Anybody know how Hugh Hefner assigns volume numbers to his scrapbook and magazine?

Cafe Society
1

Hugh Hefner has kept a diary in the form of a scrapbook for most of his life. From what I gather he spends most Saturday afternoons updating it and it is huge, comprising many volumes and taking up lots of shelf space in the room where he keeps them. (Photo here, with some of the volumes visible on the shelves behind.)

Hef recently posted online that he was working on volumes 3634-36, which cover August and September of 2012, and I can’t figure out what convention he’s using to number them. It isn’t by the number of issues of the magazine, or by the days or months the magazine or Hef himself have been around, so I assume it’s some method common to the publishing world. I’ve often wondered the same about Playboy magazine itself. IIRC (haven’t seen one in some time), Playboy magazine always includes a volume number in addition to the month and year on its cover.

So I’m wondering if anyone familiar with the world of publishing knows what convention Hef might be using to number the volumes of his scrapbook and magazine.

I may be out most of the afternoon, so thanks in advance for any answers.

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Year 36, weeks 34-36? The phrase “Covers August and September” sort-of implies FULL coverage of those months, but may mean only “covers portions of these months.” Though 36 years is only in the neighborhood of “half his life,” not “most of.” So who knows, that’s pulled outta my ass.

3

A man who’s spent his life fighting mortality.