Ever wish you had the first Sports Illustrated to feature Michael Jordan on the cover, back when His Airness was merely a fresh-faced North Carolina frosh? Magazine Memories (6006 Dempster St., Morton Grove; 847-470-9444) has it, as well as literally tens of thousands of other rare collectibles.
Stepping into this cavernous, overstuffed storefront, located in a busy commercial strip just west of I-94, is like stumbling into an obsessive-compulsive’s basement. Your first thought is to flee. After all, what kind of person collects all this stuff? And organizes it with such loving care? We’re talking about mint-condition Playboys lining the entirety of one wall. Curvy movie babes spilling out of B-movie posters. And next to the cash register, just around the corner from a stack of National Lampoons, there seems to be some kind of shrine to Muhammad Ali.
Among the store’s stock are magazines and newspapers dating to the mid-1800s, decades worth of The New Yorker, Life, Time, Newsweek and the Saturday Evening Post (including complete sets of the Norman Rockwell-illustrated covers). If all that Rockwellian wholesomeness is too much of you, you can check out the Mag Memories, extensive collection of carefully preserved National Geographics.
Check out Adventure Shopping online at chicago.digitalcity.com/go/shopping
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