America Woodworker Early Years Issues Information

There seems to be some misunderstanding with the numbers and dates of the early issues. 1988 was not the first year of publication. 1985 was. For the first few years they didn't sequentially number the magazine, they used Volume and Issue numbers.

Vol 1, 1985, had four issues, March, June, September and December.
Vol 2, 1986, had four issues, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter.
Vol 3, 1987, had four issues, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter.
Vol 4, 1988, had five issues, Mar/April, May/June, July/Aug, Sept/Oct, Nov/Dec.
Vol 5, 1989, had six issues, from Jan/Feb to Nov/Dec.

Beginning with the January/February 1990 issue, they dropped the Volume numbers and have used sequential numbers ever since, except for special issue and compilations, which have no numbers. However, they began numbering the January/February 1990 issue as # 12, even though there had actually been 23 issues published in Volumes 1-5. # 12 is actually # 24. I could see no stated reason for this numbering, but I didn't knock myself out trying to find it. But, the first eleven issues, from Vol 1 #1 to Vol 3 # 3, were all published by JM Publications. Beginning with Vol 3 # 4, American Woodworker was published by Rodale Press. The math still doesn't quite work out. The Jan/Feb 1990 issue was the 13th from Rodale, not the 12th. "