I would donate them to salvation army, goodwill, etc. Someone can buy them there for a few coins and be thrilled with them. The patterns left in them may just be what someone else is looking for. If the magazines are fully intact, I list them for sale on ebay and have gotten rid of many of mine that way.

I donate only magazines that have all the pages intact. If I have removed one or more pages for patterns, I recycle those. Most people who buy an old magazine, even at a garage sale, assume it is the whole magazine. It is very disappointing to find that the recipe or pattern that interested you most is missing.

If you're placing magazines for free in a senior center of doctor's office, then it's not a problem if a page or two is missing. I would just encourage people NOT to donate these to resale organizations such as Goodwill, Salvation Army, or Friends of the Library unless you want to clearly mark on the front cover that one or more pages are missing. And, if you do that, most people will not want to buy the magazine in that condition.

If I know pages are missing - I may or may not buy the magazine. I can look through it and see if there is enough left for me to want to take it home.

However, if I find that a magazine or book that I expected to have ALL the pages in has missing pages - I am disappointed (I don't think QB will let me say what I am really feeling!)

I think if you donate with a sticker on the cover saying "some pages missing" - then the buyer or taker will be aware.

There is a free table at my guild meeting and magazines are always scooped up quickly. I sometimes have torn patterns out. If it is only 1 or 2 pages missing then I think it is okay to donate them. After all they are FREE! Today I taught a beginning quilt class and brought about 25 old magazines and they were all taken. I was glad to not have to carry them back home!

Our Guild has a free table also. Often pages are torn out it's sort of a guarantee, that the original owner took out the pattern(s) that they liked best. There is all sorts of knowledge left in those magazines, pass it on to fellow quilters, tastes are different.

please do donate your "used" magazines. I think there's a commandment against just getting rid of them.

I like your idea of adding a note to the front. Certainly good info left inside even with some pages missing.

Nothing is more aggravating than purchasing a used magazine and finding that a pattern you would like to make has a page of instructions missing because they were on the back of a page someone else removed. I hate buying books and/or magazines that have been defaced by others -- this includes highlighted passages, hand written notes, and pages missing or with cutouts.

When I find a pattern I want to make in a magazine, I copy it and put it in page protectors so I can keep it with the project until completion. But then I frequently get a stack of quilt magazines out to look at again and again -- I frequently find patterns I never noticed before or my tastes have changed and now the pattern appeals to me. Books and magazines are like old friends I can visit from time to time.

I have given some of mine to the local public library and they sell them for $.25. Funding for the library has been drastically reduced so this little bit helps.

The same thing happened to me this year when I bought magazines at a quilt show. Several of the magazines had half the pages missing. Grrr! I've been going to that quilt show and buying used magazines there for years and this is the first time that has happened. I need to say something to a member, before the next show.