Anyone remember magazines like these from early 1990’s?

[Homer'sWife]

My son has asked if I remember the name of the magazine collection he used to have when he was about 8 or 9 so that would be early to mid 1990’s. The only thing he can remember about them is that he collected them either weekly or monthly, they were about animals, and he stored them in a red binder he thinks came with one issue. He can’t remember if the had stickers as well, but he has a vague recollection of putting something else in the binder! I am at a loss, I remember most things but this has me stumped. Does anyone know what I am talking about?!

[George 1978]

They sound like those "free binder with part one" sets that Marshall Cavendish and Orbis published in the late 1980s and early to mid 1990s which were advertised between Christmas and New Year. WHSmith sold them but generally stopped after the fourth part which meant that a lot of people couldn't continue collecting them.

The BBC series The Animals of Farthing Wood seem to spring to mind - I am certain that there was some collection series every week or fortnight at some point in the 1990s. Quest was a Marshall Cavendish series launched in 1989 and reissued a couple of years later which looked at science and technology, and so zoology could have featured within that.

My family had got the first edition of a sub-Encyclopedia Britannica series of The Joy of Knowledge which was hardback books with a black cover - one was supposed to get all 30 of them, put them in a glass bookcase and show off to visitors how "Ask the Family" middle class you were at home. It sounds a bit like that, but then again, it could sound like a lot of things.

[Homer'sWife]

Thank you, that does sound like the type of mags we are looking.for. It’s a starting point. I’ll let you know if we find out!

[George 1978]

Some big libraries would probably have stocked a couple of year's worth of archive magazines for a while - I know that Nottingham Central Library does that with obscure publications that even WHSmith doesn't sell.