Collecting the Sox: Magnet Schedules

I have a confession right off the bat. I don’t really know all that much about the magnet schedule industry. I don’t know how many people make them. I don’t know how long people have been making them. I don’t know how many of them are out there. Nor, frankly, do I care. I know that they’re out there. I know you can collect them. I know that’s they’re pretty cool.

For at least a decade or two, the Red Sox have been giving away magnet schedules as a promotion at games. As long as I can remember, they have been handed out at Opening Day as a way to start the season fresh. Jere has also talked about getting them on the last day of the season for the following year. He even showed a video earlier of him getting one this season along with his ticket renewal letter. I don’t know if these are all the same schedules, or if there are different versions of them out there. I assume, but don’t know, that other people also produce magnet schedules that aren’t part of a giveaway. Much like bobbleheads that are made for retail purposes, I assume there are similar types of magnet schedules out there. But, how do magnet schedules measure up as a collectable? Pretty well, actually.

On the plus side, they’re pretty colorful. They display nicely, with lots of visual interest. As with any collectable, there’s a definite difference between the older ones and more recent creations. They often are designed with special events in mind. The 2012 schedule, of course, mentioned the 100^th birthday of Fenway Park. Similarly, they 2005 and 2008 schedules mentioned the World Championships the previous years. (Which would imply that if they did hand out magnets on the last games of the 2004 and 2007 seasons, they were different.) I also like the historical record they provide. Sure you could pop onto the internet if you wanted to know if the Sox played the Rangers in May of 2009. But, you could also grab the 2009 magnet schedule. You can see the evolution of team names as FLA gave way to MIA and ANA changed to LAA. History sits right there in front of you. They’re also pretty cheap. OK, really cheap. All the ones that I have in my collection were given to me free at games. That’s the kind of cost I can handle.

The problems? They’re a tad bit awkward. The smaller ones I have are about 5x7. Some get up to around 8 or nine niches square. They’re also, obviously, magnets. If you want to display your growing collection, you’ll be covering up your refrigerator pretty quickly. Or, you’ll need a large sheet of metal in your museum room to accommodate them all. Of course, just because they’re magnets doesn’t mean you have to treat them as such. You can put them in a binder using page protectors. You can pin them to a wall. You can stick them in a box. For some reason, though, not using them as a magnet just seems wrong to me.

No matter how you store them, they make for an easy collectable to have in an ever-growing collection.

How do you display your magnet schedules?