The ideal Christmas Present for the Fastidious Football Gent
'The Soccer Time Tunnel Collection'
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Welcome to Soccer books
We buy and sell signed images of retired players, The Charles Buchan Football Monthly magazine, and football books and annuals from the 1940s and 1960s. We also specialise in author-signed books, especially those published by the top publishers of the day, such as Stanley Paul, Museum, and Pelham. With thousands of products available, we've prioritised a straightforward search function for your convenience in navigating our website. Simply enter your favourite team, name of the player.
Football Annuals from 1945
Mass market soccer annuals were first published just after the war. The Boys Book of Soccer, first published by Evans Brothers in 1945 was printed on war economy standard paper. Other popular annuals that followed were The FA Book for Boys 1947, Sampson Low Marston Series 1949, The Big Book of Football Champions 1950, Charles Buchan’s Soccer Gift Book 1953, The Topical Times Football Book 1959. In the mid 1960's, publishing houses launched Players Annuals, Billy Wright, Denis Law and many more. With 100's of collectors of the early annuals, we do hope we can help some of you with your collections by supplying missing editions to upgrade your collection. We have several editions all in very good condition.
Charles Buchan's Football Monthly
The first issue came out over 50 years ago, in September 1951. Charles Buchan was a seasoned journalist for the News Chronicle and the BBC and had spotted a gap in the market: The circulation started at a level modern magazines would kill for - 60,000 - by 1959 it was 120,000, in 1961 it was 130,000 and at its peak in 1967 it was at an astounding 250,000 per month. In 1968 the "Boys Club" had 100,000 registered members. Charles Buchan continued his column from launch until his death in the south of France in June 1960. It must have been a sudden death, as his previous column had appeared in August as usual. The September 1960 issue has 2 pages of tributes from the world of football. We buy in and sell issues between 1951 to 1966.
Retired Players Signed Photos
Football books and magazines published in the late 1940's progressing to the early 1960's, used a unique photographic process, the photograph was taken on a large format camera the negative (the plate) created an extremely high quality finished print. The print was then hand coloured/tinted, giving an innovative effect. In many cases, features were added crowded in the background, sometimes even the ball.The best known Publisher to use this process was L.T.A Robinson in their Publication The Big Book of Football Champions; Charles Buchan also used the same agency 'Topical Colour Process Syndicate Ltd (London) in the Football Monthly Magazine and the Soccer Gift Book. We have in stock all original pages and many more, a good number are signed.