How much do you value your high school yearbook?

[Deleted]

I got an offer from Classmates.com/Memory Lane to buy my high school yearbook. The deal is that it can't be later than 1987, and they will only buy one. The payment is a $25 Amazon giftcard.

I didn't want to sell mine, but I am a teacher so I've collected a few random yearbooks over the last 35 years. Not as many as you would think since I also taught where my kids when to elementary-to-high school, etc. But there are a few.

I am also trying to declutter. Trust me: my kids aren't the least bit interested in a yearbook from the first school where I ever taught. My picture is in there once . . . in the faculty section. I just got paid for that one today, and it will be visible online if I'm interested in 4-6 weeks. I offered them another . . . the year before I transferred to this private girls' school. I think I got that yearbook because I was on the yearbook staff and was supposed to know what the layout was. I am not even in it. Hopefully, I will get another $25 giftcard after offering it to them.

I just wanted to throw this out there because I know some people are trying to sell stuff, etc. They are trying to pay down debts. Your yearbooks will be available online (squiggles and all, they said) for free.

I am just glad to get rid of some of the clutter. I wish I could get rid of more stuff my kids will toss to the curb.

[Iggy aka IG]

Lol! I tossed all of mine 3 years after graduation. ;D

[Tennesseer]

I keep mine so when I see a name I recognize (but not the face) in my hometown newspaper obits I can look them up.

[Deleted]

Message deleted by debthaven2.

[Deleted]

Sorry, SS, I misread. I wouldn't sell MINE but I would have no problem with selling another one, as long as I know somebody didn't really want it.

For some reason I've never understood, although I ordered one, I never received my college yearbook. I was very sad about it at the time, and tried hard to get one. The following year a friend (not even a particularly close friend) married a guy from the same year and gave me hers.

But if nobody wants it, I'd definitely go for it. As long as it wasn't MY HS or college yearbook, those I would want to keep.

[Deleted]

Lone, I know you've been with your DH for a long time, but I hadn't realized it was THAT long a time LOL!

[busymom]

I wouldn't sell mine, simply because I had a great group of friends in high school, and we all autographed each other's books. It isn't the pictures I value, as much as those personal notes.

[cronewitch]

I was class of 66 from a school with 6 grades and still only had 200 hundred or so kids. I only went there senior year so didn't know the younger kids except one or two. My class had 32 but I wasn't social at all. I didn't look at my year book for 25 years or so until someone found me on Classmates and I looked at the pictures. They had a class reunion but I decided I didn't like them then and didn't have a reason to ever see them again. Now I lost the year book I think it is here somewhere. I would sell it cheap.

[Opti]

I'm not sure how much I value my HS yearbook. I knew Classmates would pay for them but I didn't know it was an Amazon giftcard. Good to know because anything I could buy on Amazon would be a luxury now so it wouldn't help pay any bills for me personally. It would be more like do I want book X or whatever enough I'm willing to do a swap via GC and likely leave money on the table?


I like books, documentation, and photos so it would be hard to give up. Having it available online is actually not much of a benefit because I have given up Internet access for considerable periods of time and probably should do so again. It is nice to be able to look someone up in the actual yearbook as pretty much everything on the Classmates website is subscription only.


From a cost benefit analysis I probably should sell it or all of them. Like someone said though I doubt I would ever be able to read what people wrote in the future. It's challenging enough actually in hard copy. I'm sure one of my best friends wrote in a circular pattern in one or more yearbooks just to keep me on my toes.

[Mardi Gras Audrey]

I would be willing to sell my senior one. I am not even in it (Not even in the "we don't have a picture of this student" page). The only place I am listed in it is in the index and it lists 2 pictures that I am supposedly in (I say supposedly because they are group shots with like 100 students and I am sure I wasn't there when the pics were taken).

I definitely wouldn't sell my junior one. The pic in that is horrible- I didn't want my pic taken for the yearbook so I just didn't go to pic day (We were poor so I saw no point in going to take a picture I knew we couldn't afford to buy). I successfully avoided the yearbook folks for like 4 months until they cornered me one day in first period. They took my pic and I looked like crap (I am so not a morning person so I was barely able to put on a clean shirt and brush my teeth before going to school at 7 am...forget hair and makeup!). As a result, that pic has full acne showing, wrinkled clothes, wild hair, glasses and braces.....there's no way I want that on the Interwebz for all eternity...

At any rate, I wasn't a fan of high school so I don't think I would want it on the Internet. I didn't even get invited to my reunion (I found it happened 6 months after the fact when I ran into a classmate at a mutual friend's baby shower). This was despite my parents being in the same house for the past 25 years, going to school with the same folks who organized it from 2nd grade till graduation, and having a popukar sister who still kept in contact with everyone (She is 1 year younger than me and we went to the same high school). I guess they weren't fans of mine either...

[Bluerobin]

I have no idea if I still have my yearbook from High School. I didn't even bother with getting one from college. If I had either, I would sell in a heartbeat. That beats paying to have the garbage folks take it eventually.

If I want to keep in touch, I can do so through our class website, or our class FB site.

[alabamagal]

I keep mine for class of 81. About the best thing we have done with it was show it to my kids when they were in high school so they could laugh at all the 80s hair. It was worth it just for that.

[movingforward]

Nov 27, 2012 22:09:53 GMT -5 busymom said:

I wouldn't sell mine, simply because I had a great group of friends in high school, and we all autographed each other's books. It isn't the pictures I value, as much as those personal notes.

[Deleted]

I remember looking though my Mom's and laughing at the clothes/hairstyles. I think I'd keep mine so my kids can have the same laughs at my expense. ;D

[sheilaincali]

I have all 4 years worth of high school year books (nice hardcover books), the jr high ones and a handful from elementary school. They sit on a shelf in our home library (extra bedroom filled with bookshelves) next to DH's high school and college year books. I look back at them from time to time if someone friends me on FB and I don't remember who they are. I don't care about the pictures but the notes from my friends are what makes them valuable to me on an emotional level.

I didn't LOVE high school but I didn't hate it either. I made some good friends who I am still good friends with. Went to school with other people that weren't friends at the time but became friends over the years.

In the grand scheme of things they take up WAY WAY WAY less room than DH's extensive First Edition Stephen King hardcover collection. But we are book people as evidenced by the fact that we'd rather have a home library than a guest room so people could visit

[Phoenix84]

I still have my senior year book. Haven't looked at it in years Though I'm still surprised at how young we all looked.

[vonna]

I still have all three of mine -- I haven't looked at them for years, they are stored on the bookshelves in our basement. However, I would not sell them. I was on the yearbook staff all three years, editor my senior year. We worked so many late night hours putting those books together, somehow had a blast doing it.

Kinda silly that I wouldn't sell them, since it has probably been at least ten years since I've looked at them . . .

[Deleted]

I don't think I ever got a senior yearbook. My parents wouldn't buy it, and I couldn't afford it out of my paycheck.

I had other yearbooks, but I had left some stuff stored at my Aunt's house after I moved out and she had a house fire. Everything burned to the ground (thankfully everyone got out ok!). So I have very few pictures from HS or even my first year of college.

[swamp]

I wouldn't want to get rid of mine. I have some great friends from HS.

I also refer to mine once in a while when I can't remember someone's name.

[thyme4change]

I have mine, and I can't imagine selling them - but I never look at them, and don't really care about much that happened in high school. So...why wouldn't I sell them? I don't know - maybe because it seems like one of the few hoarder instincts I can justify.

My mom has my father's high school yearbooks from the 50's and 60's - they are black leather bound, with gold lettering - so they look really cool. She has them on a very high shelf as decoration. They make the family look all smart - with leather bound books - but really, they are just lame books with pictures of a bunch of kids we don't know. But they look cool!

[Chocolate Lover]

I don't even know where mine are to sell them. I'm pretty sure I don't want some of the crap my friends wrote in them online though. Maybe....... it's been ages since I even saw them much less looked through them.

[MB-NY]

I haven't looked at mine in probably 25 years, but I'm sure I still have all 4 from high school and probably 2 from junior high. I would probably hang on to my last 2 from high school, if only to prove that I used to be thin.

I was an editor on the school newspaper my senior year, and I saved copies of the last 3 editions. Those I would never let get away.

[Plain Old Petunia]

Nov 28, 2012 3:37:46 GMT -5 Opti said:

I'm not sure how much I value my HS yearbook. I knew Classmates would pay for them but I didn't know it was an Amazon giftcard. Good to know because anything I could buy on Amazon would be a luxury now so it wouldn't help pay any bills for me personally. It would be more like do I want book X or whatever enough I'm willing to do a swap via GC and likely leave money on the table?

You can sell unused gift cards for cash on sites such as Card Pool or Plastic Jungle. It is the site buying it from you, not the end user. You don't get full dollar value, of course.

[shanendoah]

I can't imagine selling mine (and they're too recent for Classmates to want them, anyway), but not because of how valuable they are to me, but because of how much I loved reading through the comments in my parents' yearbooks when I was a kid. My father used to drag race his Chavelle, and there's a comment about "Remember the Still" which he still won't explain. I loved that.

[TheOtherMe]

Mine are for the years 67, 68 and 69. They are far too precious to me to part with. At this point in my life, they are priceless. My senior year one is particularly precious. One of my close friends ticked me off by circling every one of his pictures in the yearbook. He was totally forgiven because he was killed in a car accident during his freshmen year of college. That can't be replaced. Many of the teachers and students who wrote me notes have died and I can't part with them.

[p8nt]

My teens love going through my yearbooks. I love going back through them. Unless Classmates.com was willing to shell out at least $500 a piece, I wouldn't even consider for one minute selling them.