Simnia's SDM Pages

This unofficial site honors and summarizes the 51-year history of the now-defunct Skin Diver magazine (SDM).

Skin Diver was published from 1951 through 2002. It was certainly the most successful diving magazine that ever existed, far outlasting anything similar that came before or after. It was recommended by dive instructors, it was politically influential in the 1970s on ecological issues, and it formed the backdrop and core source of information for innumerable divers in that era.

The information and scans here are mostly pulled from my own collection of back issues.

Overviews

The covers

Most magazine covers shown here are from my own collection, so all blank thumbnails here represent issues I don't own. Because of the rarity and high cost of issues from the 1950s, the covers shown here for the 1950s were mostly pulled from outside of my collection, so blank thumbnails for that decade represent issues I have never even seen for sale.

1950s covers table (most recently updated)
1960s covers table
1970s covers table
1980s covers table
1990s covers table (most recently updated)
2000s covers table

Summaries of issues

Each file linked below contains a summary of all 12 issues for that year.

1959 summary table
1960 summary table
1961 summary table
1962 summary table
1963 summary table
1964 summary table
1965 summary table
1966 summary table
1967 summary table
1968 summary table
1969 summary table
1970 summary table
1971 summary table
1972 summary table
1973 summary table
1974 summary table
1975 summary table
1976 summary table
1977 summary table

Specific features and patterns

Title

The title of the magazine changed slightly over the years:

"The Skin Diver": 12-51 through 9-56
"Skin Diver": 10-56 through 11-57
"Skin Diver Magazine": 12-57 through 6-62
"Skin Diver": 7-62 through 11-02

Abbreviations

"SDM" is the abbreviation that appears to have been used most often by Skin Diver magazine to describe itself, though the abbreviation "SD" was also used often, especially in its early days. Both abbreviations were used interchangeably, sometimes even within the same issue. "SDM" is used here since it was the most common, and avoids confusion with other meanings of "SD," such "San Diego" or "South Dakota."

August 1968 is used here as the baseline for these tables of advertisements, since that was my first issue by subscription. I have traced forwards and backwards in time the range and variations of the interesting ads that appeared in that issue, as well as added other ads that caught my interest in the surrounding years.

1968 ads table