Peggy Wilkins has a secret stash: an apartment-sized collection of Playboy magazines. Her love affair started at age 13, when she had to have an issue with teen detective Nancy Drew—wearing a trench coat and nothing else—on the cover. After her mother told her she wouldn’t purchase the magazine, Peggy did what any real fan would do—she stole it.
Since that day, Peggy has amassed every single issue of Playboy, including a copy of the (extremely rare) premiere issue with Marilyn Monroe on the cover, signed by Hef himself. She now lives in Chicago, where she runs Unix servers and the University of Chicago library by day, and seemingly bides the rest of her time obsessing over Playboy. Not only does she rent an entire upstairs apartment to house her collection, but also moderates a Playboy mailing list, builds Playmate databases, and even started a Playboy roundtable to discuss the direction the magazine is heading (more artful and less tacky, please!).
Her boyfriend confessed: “Having a Playboy collector as your girlfriend is fantastic,” and “There’s no downside to it.” Of course he would say that!
Anyone care to tell about the first time they thumbed through a Playboy? Guys seem to regularly dish about the first time they laid their eyes on a dirty mag, but women are a much more closed mouthed about the issue.
To read more about Peggy and her Playboy collection, check out this article by the Chicago Reader.
Photo courtesy Chicago Reader / Lloyd Degrane.
