“So that sucks that this week's Guardian is the last one,” Facebook user Jason Storm wrote in a despairing status update. “And,” he added, “now I can't find a copy anywhere cuz some assholes are taking them all to sell on eBay.”
In fact, the most enterprising such asshole is hawking yesterday's edition of the free newspaper for $29.99. Now a collector's item, it's described as ” a clean, fresh, near-mint copy of that final issue, dated October 15 2014, taken from a street distribution box, never opened, never read. A piece of San Francisco media history!”
“PayPal only, please,” the seller adds.
So far, no one has placed any bids.
[jump] Another copy of yesterday's issue is selling for $19.95 (or best offer), the same price as the Bay Guardian's 1999 “Bruce Lee Lives!” edition. (Condition: used.)
That's about one-fifth the price of the first-ever edition, printed in 1966. But for some mild edge toning and small tears it's nearly perfect — and could be yours for $100.
To those mourning the venerable progressive alt-weekly, that's at least slightly less gauche.
EBay actually has a sprawling marketplace of “last editions,” including the 1889 last edition of the Poetical Works of Robert Browning, the last edition of Warhammer Fantasy Dark Elves Codex Army Book, and the Chicago Daily News, which memorialized itself with the headline “So Long, Chicago,” in 1978. Apparently there's a life, and even a cult following for shuttered newspapers, long after they stop going to press.
The Guardian, meanwhile, is starting another life in exile.
