Rolling Stone’s Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Issue Is Already Selling on Ebay for $20

Just one day after the curtain was raised on the Rolling Stone cover featuring Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one day before it hit newsstands, there were several copies of the magazine selling on Ebay for around $20. Groan. The inevitable side-effect of investing several metric tons of rage into a physical object, as many of us did at the revelation of Rolling Stone‘s cover, is that to those who don’t share the rage, it becomes a collector’s item. Apparently those that got their hands on a copy before it went up for sale, either because they’re subscribers or by some other means, sought to cash in. One Texas based seller advertises the issue as “controversial,” “hot,” and “rare.” Amusingly, that seller’s description continues:

THIS COPY IS RARE AND ALMOST HARD TO FIND!
ORDERS WILL BE FILLED WHEN SHIPMENT ARRIVES AT THE END OF THE WEEK!
THIS ITME [sic] WILL SELL OUT FAST SO RESERVE YOURS NOW!

Oh, man, the phrase, “ALMOST HARD TO FIND.” Hahahahaha. Allow us to argue that if you pay $20 for something whose cover price is $4.99 because it is “almost hard to find” … you are unredeemable. One seller says they are, “sure it won’t stay on the newsstand for long.” Is that true? Sure, several stores said they wouldn’t sell the issue, but … most of them did not. We have to imagine that if you try hard, you can find a copy of a magazine that’s the subject of widespread boycotts for something less than a 400 percent markup.

Okay, perhaps there are those who live in the middle of nowhere with only a CVS to sell them magazines and who are desperate for a print copy of this issue. Perhaps they will put in a bid. And abroad, where copies are non-existent, and emotions are less raw, perhaps there are those who want a copy too, but then … several sellers appear only to ship  to the U.S. where, to the vast majority of us, this just seems a little silly and cravenly opportunistic.