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Marilyn Monroe Playboy Magazine

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:500.00 USD Estimated At:NA
Marilyn Monroe Playboy Magazine
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Very rare first issue of ''Playboy'' magazine, December 1953, Volume I. Landmark issue of Hugh Hefner's pioneering and controversial men's magazine, featuring the famous color centerfold of Playboy's very first ''Sweetheart of the Month,'' Marilyn Monroe. The magazine was originally titled ''Stag Party,'' until an unrelated outdoor magazine titled ''Stag'' threatened to sue Hefner. The replacement name ''Playboy'' came from Hefner's executive vice president Eldon Sellers, who named it after the short-lived Chicago company Playboy Automobile Company, where Sellers' mother had worked. The first issue, with its 50 cent cover price, did not carry a date, as Hefner was unsure whether or not there would even be a second issue. However, ''Playboy'' proved an instant sensation, selling out its initial 53,991 circulation in a matter of weeks. The mostly black and white issue includes a parlor strip game pictorial entitled ''Playboy Party Jokes,'' Virgil Partch cartoons mocking the Kinsey Report, full color gag cartoons and the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle excerpt ''Introducing Sherlock Holmes.'' An article on the incomparable Marilyn Monroe calls her, ''…the juiciest morsel to come out of the California Hills since the discovery of the navel orange.'' Fraying along spine with rust to staples, and some mustiness and discoloration, especially to back cover, from humidity or water exposure. Centerfold and front cover are in very presentable condition and quite attractive. Overall in good condition.