Model Name Source Reliability

[Pepper II]

I think it would be beneficial to compile a list of what magazines or other sources should be considered reliable in what era and in what order of reliability. Conversely let's point out sources which are largely unreliable. Like most everything else here a lot of this is highly subjective so let's not get too hung up on precise ranking but just treat this as an overall guide. I'll maintain a list in this post so what's posted here will be the prevailing opinion at the time. All subsequent posts in this thread will be suggestions and relevant discussion. This is just a start, of course and will evolve over time.


Magazines:


Photographer's Catalogs or Websites:


Film Credits:


Internet Databases:

[beutelwolf]

Internet databases that are reliable:
Pornstars: iafd, egafd, bgafd
celebs: nudography
actors: aveleyman, notrecinema

Of course, all can contain mistakes - but these tend to correct when mistakes are found.

[burpman]

Originally Posted by beutelwolf

Internet databases that are reliable:
Pornstars: iafd, egafd, bgafd
celebs: nudography
actors: aveleyman, notrecinema

Of course, all can contain mistakes - but these tend to correct when mistakes are found.

Don't forget imdb. Also a good source of info for models sometimes.

[icu]

IDs ... please don't forget lanasbigboobs

[beutelwolf]

Parade: very long running mag; many models per mag, usually just a single pic. The names are largely full names & accurate (non-invented), although some models went under multiple names. However, the mag has occasionally mixed up models, e.g. swapped the names of two models in an issue. In the 1970s the mag changed its style completely, and most models only got a single name, which was largely unreliable. (The mid-1970s Parade is a different mag altogether, as is the mag launched in the 1980s.)

Carnival: similar to Parade, again a big content change in the 1970s. Also guilty of model mixups.

Escort (until 1971): also connected to Parade, less error-prone though. The modern Escort, launched in the 1980s, is a different mag.

Men Only: another long-running mag that changed its style several times; its 1960s incarnation I would rate similar to Escort, for naming quality.

Girl illustrated: most models are given full (and accurate) names, though the same caveat about multiply-named models applies here too. When models are given only a single name it means very little though (this pre-dates page-3). Naming errors are quite rare. There is visibly a change in style from volume 5 onwards and that also aversely affected the reliablity of its namings. A visual clue is the amount of text accompanying a pictorial: perversely, a lot of text means it's mostly bogus.

Girls of the World: in the early issues most models are given full names. Many (but not all) of these are made-up, mostly to accommodate the "...of the world" claim of the mag's title, i.e. like its contempories the mag largely draws on models from the UK, France, Germany, Scandinavia, Italy, and then often rebrands them as belonging to remote parts of the world, with an obscure name to match. Later issues would move to mostly give models single (all invented) names; a few were still given full names which were sometimes accurate.

[beutelwolf]

Originally Posted by beutelwolf

Girl illustrated: most models are given full (and accurate) names, though the same caveat about multiply-named models applies here too. When models are given only a single name it means very little though (this pre-dates page-3). Naming errors are quite rare. There is visibly a change in style from volume 5 onwards and that also aversely affected the reliablity of its namings. A visual clue is the amount of text accompanying a pictorial: perversely, a lot of text means it's mostly bogus.

Just to put some figures to back up this impression, I looked at three issues of this mag, from different phases.

volume	#models	anonymous	single name	full name	verifiable	wrong
3	20	0	1	19	13	0
5	28	2	8	18	11	0
9	12	3	8	1	0	1

So, with the issue from volume 3 (issue 33), 65% of the given names were verifiable, 95% of models had full names, and none of the names were verifiably wrong.
In volume 5 (issue 7), verifiability dropped to 42%, and proportion of full names to 64%.
In volume 9 (issue 1) verifiability evaporised (0%), only 8% had full names, with one (single) name even being verifiably wrong.

The volume 5 figures are still looking good enough to base identifications on, but one can tell that the mag's on a slippery slope.

One can tell even from these figures alone that the mag moved on from well-established models to girl-next-door type, and any care about the identity of the models declined proportional to this trend.

[Name-Hunter]

~subscribed~
Check this post often as I will use it to list my 'resources'.

Internet databases that are reliable:
The Nude EU for modern models where the studios created set covers

Eurobabe Index for modern european models.


Content Sites That Are Reliable

Joanie & John Allums Index Page very reliable and sometimes even amazing!

Hungarian Honeys Disclaimer: not all the models are Hungarian.

Suze Randall A wealth of information

Content Sites That Are UN-Reliable
And the winnah is...Teen Dreams better lately but commonly they just 'pick names out of a hat'

[G-Type]

Also worth to mention (contemporary models mainly)

Indexxx

&

SportyOne
.

[fictioneer]

Magazines: The US Challenge group, pretty low-rent skin mags, is surprisingly reliable for "real" names. This is strongest around 1972-1978 -- before that time my observation is that they are a bit of a tossup, though I doubt I've seen a dozen specimens from 1970-1972, and the chain went under c1980. Fake names were a rule in the 1970s for most US houses below the PB/PH level. If Challenge ever uses the same name twice for a model, that's generally the one I stick with.

The Adam books (Adam, Knight, Pix) generally use standard names for models as well, before abt 1974, after which I rarely saw them (and by 1977 or so the model names were fake in both the issues I saw).

But as a general rule, US mags of the 1970s and after almost always use fake names for models. The raunchier the editorial comment on the layouts, the more likely the name is to be fake. "Neither said photos nor the words used to describe them are meant to represent the actual characters or personalities of the models," as the TOC page disclaimers read.

[magnut]

Originally Posted by fictioneer

Magazines: The US Challenge group, pretty low-rent skin mags, is surprisingly reliable for "real" names. This is strongest around 1972-1978 -- before that time my observation is that they are a bit of a tossup, though I doubt I've seen a dozen specimens from 1970-1972, and the chain went under c1980. Fake names were a rule in the 1970s for most US houses below the PB/PH level. If Challenge ever uses the same name twice for a model, that's generally the one I stick with.

The Adam books (Adam, Knight, Pix) generally use standard names for models as well, before abt 1974, after which I rarely saw them (and by 1977 or so the model names were fake in both the issues I saw).

But as a general rule, US mags of the 1970s and after almost always use fake names for models. The raunchier the editorial comment on the layouts, the more likely the name is to be fake. "Neither said photos nor the words used to describe them are meant to represent the actual characters or personalities of the models," as the TOC page disclaimers read.

The last issues of Challenge adult mags are dated 1980 October (for bimonthly titles published in even months) and 1980 November (for bimonthly titles published in odd months, and for all monthly titles).

Titles published by Sari and Press Arts (also a couple others I don't recall right now) until circa 1970 are also Challenge imprints.

Challenge also published some non-adult titles which continued after 1980.