Exactly how many days postdated was the cover date on LIFE magazine (1937-1972)? For example, an issue with the cover date “December 6” — on what date was it actually published?
From the (Saturday) 14 October 1967 Northwest Arkansas Times
My feeling is that they were talking about Monday, October 23 as being the newsstand date.
From a (Wednesday) 12 June 1940 newspaper story, we get
My reading of this is that the June 17 issue was to hit the newsstand on Thursday, June 13th. (ed–Just read another story which confirms this)
In general, magazines are dated according to the day they go off sales. This developed as a convenience of the newsdealer, who was able to pull any magazines past their date.
Thus, a weekly magazine with a date of December 6 first hit the stands on November 29.