Playguy ran for over thirty years, outlasting most of its rivals. Here's the history behind the title, how to work out what year your copy is from, and why back issues are worth holding onto.
What Playguy was
Playguy was an American gay pornographic monthly, launched in 1976 by the publisher George W. Mavety. Not to be confused with Playgirl, and definitely not with Playboy. The name was doing deliberate work, and it worked.
Where a lot of gay adult magazines of the era went for rugged masculinity, Playguy went the other way. It was aimed squarely at gay men under twenty five. Younger models, a lighter tone, and what the archives at the New York Public Library describe as twinkle fiction, short erotic stories pitched at a youth readership. If Honcho was the hard end of the catalogue, Playguy was the accessible one.
The physical format stayed consistent for most of its run. Around 48 pages including covers, 8.5 by 11 inches, staple bound, glossy colour wrappers, with a mix of colour and black and white photography alongside fiction, illustration and advertising.
The Modernismo empire
Playguy did not exist on its own. It was one title in one of the biggest gay publishing operations America ever had.
Modernismo Publications was founded by Mavety in 1974, and its first magazine was Dilettante, a popular arts title that folded in March 1975 during a recession. The following month Mandate appeared in its place, and that one stuck. From there Modernismo built out a full stable: Mandate, Honcho, Playguy, Torso, Inches, Black Inches and Latin Inches.
Each title had a defined lane. Mandate was the flagship with the strongest writing. Honcho was the harder, leather-leaning one. Playguy took the youth market. Black Inches and Latin Inches served readerships the rest of the gay press was largely ignoring. It was a genuinely commercial operation, and that segmentation is why the titles feel so distinct from each other when you handle them today.
The editorial line-up matters too. John Devere edited the Modernismo titles before Sam Staggs took over as editor-in-chief from 1982 to 1984. Staggs' papers are now held at the New York Public Library, which tells you something about how seriously this material is taken.
The company later became Mavety Media Group. Mavety died in 2000 and Playguy carried on without him for nearly a decade, finally closing in October 2009 after more than thirty years in circulation.
If you want the fuller picture of how these titles fit together, our piece on vintage gay porn magazines and why they matter covers the wider landscape.
How to date a Playguy issue
This is the bit people get wrong, sellers included.
A lot of Playguy issues carry a volume and number rather than a clear cover date. The rough rule is:
Year = 1976 + volume number
So Volume 8 lands in 1984. Volume 10 falls in 1986. Volume 7 is 1983, not the seventies, which is an easy mistake to make given the magazine launched in the seventies.
Treat it as a guide rather than gospel. Volume 1 straddles late 1976 into 1977, and publishing schedules on monthly adult titles slipped more than once across a thirty year run. Cross check against other clues where you can: the cover price, the advertised video formats (VHS and Betamax early on, DVD later), phone number formats in the personal and advertising pages, and the studio names in the back pages. Our beginner's guide to collecting vintage gay magazines goes into dating in more detail.
Why Playguy back issues are collectable
The run is long, but the survival rate is not. Thirty years of monthly publication sounds like a lot of paper. It was. But adult magazines were read, hidden, binned during house clearances, and thrown out by families who found them. Print runs were never as large as mainstream titles and very little was archived. What survives now is what survives.
They date a decade at a glance. Because Playguy tracked a young readership, it tracked changing tastes faster than its stablemates did. Hair, styling, photography, typography, the advertising. An issue from 1979 and an issue from 1995 look like they come from different planets. Collectors who focus on visual history rather than a single title often want a spread of years for exactly that reason.
The Modernismo connection drives demand. Collectors who buy Honcho and Mandate tend to want the full set of stablemates eventually. Titles that belong to a family carry each other. We saw the same with our Black Inches run from 1997 to 2000, which found buyers quickly.
They are still cheap. Compared with other areas of vintage print collecting, gay adult magazines remain undervalued. That will not last forever as museums and university archives keep expanding their LGBTQ+ holdings.
Condition, and what to watch for
Staple bound magazines fail in predictable places. Check the staples for rust bleeding into the gutter. Check the spine for splitting where the fold has been opened flat too many times. Look at the corners and the bottom edge, which take the worst of it in a stacked pile.
Interior paper on Playguy is mostly uncoated matte, which means it yellows and it does not like moisture. A magazine stored in a loft for thirty years will usually show it. None of that makes an issue unsellable, it just needs describing honestly.
Every magazine we sell is graded before it goes up, and we explain exactly what we mean by each grade on our condition grading page.
Buying Playguy today
There is no simple place to buy it. The title closed in 2009, nobody reprinted it, and general auction sites are a lottery for condition. Descriptions like good vintage condition tell you nothing.
Gay Vintage UK stocks vintage gay adult magazines across the American, British and German titles, all graded before listing and shipped in plain, unbranded packaging. Bank statements show Cian's Bookshop rather than our trading name, because what you collect is your business. Free UK shipping over £50, with worldwide delivery available.
Have a look at the magazines in stock, the vintage gay DVDs, or the latest arrivals. New stock goes up most weeks.
Pristine copies go to the Bishopsgate Institute's LGBTQ+ archive in London, so the best surviving examples end up somewhere researchers can reach them.
Got Playguy, Honcho, Mandate or any other vintage gay magazines sitting in a box? We buy collections. Visit our Sell page.