This is a fantastic thread, and I am enjoying everyone's reminiscences. Two things seem evident to me: how important the cover was in persuading you to buy that mag as opposed to the other goodies on offer, and how high-quality and classy the covers of Club were in the 80s and 90s - several mentions have already been made. I'm not going to dissent, but remind you of a few classic Club covers from those "golden years":

Ginny
When she started to appear regularly as Club Girl, I, like so many others, rapidly became a total devotee of Ginny - or, if you prefer (I don't), Brandy Ledford. She did several covers in the early 1990s, and this is one of her stand-out appearances: sophisticated-looking, even in her state of dishabillament. Plus, she is wearing glasses, for some reason, always a turn-on for me.

http://img202.imagevenue.com/loc74/t...y_123_74lo.jpg

Kim Wetherby
Another great favourite, another Club Girl. Seen here with Michelle, I thought Kim a worthy successor to Ginny's charms. What a great rear view here - times two!

http://img161.imagevenue.com/loc63/t...e_123_63lo.jpg

Back to Volume 16 for this one, which must have been 1987, one of my peak years for buying magazines - I'd have been 25. I do remember buying this one, largely on that cover: I lover her coy smile - and another great rear view.
http://img16.imagevenue.com/loc188/t..._123_188lo.jpg

Also from 1987, the girl here is displaying a more overtly sexual attitude - that challenging expression is saying to me "come and have me - if you dare!" It was that look that made me hand over my £1.50 for this one back in the day.
http://img41.imagevenue.com/loc442/t..._123_442lo.jpg

Without hesitation
 

http://thumbnails105.imagebam.com/46...1464387383.jpg
OMFG!

There was no chance whatsoever
that I would not buy this magazine.
I had never seen Kirsten Imrie before -
me being in Canada -
and this cover was ultra eye-popping.

Here, the lower portions of skin magazines
are often hidden by boards.
So, when I lifted this one out of the rack,
I was immediately stunned by the enormity of her boobs.
What an incredibly sumptuous photograph!
From the blue of the water to her
cherry-red nail polish and lipstick.
Add to that my choker fetish.
My penis preempted all trivial considerations.
This magazine demanded immediate intense scrutiny.

http://thumbnails105.imagebam.com/46...9464387391.jpg
By now (1998), I'm a Kirsten devotee.
To see this compendium on the newsstand is thrilling.
These collections often contain previously unpublished pics.

[The above high rez jpg is my own,
I scanned it today expressly for this post]

http://thumbnails113.imagebam.com/46...b464392455.jpg
Marcella aka Margaret Bailey,

http://thumbnails113.imagebam.com/46...b464392456.jpg http://thumbnails113.imagebam.com/46...b464392458.jpg http://thumbnails105.imagebam.com/46...2464392457.jpg
Alex Taylor, Kim Delao and Heidi Lynn (Staley) are also
featured in this collection (although these pics are not
from the "Island Girls" mag, just samples off my HD).

http://thumbnails113.imagebam.com/46...c464394824.jpg
Heidi Staley is a bit
of a chameleon and
frequently appeared
in Playboy NS editions,
and is always good for
bonus strokes.

Two memorable names there, Caboosier! I am glad I thought of this thread, I'm loving the contributions from all of you other mag fiends out there.

OK, the two names... First, Heidi Staley. I too spotted her in the PB Special editions, particularly the Books of Lingerie. They felt like little Victoria's Secret catalogues where you could actually see the tits and minge, and some of the covers were absolutely heavenly. One I remember most had Heidi on the cover - the high cut of her outfit was just something to dream about, and you didn't need to see any more to feel good down there.

http://thumbnails105.imagebam.com/46...d464399385.jpg

You mentioning Kia Delao, one of my 1990s favourites whom I have posted up in the Wank Club thread, also made me think of another top cover - in the days when glamour photographers would make the effort to take a specific shot for that purpose, rather let the mag editors take any old image apply a pair of badly-drawn photoshopped knickers or dots/stars over the nipples.

Kia - as "Amy" - appeared on the cover of Men's World Vol. 6 No. 5, with her hands coyly covering her pretty breasts and an inconveniently wonderful piece of fabric covering her pubic area. Then, those high-cut bikini tan lines! I have the issue; as it is in a binder it is hard to photograph and impossible to scan, but here's a smaller image:

http://thumbnails105.imagebam.com/46...d464399817.jpg

Again, as soon as I saw this cover... I wanted it!

Fuck yeah. This and her debut issue, Volume 19 No. 2 - and that centrefold image that probably elicited what was probably the biggest ejaculation of my late teenage years. I remember that wank well - I had just finished an almighty long politics essay, and in between writing a couple of paragraphs I had been edging all all evening. I decided that my reward for finishing the work would be an almighty spunk explosion, and it didn't take me long to paint the bedsheets white.

I ended up getting an A for the essay, but Ginny was always an A+++. She was simply fantastic.

and as I mused in another thread, if she had been the same age today she would have taken the internet by storm.

Following on from the mention of Heidi Staley, I am sure most of you will already know this, but she went on to become a P3nthouse P3t with the name Heidi Lynne. Still the same pretty face and stunning blue eyes, but - if I remember right - with enhanced breasts. I preferred the natural look, of course.

Ginny aka Jisel aka Brandy
 

http://thumbnails113.imagebam.com/46...1464404312.jpg
This was my intro to "Jisel" as she was first called in Penthouse.
That naughty expression, the "side-boob", the swell of her butt -
I was smitten in spite of myself. I wanted to resist her glam-slut looks.

http://thumbnails105.imagebam.com/46...8464404307.jpg
Boy was I happy when she won Pet of the Year!
I had to run right home with this one.

http://thumbnails113.imagebam.com/46...3464404270.jpg
Her classy/trashy allure plus
her magnificent rear views
have made her one of my
top wank dolls. Unnnngh!
Above is one of my scans.
Here is a set of them.

http://thumbnails113.imagebam.com/46...c464404305.jpg http://thumbnails105.imagebam.com/46...0464404292.jpg http://thumbnails113.imagebam.com/46...4464404302.jpg
Any appearance of Brandy as cover-girl resulted in a quickening
of the pulse. The slightest change of pose from a familiar set
was a promise of enhanced pleasures.

http://thumbnails105.imagebam.com/46...7464404281.jpg
I recall this one being
particularly delicious.

http://thumbnails105.imagebam.com/46...e464404273.jpg http://thumbnails105.imagebam.com/46...9464404285.jpg http://thumbnails113.imagebam.com/46...4464404289.jpg
I was glad that I had a part-time job at a used book and magazine shop.
I got my mags for cheap so I could buy these just for the covers, even
if they didn't contain any fresh morsels of lewd Ledford lustiness.

http://thumbnails113.imagebam.com/46...d464404282.jpg http://thumbnails105.imagebam.com/46...b464404293.jpg
And now, for the grand finalé, are two
over-the-top covers: Ginny at peak whore.

I just chanced on this thread and immediately thought of one of my earliest UK mag purchases.

http://ist3-1.filesor.com/pimpandhos...%2801%29_0.jpg

Jean did it for me from the top shelf then and she still does now. The rest of the set - here - is great too, as is the rest of the mag. I've never seen her in another set anywhere - though I did see her (fully clothed) modelling with a car in a Ford magazine 15 or more years later. I guess she was a photo-model who had just one try at nude modelling - unless others know differently.

Anyhow - when I cleared out most of my mags for family reasons 15 years ago this was one I just had to keep!

:)

And another Knave cover that jumped out at me in 1978 - two years after the one I posted above.

http://ist3-1.filesor.com/pimpandhos...I/pc041a_0.jpg

Again it's what they didn't show that got me going. The mag was taped shut when I bought it. I remember taking it on a 1 hour journey home and imagining the nude pics inside, then being unable to look at it for a day or two for lack of privacy. As I remember it, my imagination finally turned out to be pretty accurate! I've now posted them here in the early Knave thread.

French Penthouse
 

http://thumbnails105.imagebam.com/46...c464555463.jpg

I was amazed to see this on the shelves of
our largest French Language news agent.
Danielle Martin was one of my all time favourite blondes.
I had not yet learned that she was a big porn star but I knew that
she was the Nazz with God given ass.
There are loads of great shots of her from this photo session so
there was no way that I wasn't going buy this mag
no matter what the contents!

[my scan from 2/10/2016]

Men Only 1984-85
 

The first men’s mag that I ever ‘acquired’ was an issue of Penthouse with a cover so dull that it could have been mistaken from a distance for a women’s fashion magazine – that was precisely why I chose it as a precaution. From the age of fourteen, I was a fairly regular purchase of Knave from a co-operative local newsagent, but its covers never especially grabbed me, only the knowledge of what I’d find inside.

Then in 1984 I saw Men Only 48/11 on a top shelf in a larger neighbouring town:-

http://img105.imagevenue.com/loc150/..._123_150lo.jpg

A glorious presentation by the model I now know as Jeanette Starion and definitely an eyes on stalks moment! Buying the mag was the easy part. Getting it home in the company of my parents was more difficult. I wasn't carrying a bag and my coat did not have deep enough pockets. Therefore I slipped the flat magazine into the top of my trousers and pants and pulled my jumper down over the top of it. This was alright while I was standing up, but sitting was awkward. In the back of the car, I managed to hide it under one of the rubber mats on the floor and retrieve it when at home later in the day. The set inside was excellent, but for me the cover picture was still the best. I do love to see a beautiful bottom and a beautiful face simultaneously, especially if the model is looking at the viewer as if to say, ‘Lusting after my arse, are you?’

Naturally, after this introduction, I also became a regular buyer of Men Only. So many of its covers at this time seemed to be tailored exactly to my preferences:-

http://img12.imagevenue.com/loc411/t..._123_411lo.jpg http://img226.imagevenue.com/loc195/..._123_195lo.jpg http://img154.imagevenue.com/loc85/t...8_123_85lo.jpg

In the third of these, however, an inside shot of Andrea Kovics upstaged even the cover for me, as the look in her eye seems to say, ‘Hmm. You really are a perv, aren’t you?’

http://img132.imagevenue.com/loc383/..._123_383lo.jpg

To which I mentally reply, ‘Sure am!’ as my right hand accelerates its action!