At every flea market and antique mall from Galveston to Gastonia, you can find stacks of old Life magazines. There's nothing wrong with Life, but as an ephemera collector, I'm much more interested in obscure trade magazines like this 1975 issue of Lead Industries Association, which features a cover story about the world's first electric car.

It doesn't matter that the car was basically a golf cart with conventional doors. It was the height of the 1970s OPEC oil crisis. America had to do something, right? It just took 30 years for us to warm up to the idea.

While Americans didn't flock to buy the first electric car, the vehicle did make for a good magazine story. And the trade press reporter, in the customary fashion, didn't dwell on the ridiculous design of the vehicle or its complete lack of practicality. No way. The writer focused on the breakthrough technology that made this beauty run, albeit at a very, very slow rate of speed. [I should mention that I was a contributing editor to several industrial trade magazines throughout the 1990s. I know first-hand what it means to write a 'gung-ho' story about a new technology as it takes its first clumsy newborn steps.]

When a trade magazine contains a story with crossover appeal, it can be worth more than an old issue of Life, even one with a JFK cover. As I recall, I sold this trade magazine issue for $25 or $30 to a private collector. That's not bad for an item I purchased at the Artist's Shopping Mall (a.k.a., the dumpster).