Hobby Ideas

The collecting of annuals is a pastime most of us have indulged in either deliberately or by default. We may have received an annual at Christmas or we may have bought an old one containing interesting articles. Whatever the reason we all have acquired a selection and no doubt you have realized that there are hundreds of titles covering as many subjects to meet everyone’s taste.

Children’s annuals have been around since the 19c and in fact the first recorded one is Child Companion Annual (1824) followed by a series of others like Children’s Prize, Chatterbox, Boy’s and Girl’s Own, Young England and Chums, all these in the 19c! Obviously these are highly collectable and command high prices especially if in good condition.

The field of annual collecting seems to divide itself into groups, 19c or Victorian through to end of WW1, early 20’s to late 40’s, 1950 until the 70’s, 80’s then to the present day. In the Victorian era mentioned above there was a slow growth in the market for children’s books which lasted until the early 20’s when there was an explosion in this market right through to the beginning of WWII. The war decimated the market because of paper rationing and other demands on the publishers. It was not until the end of the 40’s the market really recovered. However there were some annuals published during the early 40’s which are highly sought-after.

The collecting of annuals or books is no different to most other collectables in that condition is of paramount importance. Damaged spines, badly damaged corners and torn or mutilated pages make modern ones worthless, but the 19c and early 20c editions are usually damaged in some way and still very collectable. Of course many can be restored but for a £5.00 (US$10.00) copy it is not practical. Wait for a good one to come along. We are concerned with the generally accepted definition that it is a book published every year, usually in September, based on a particular comic or theme, like Rupert, Dandy, Beano (the most popular) but nowadays equally popular are, sport (particularly football), space, science fiction, girl stories, pop scene, tv, radio, cine and many more. Many of the annuals not based on comics, like football, contain a wealth of information on their particular subject and are a good source of information which may be difficult to find easily elsewhere. In fact the growth of these new annuals made up for the decline in the traditional comic annual.

A detailed history of the annual is not the object of this article and more information can be found on the net by using your search engine and entering “Children’s Annuals”. There are several interesting web sites including wikipedia which do give a review of the origins of annuals. An excellent book on the subject is “The Children’s Annual” by Alan Clark published in 1988 and available from bookshops on the web. Finding all this information and collating it will take time but for the serious collector well worth it. Be aware that these publications were usually aimed at the Christmas market so were published in that year but the date on the cover is that of the following year so that newsagents and retailers could still sell them. There was not always a sale or return facility with these annuals.

We have not discussed the publishers in this article but names like D.C.Thomson, Amalgamated Press, IPC magazines, Express Newspapers will be well known and if you want to look at this area consult the sources I have mentioned. Most of us collect the modern annuals, i.e. post WWII which are still relatively easy to find from companies such as ours or in boot fairs, church fetes, jumble sales etc. at realistic prices. What to collect is always a personal choice but you could concentrate on all Ruperts, Dandys, Beanos or Football annuals, Sport Annuals, Radio, TV, Cine, Science Fiction, Space and more. Be aware that several publishers produced summer specials, although usually of poor quality, they are still very collectable. With post war annuals it is usually easy to find them in excellent condition although whether you accept them inscribed or price clipped is a personal choice. In my opinion it does not detract seriously from the value of the book. These books are a classic collectable, easy to find and not expensive.

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