A vintage magazine store is cashing in on the revival of Doctor Who and Star Wars.

Fans are visiting Two Way Books in Gardner Street, Brighton, to seek out original publications relating to the science fiction stories.

The shop finds its customers mirror the latest trends in contemporary culture - at the moment fans are eager for anything related to Kylie Minogue.

It sells hundreds of second- hand publications from Eighties British Vogues to Sixties American gun periodicals, copies of Q and Select from the Nineties and old comics like The Beano.

Husband-and-wife team Jim and Sheila Keeble have been running the business for more than 40 years.

They receive calls and visits from collectors all over the world looking for obscure titles.

Their stock comes from house clearances, people moving away from the area who are unable to take their treasured collections and wives and girlfriends fed up of living with piles of dog-eared pages.

Mr Keeble said: "You go back in time when you come in here. We don't even have a computer."

Vintage magazine collecting is growing in popularity as more people appreciate their value.

First editions of The Face can sell for more than £100 and the first issue of Playboy is said to be worth about £4,000.

Mr Keeble said: "Old magazines become collectible if they stop producing them then people want all the issues up to that date.

"What's in vogue now won't be next year."

The first edition of The Beano is worth many thousands of pounds. Mrs Keeble said: "People ring up and ask if we have one. If we had I wouldn't be here - I'd be living abroad."

Most of the shop's new stock comes from men who have spent years collecting. They can donate publications or swap them for new ones.

Mrs Keeble said: "Most men like to hoard. One man said he was moving to Yorkshire and asked us to take his magazines.

"For the last six weeks he has been bringing in two big carrier bags every week."

The Keebles know theirs is an industry that is unlikely to survive for much longer.

Collectors now look to the internet rather than trawling through stacks of old publications looking for one they want.

But Mrs Keeble believes they are missing out on the experience of browsing and happening across a story, picture or article that takes them back ten, 20 or 50 years.

She said: "People often come in for one thing and go out with another. We will be here with our backs turned and we will hear someone squeal and say "I had this as a child". It is so nice when that happens."

June 10, 2005