The Many and Varied Editions of the Auckland Star

What has many editions and only one? Tāmaki Makaurau’s long-running newspaper, The Auckland Star. A researcher’s worst nightmare is knowing of a source that no longer exists, and the Star is a source like no other in that it was once published as several editions every day, yet nobody bothered to collect them all. Auckland Council Libraries holds a near-continuous run of the daily periodical from its origin as the Evening Star in the 1870s to its present incarnation as the Sunday Star–Times. However, a decision was made over a century ago to only retain a single daily copy, a mere sampling of the Star’s copious output. This decision still impacts historians and researchers today and raises important questions: why did the Star print so many daily editions and what are we missing by their absence?

Image: The Auckland Star masthead with various edition stamps underneath dating from 1926 through 1975.

Despite covering the same geographic area—urban Auckland—the long-running newspaper rivals, the New Zealand Herald and the Auckland Star, focused their attentions on different times of day. The Herald was published every morning except Sundays. Its publisher, Wilson & Horton, knew how many subscribers it had and was good at estimating how many issues would be purchased from newsstands. Therefore, after the initial print run ran out, there was little need to print more. Newspapers are, after all, primarily an advertising platform that uses news to attract customers. News sections didn’t start until pages 3 or 4 until the 1950s and the Herald determined that no amount of breaking news was worth the cost of printing additional editions. This made the Herald incredibly easy to collect by the library—one issue per day was usually sufficient.

Image: Group photograph of the editorial staff of the Auckland Star, 1910s. Photo by Herman John Schmidt. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 31-WP0673.

The Auckland Star, published by Brett Printing and Publishing Ltd (New Zealand Newspapers Ltd from 1929), took a radically different approach to distribution. From at least May 1900, the publisher began printing special Saturday evening Sports Editions of the Star, none of which seem to have survived. This served as a test case for a practice it adopted in late 1914. Likely due to New Zealand’s entry into the First World War, the Star began publishing a First Edition and Second Edition every day. This was possibly done to reduce the amount of paper used in each print run. With a massive influx of soldiers coming and going from overseas, and paper shortages fluctuating throughout the war, having multiple print runs allowed the Star to gain better control over its costs. It also provided more opportunities to add breaking war news and other late news. The twice daily newspaper, still usually supplemented by the Sports Edition on Saturdays, remained standard until June 1921, when the Star returned to single daily issues.

Image: ‘Late News’ columns from various issues of the Auckland Star, 1927-1931, including casualty lists from the Hawke’s Bay earthquake of 3 February 1931.

Meanwhile, from 26 December 1904, a new feature appeared in every issue of the Star, a ‘Late News’ column where an editor could add brief updates after the issue had already been printed. In later years, the column also included Reuters and Associated Press items and end-of-day stock exchange numbers. Items were added to this section manually using a customisable stamp arranged by an editor and pressed onto issues, often in red ink. Because of the poor-quality or red ink used, these updates often did not transfer well to microfilm and PapersPast digitisations. Although introduced independently, the ‘Late News’ column and the news briefs in it became one of the main differentiating factors between editions of the Star, at least before the 1950s.

Image: Edition branding, all in different styles, on the Auckland Star’s masthead, 1926-1927.

During and immediately after the First World War, the Auckland Public Library collected the Second Edition of the Auckland Star, which can be considered the ‘subscriber’ issue, since it was delivered each day as the result of a paid subscription. The existence of a First Edition is mostly implied, though a few were collected during this time. Following a five-year gap, the Auckland Star returned to its wartime practice of printing multiple daily editions on 11 March 1926, presumably to keep costs down during a time of economic uncertainty. However, unlike before, the ‘subscriber’ issue did not remain with the Second Edition. In May 1927, it changed to the Third Edition, while in June 1927, it increased to a Fourth Edition. Once the edition of the ‘subscriber’ issue changed, earlier editions could only be implied as the library did not intentionally collect them. In contrast, later editions were periodically collected, presumably because the ‘subscriber’ issue went missing or was not delivered and a librarian had to go to a newsstand to buy a replacement. It is this series of ‘subscriber’ and replacement issues that was collected by the Auckland Public Library and subsequently scanned onto microfilm for the National Library and then digitised for PapersPast.

Image: A selection of edition stamps used on Auckland Star issues in the second half of 1927.

The Auckland Star was not shy about its several daily editions and rarely failed to announce the edition in the top-right corner of its masthead. The label evolved over time from simple typescript to elaborate stylised logos. By mid-1927, the newspaper became a little more experimental with its edition system. From 28 June 1927, the typescript name was replaced with a big red circle that had at its centre the edition’s name. From 30 July through mid-November 1927, red circles with page numbers became standard, possibly reflecting a brief moment when copies of the First Edition were collected. During this time, the Fifth Edition made its debut, as well as a ‘2 30 Edition’, presumably named after the intended time of distribution. More ominously, on 1 September a Final Edition appeared, the first known instance of this long-running edition. Effort was clearly put into maintaining the edition system it had created, but why was it so important to the Star?

Image: Bert Vaughan reading a newspaper beside his dog Vic outside the gum store at the Vaughan Homestead, Long Bay, 1928. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections E0014.

It seems that the Auckland Star, at least in the winter and spring of 1927, did not entirely know what it was doing. However, the adoption of the Final Edition is important as this edition survived until the end of the edition system. This edition was intended to mark the final printing of the day, hence its name, although in at least one instance after the 1931 Hawke’s Bay earthquake, a Final Extra Edition was published. Nonetheless, the Final Edition served as a promise to newsstands and readers that they shouldn’t expect any further issues that evening. Most of the time, it released at 8:00 p.m., after the final sporting events of the day had concluded. The First Edition, in contrast, released around noon. Other editions presumably varied depending on demand, with the ‘subscriber’ issue, whatever its edition, distributed around 2:30 p.m.

Image: Cover of the 26 April 1969 issue of the 8 O’Clock, advertised as the ‘Auckland Star Sports Edition’

The question of how many issues of the Auckland Star were published between the First and Final Edition on any given day remains an unsolvable mystery. One only needs to look at the years 1928 through 1931 to realise how many editions there could be. On 19 March 1928, a Last Race Edition was published, possibly a one-off. Over a year later, on 11 May 1929, the first Late Sporting Edition was published. It became a common Saturday evening publication, although it is unclear if it ran year-round or served as a replacement for Saturday’s Final Edition. By the late 1940s, it had evolved into an insert in the Saturday editions until it was finally spun off in April 1950 as a tabloid, the 8 O’clock, which ran until 21 December 1985. 

Image: Editions of the Auckland Star published in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Meanwhile, the Auckland Star kept publishing increasingly higher numbered editions throughout the day. The Fifth Edition returned from July 1929, while a Sixth Edition existed from August 1929. This culminated in February 1931 with a Seventh Edition! Because the library primarily collected the ‘subscriber’ issue—the Fourth, Fifth, or Sixth Edition during this period—we cannot know for certain how high the edition number may have ultimately reached. Presumably a Final Edition ended the day, meaning that some days may have seen the printing of eight or more editions of the Star.

Image: Unique edition stamps from the mid- and late-1930s arranged on Auckland Star mastheads.

This entire system vanished without notice on 11 April 1932 when edition numbers were replaced by named editions. The ‘subscriber’ issue became the City Edition, while the Late Sporting and Final Editions survived the restructure. There was also likely an unmarked First Edition that survived the transition, though this cannot be proven with any certainty. What other editions may have been trialled during this time? From a marketing perspective, different names could be used to target specific audiences or convince customers to buy multiple editions in a day. This increased sales while reducing costs, which was important at the height of the Great Depression. Practically speaking, shifting to named editions probably made reprinting easier since the publisher would not need to change the masthead every print run. And yes, the Star was still printing several runs a day but under fewer edition names—the only obvious difference between print runs was the content in the ‘Late News’ column.

Image: The primary edition stamps used by the Auckland Star in 1940.

On 1 December 1932, the first known Late City Edition of the Auckland Star appears in the library’s collection. It began as a replacement for the Saturday Late Sporting Edition, presumably in weeks where there was a lack of sporting news. At some point in the late 1930s, it became a regular occurrence, published around 5:00 p.m. when people were leaving work. On 24 June 1954, the Late City Edition was replaced with the Home Edition, which became the ‘subscriber’ issue going forward. A Home Extra Edition emerged at some point in the late 1960s, though when is not entirely clear. People were also able to subscribe to this edition, and since it released later in the day, it included extra content. Auckland Public Library eventually shifted its ‘subscriber’ issue to the Home Extra Edition in the early 1970s. The Star Weekender, a replacement for the Saturday Star, also used the edition system from the time that it first appeared on 15 March 1975.

Image: A selection of Auckland Star edition stamps used from the late 1940s through the 1950s.

Thus, the City, Home, Home Extra, and Final—as well as a possibly unmarked First Edition—were the standard editions of the Auckland Star in the 1960s and 1970s. Unlike earlier iterations, editions from the 1950s onward sometimes featured substantial differences, from new and updated articles to alternative photographs to entirely different layouts. This was largely the result of the reorganisation of the newspaper to prioritise marketable headlines on the front page. Events like the Moon Landing in July 1969 could be updated between every edition to provide the most up-to-date coverage of the event. The Star was quickly modernising, but it stubbornly stuck to its Depression-era edition system.

Image: Fancy a game of ‘spot the difference’? Two different editions of the Auckland Star—Home Edition and Home Extra—published on 21 July 1969, the day of the first Moon Landing.

Why did the Auckland Star finally end its edition system? While the reasons are not altogether known, it likely came down to changing media trends. The advent of television in New Zealand in the early 1960s brought a new dimension to the media landscape that newspapers could not effectively compete against, especially in relation to breaking news stories. Why buy a Final Edition of the Star when the 6 o’clock news already told the story in more detail with accompanying images? The first live television broadcast was made on 3 November 1969 and the country was connected to the rest of the world via satellite in 1971. The Commonwealth Games of 1974 convinced many Kiwis to buy colour TVs and TV2 launched in June 1975, doubling the available channels. Suddenly, newspapers felt like a relic of a bygone era.

Image: The final four edition stamps used by the Auckland Star in the 1960s and 1970s. 

By 1977, there was simply too much competition for the Auckland Star to continue publishing multiple editions a day. On Tuesday 14 June, New Zealand Newspapers Ltd reverted to printing just one edition every afternoon around lunchtime, continuing to do so until Independent Newspapers Ltd, which acquired the newspaper in 1989, discontinued the Star on 16 August 1991. The closure of the Star and the loss of institutional knowledge of those who worked for it prior to 1977 mean historians and researchers will never know the exact reasons why the Star published so many daily issues or maintained this system for so long. And on a practical level, it probably doesn’t matter much—the differences between the surviving variant editions are usually slight and often insignificant. Yet these examples are only a tiny sampling from a system that ran for 58 years. Without further examples, we will never know the true depth of knowledge that has been lost by the absence of these many and varied editions of the Auckland Star.

Author: Derek R. Whaley, Senior Librarian Research, Collections Access & Management