckle]

Love me some Bettie Page.

[Doc Safari]

Call it my midlife crisis if you want, but a few years ago I went through a phase where I sought out back issues of Club magazine from the 1976-1981 time period (my Junior high and high school years).

I discovered a site called usedmagazines.com that had most of the titles, albeit in condition ranging from near mint to execrable.

It really brought back memories. I remember sneaking peaks at the December 1978 issue of Club in an old filing cabinet in my dad's shop. I don't think he actually purchased the magazine. He had bought out an old lawnmower shop and that filing cabinet came home when the lawnmower shop closed. That old filing cabinet had a file folder full of really old girlie mags from the '70's. I don't know how he discovered them, but my brother was the one that told me about the mags in that filing cabinet. I would sneak peaks at those all through my middle school years when I was obviously not old enough to walk into a newsstand to purchase such magazines.

Nowadays I still get a little jump of excitement when I see a girlie mag from that era at a yard sale and whatnot. I don't think I could just walk into an adult video place and buy a porn mag, mind you. It's as much for the nostalgia of the vintage smut as anything else. It's kind of like having to have an old Beatles record when you can just walk into a shop and buy as many copies of the CD as you want.

[Averageman]

My Dad had almost 20 years of Playboy. By the time I would them ( a stack nearly 5 ft high) I was maybe 13.
They were great educational material, the first James Bond novels I read were there, the "Playboy Advisor" was a good source for answers to questions you didn't even know you had at 13. Lots of political stuff that by the time I got to them were history and gave me a rather unique perspective on things like Watergate and Viet Nam.
And of course the ladies,......I still think Hefner lost out when Barbie Benton got away.

[dewatters]

"Modern Man" was published by the same outfit that still publishes "Guns" and "American Handgunner."

[Doc Safari]

And of course the ladies,......I still think Hefner lost out when Barbie Benton got away.

I remember my reaction when Misty Rowe (also from Hee Haw like Barbi Benton) appeared nude in Playboy. Part of me wanted to think of Playboy as wholesome Americana (i.e., not porn) after that. Another part of me realized that childhood was over and even performers on "wholesome family entertainment" like Hee Haw could be corrupted into performing for smut.

How my attitudes have changed since those naïve teenage years.

[SteyrAUG]

Nofap 2015 is quickly fading...

2,500 adult videos? Bro...

Part of my approx. 10,000 DVD movie library. I tend to collect by genre and when it comes to adult by actress. So I try to have every movie Ginger Lynn or Tracey Adams ever made for example.

[SteyrAUG]

Call it my midlife crisis if you want, but a few years ago I went through a phase where I sought out back issues of Club magazine from the 1976-1981 time period (my Junior high and high school years).

I discovered a site called usedmagazines.com that had most of the titles, albeit in condition ranging from near mint to execrable.

It really brought back memories. I remember sneaking peaks at the December 1978 issue of Club in an old filing cabinet in my dad's shop. I don't think he actually purchased the magazine. He had bought out an old lawnmower shop and that filing cabinet came home when the lawnmower shop closed. That old filing cabinet had a file folder full of really old girlie mags from the '70's. I don't know how he discovered them, but my brother was the one that told me about the mags in that filing cabinet. I would sneak peaks at those all through my middle school years when I was obviously not old enough to walk into a newsstand to purchase such magazines.

Nowadays I still get a little jump of excitement when I see a girlie mag from that era at a yard sale and whatnot. I don't think I could just walk into an adult video place and buy a porn mag, mind you. It's as much for the nostalgia of the vintage smut as anything else. It's kind of like having to have an old Beatles record when you can just walk into a shop and buy as many copies of the CD as you want.

That's a huge part of it. One of the first things I did when I started "collecting" was track down the issues that I came across when I was in Junior High. Funny how I could vividly remember key details. And of course they brought back the nostalgic memories of tree houses and forts where we inspected such things and made sure our friends knew about this stuff.

As for Beatles records, I actually just picked up vintage copies of the Blue and Red albums (1962-1966 / 1967-1970) when I found some examples in excellent condition. Again, something else I had and enjoyed from my Junior High days.

[SteyrAUG]

My Dad had almost 20 years of Playboy. By the time I would them ( a stack nearly 5 ft high) I was maybe 13.
They were great educational material, the first James Bond novels I read were there, the "Playboy Advisor" was a good source for answers to questions you didn't even know you had at 13. Lots of political stuff that by the time I got to them were history and gave me a rather unique perspective on things like Watergate and Viet Nam.
And of course the ladies,......I still think Hefner lost out when Barbie Benton got away.


Yeah, Barbie Benton was probably his high water mark. I don't think any of the other girlfriends were interested in him as much as the things he had and what he could do for them.


"Modern Man" was published by the same outfit that still publishes "Guns" and "American Handgunner."

Interesting. Explains a lot.

[SteyrAUG]

I remember my reaction when Misty Rowe (also from Hee Haw like Barbi Benton) appeared nude in Playboy. Part of me wanted to think of Playboy as wholesome Americana (i.e., not porn) after that. Another part of me realized that childhood was over and even performers on "wholesome family entertainment" like Hee Haw could be corrupted into performing for smut.

How my attitudes have changed since those naïve teenage years.

Honestly I look at Barbie Benton nudes and I don't see much difference between that and Renaissance artists who could produce realistic looking nude paintings, except of course for the difference in time and talent of a photographer compared to a painter. If the same writer hand scribes a book, is the content truly artistically superior than if he wrote it on a computer?

[Eurodriver]

I'm a young buck, so I had to google some of these names.

Most of them look like they've been ran hard, put away wet for 40 years, and then came out of the dungeon for a photoshoot after a botched plastic surgery job.

However, I am very impressed with how they looked back in the day. Steyr, you are on to something as they were most definitely "real".

[Averageman]

I think the differences I saw and I haven't opened a Playboy in years was, Playboy was under pressure to do the wrong thing somewhere in the 70's and they fell for it.
Instead of remaining in good taste and marketing to the over 30 crowd, the tended to go the other way and try and compete with the likes of Huster, Penthouse and Oui. The standard of writing fell off and the photography went from tasteful to slightly less so. Although they felt the pressure to produce more "edgy" photography I feel they should have marketed to the money and stayed a bit more tasteful than they did, also somewhere in the late 70's they went full tilt liberal.
Now everyone is feeling the influence of the internet and even more pressure to go full tilt smut, Playboy, at least for me was the standard of what a Men's magazine should be.
Yeah I liked the naked girls, but to read in installments Bonds adventures, the Playboy Advisor along with Sports cars and whiskey's how could you go wrong? They may not be relevant now, but at the time they were the standard.
It's kind of ironic that the magazine in my opinion started to fall of right about the time Miss Benton departed the Mansion.

[dewatters]

"Modern Man" was published by the same outfit that still publishes "Guns" and "American Handgunner."

Interesting. Explains a lot.

FWIW: "SWAT Magazine" was owned by Larry Flynt for nearly 10 years. I think he bought it from Everett Moore in the early 1990s, and sold it to Rich Lucibella in 2001.