By Sam Schube

The bidder offered $5,000 for a stack of magazines that had been sitting on a shelf in Chip Futrell's closet for more than 20 years. But Futrell wasn't biting.

"I'm going to hold them until I get what they're worth," the North Carolina retiree said.

These weren't just any magazines. Futrell is looking to sell all 57 issues of George, the politics and culture periodical founded by John F. Kennedy Jr. in 1995. And he's waiting to find a buyer who will keep the whole set intact.

The magazine was a passion project for Kennedy, the charismatic scion of America's most storied political dynasty. It folded a few years after his untimely death in 1999, as sales slipped and advertising shrunk, and became just another forgotten relic of a different era.

Now, suddenly, everyone wants a piece.

"Love Story," the limited TV series about Kennedy's romance with Carolyn Bessette, has fueled renewed infatuations with all things Kennedy and Kennedy adjacent: backward driving caps, drugstore headbands, niche sunglasses and one extravagantly lighted Indian restaurant in Manhattan's East Village. And the show, which airs its finale tonight, has turned a defunct magazine into a status symbol.

Kennedy founded George with a stated ambition to cover his family business with the enthusiasm and wit of a pop-culture publication. Thanks to his fame, the magazine carried enormous expectations into its launch -- and managed to meet them at first, with early issues selling well and breaking advertising records.

"It did really well at the launch," said Matt Berman, who served as George's creative director until shortly after Kennedy's death. "The first two magazines were like telephone books," packed with ads.

The debut, featuring supermodel Cindy Crawford dressed as a sexy George Washington, was especially buzzy. And while circulation grew, somewhat morbidly, after Kennedy's death, revenue didn't. Publisher Hachette Filipacchi Magazines folded the title in 2001.

For years afterward, George was something of a curiosity -- a symbol of a strange and beguiling time in magazine publishing beloved only by obsessive collectors and Kennedy completists.

A few years back, Garrett Colton picked up a bundle of issues for a dollar at a garage sale, hoping to turn a profit.

"I couldn't really get anyone to bite," said Colton, who lives in St. Augustine, Fla.

A sourcer of vintage books and magazines, he wound up wholesaling them to a shop in New York. This week, poking around Facebook Marketplace, he saw issues going for $50 or $60 each. On eBay, copies of popular issues -- including a 1996 edition with Drew Barrymore doing her best Marilyn Monroe, and the JFK Jr.-featuring final issue -- are now fetching hundreds of dollars.

Colton was sanguine about the development. He's learned to not get upset when something doesn't sell.

George wasn't a terribly desired title among even print magazine obsessives until recently, said Erik DuRon, co-owner of Left Bank Books in Manhattan's West Village. He began stocking issues over the past four or five years but found they sold slowly, with a few exceptions, most often to folks interested in design.

"What was and continues to be the easiest issue to sell is the very first issue, the Cindy Crawford cover, which is iconic," he said. He sells "standard" issues for $30 apiece. The Crawford cover goes for $175.

DuRon said the store keeps a few issues of the magazine on displays inside, plus one in its window. "People kind of explain it to each other: That's JFK Jr.'s magazine," he said. "It's usually girls explaining to one another, or girls explaining to their boyfriends."

An increase in attention from weekend visitors, however, "doesn't necessarily translate to actual sales."

As contemporary culture has moved online, vintage magazines have grown in popularity, especially among creative types looking for reference material that isn't available to anyone with a phone. George appears to be attracting a different sort of crowd.

"I don't think most of these people that are buying George even knew what George was prior to the show," said Jalil Johnson, a writer and creative in New York whose own vintage magazine collection contains three issues of Kennedy's magazine. He grabbed his copy of the Crawford issue for a measly $5.

Buying ephemera is "part of the contemporary collective way we process popular culture," said Bijan Shahvali, founder of the Brooklyn vintage shop Intramural. A certain kind of consumer, after watching a TV show that pulls at their heartstrings, immediately pulls out their phone and navigates to resale sites, looking for vintage finds.

There are plenty of copies of George available online for those willing to stretch their budgets. What there's less of is promotional merchandise -- like T-shirts and coffee mugs -- from the period.

"I was searching for the merch online and nothing was really coming up," said Kathleen Sorbara, whose Williamsburg, Brooklyn, vintage shop Sorbara's does a brisk business with Bessette's many acolytes. So she and her e-commerce director whipped up a bootleg George tee and listed it online for $55.

They sold out of their initial run of 50. A second release of 60 is nearly gone.

Still, nothing compares to the original. Sorbara is keeping an eye on eBay, ready to strike in the event she finds a non-bootleg George T-shirt or two. If she gets lucky, she doesn't plan on selling.

"I just want an original one for myself," she said.

Write to Sam Schube at sam.schube@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 26, 2026 05:30 ET (09:30 GMT)

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