Is it weird to buy someone's old yearbook for fun?

[dahliaoleander]

And curiosity of the times?

Like in goodwill Circa 1930:

 

[CharlesB]

I personally always found it kinda creepy.

 

[ShoreRoadLady]

I don't think so. I used to have a couple of 1920s yearbooks, and even some (more recent) photo albums that a lady at a garage sale gave me because no one wanted them, which I thought was rather sad. They're good for historical information, photos (for dating clothes), and besides, they're just plain interesting.

Some people think wearing other peoples' old clothes is weird.

 

[Naama]

Over here, we don't have things like yearbooks, but if we would have, I would do it! I also want to colect old family picture books, they have quite a few on flea markets but since flea market here is always early morning hours on saturdays, I don't make it often to the flea markets...... lol I just love those old photos and find them very interesting... I also used some in my work as an artist. So, not creepy at all!


Naama

 

[ShooShooBaby]

i collect old yearbooks, photos, etc. so no, i don't think it's weird at all!

 

[alexandra]

I bought someone's unfinished scrapbook for 10 cents at a garage sale. It's filled with cutouts from the newspaper of people's marriages and deaths and other things from the 40's to 1960 that haven't all been glued in so they're just all stuffed together and mixed up.

My family thought it was really creepy when I brought it home.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

Depends

The level of "creepy" is determined I think, by how personal the materials can be ascertained to have been to their former owners. Also maybe by how far back in time they go, which to me somehow seems to depersonalize things like yearbooks. I recently saw a yearbook from 1929 that was fascinating for the glimpse into the past that it provided. Lots of local ads in the back and such.
Something like a very personal and more recent diary however, from an individual approaches creepy, I would kinda feel like I'm prying into someone's personal affairs.

Except of course the copy of hitler's diary that I found at a garage sale....maybe I should sell it on ebay???

 

[Lincsong]

Why would it be creepy? You're not buying it for the personal information. And really who cares if you read; "let's meet up at Clancy's Ice Cream this summer" from 1929, like you're going to go there and stalk them. It's an historical artifact. Hell, to look at it that way would be akin to saying dressing in vintage clothing is wearing "dead man's clothes".:eusa_doh:

 

[LizzieMaine]

My niece went thru a phase a few years ago where she bought up every old yearbook she could find, and then wrote short stories about various people she thought looked interesting in them. An unusual idea, but points for creativity.

Personally, I think yearbooks are one of the best guides you can find to what real people -- as opposed to movie stars -- looked like in any given year. Nothing weird about that at all. Although I dearly hope that all copies of my own yearbook end up burned to a crisp.

As for diaries, I once found the diary of a teenage girl from 1940-41 tossed onto a dump skip, and was amazed by how much it was like the sort of thing a kid today would write -- totally oblivious to anything going on in the world around her. Her entire entry for December 7, 1941 was "Cold out. Stayed home. Nothing to do."

 

[pgoat]

I used to do this on occasion.

I once bought a LP at a garage sale for 50 cents (Grand Funk's "American Band", on gold vinyl, no less) and it included a hand written letter from a girl to a guy blasting him for not taking responsibility for getting her into trouble. Now THAT was creepy......

Not as creepy as the nude photo of the band members inside the LP cover, but still....

 

[pgoat]

As for diaries, I once found the diary of a teenage girl from 1940-41 tossed onto a dump skip, and was amazed by how much it was like the sort of thing a kid today would write -- totally oblivious to anything going on in the world around her. Her entire entry for December 7, 1941 was "Cold out. Stayed home. Nothing to do."

I got the same response from my (teen aged) sister in law on Sept 12th 2001....."oh - did something happen yesterday? I was doing my nails...."

 

[miss_elise]

i don't think it's weird...

my sister works at one of those self storage places...and if you don't pay your bills, after a while they chuck all your stuff out...she likes to retrieve bits and pieces out of the dumpmaster...

 

[pgoat]

Not a Yearbook, but cool story about a Flapper's diary

http://www.amny.com/news/local/am-diary0610,0,2691409.story

 

[Rufus]

Excuse my ignorance... are Yearbooks schoolbooks? if so,Do/did you get them every year or just when you leave?

We had class photos at school in the UK, which I studiously avoided every year... which I now partially regret.

I always find it heart breaking coming across family photos of loved ones with hand written names on the back... makes you realise how quickly life can move, and how quickly we forget.

I've bought a couple of old photos from charity shops which've caught my eye and imagination, and they are on my desk.

One is of a young lady sometime in the 1940s, another a soldier. I love pondering about their lives, loves, and what may have happened to them. I like that I have a first name for them, and feel in some small way they're remembered, if only by me.

I like to take my son to old cemeteries for a wander about and we ahve a game looking for the oldest most neglected graves, and we say the person's name out loud... How long may it been since this person's name was last spoken, or even thought of?

I think picking up old photos (or yearbooks) is great, not creepy, giving you a peak into a time and place you're not.

Who doesn't love seeing a friend's embarrassing school photos when you visit their parents? ;-)

Ruf... sentimental fool extraordinaire..