The first issue of Playboy Magazine, in December 1953, was undated, as Hefner was unsure there would be a second issue. Hefner produced the magazine in his Hyde Park kitchen. The first centerfold was Marilyn Monroe, although the picture used was originally taken for a calendar, rather than Playboy. Hefner chose what he deemed the “sexiest” image, a previously unused nude pose of Marilyn stretched out with an upraised arm on a red velvet background with closed eyes and open mouth. The heavy promotion centered around Marilyn’s nudity on the already famous calendar, together with the teasers in marketing, made the new Playboy magazine a success. The first issue sold out in weeks. Known circulation was 53,991. The cover price was 50 cents.
Copies of mint to near mint condition sold for over $65,000 in 2019.
Fifty cents was a cheap jack-off price... Unless you adjust for inflation. When I was a boy scout, we had a newspaper/magazine drive the first the Saturday of the month and Playboy was a top self prize that was found and quickly hid from the adults(men) as it would be confiscated and read among themselves...
ReplyDeleteLOL. My only chance at porn was there was a young couple that lived about halfway between my house and the farm where I worked from the time I was about 7. On those days when I walked home, I could sneak around behind their house and check out their trash/burn pile in the edge of the woods. More often than not, there was Playboy or other magazines that were worthy of scavenging.
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