In its issue dated June 17, 1929, TIME printed a small ad that made a large offer: for $60, a reader could purchase a subscription that would last "to the end of TIME." In a year when an office worker might earn only $20 a week, spending $60 for a newsmagazine just six years old was a bold investment. Nevertheless, nearly 200 readers--from places as diverse as Myitkyina, Burma and Goose Creek, Texas--bet on the future of TIME.

"Frankly, the large response surprised me a bit," recalls Roy Larsen, the magazine's first circulation manager and now a vice chairman of Time Inc. "Of course I was quite pleased so many accepted, since it showed a lot of people believed in us and in what we were trying to do." He best remembers the faith shown by a young American priest, whose check was accompanied by a note ordering "the renewal of my subscription for life and forever." Decades later this subscriber, Francis Cardinal Spellman, informed Larsen that his copy of TIME was still arriving regularly. Indeed, explained the Archbishop of New York, his perpetual subscription represented one-third of all his worldly possessions--the other two being his hat and ring.

When we recently discovered that the subscription had been allowed to lapse, we called Monsignor James F. Rigney, secretary to the late Cardinal and now rector of St. Patrick's Cathedral, and inquired if we might resume delivery. "How can we say no?" replied the monsignor. "It would be like turning down apple pie." Henceforth Terence Cardinal Cooke will receive this particular worldly possession of his predecessor.

We've learned that some perpetual subscribers value their subscriptions highly enough to include them in wills. More than 60 subscriptions have already passed on to other readers. Today, of course, the $60 investment is a blue chip. If a reader had purchased TIME at a newsstand every week during the past 49 years, he would have spent $788.65. Abraham Katz of Cambridge, Mass., however, regards his subscription as more than just a bargain. "To be a part of the magazine's growth during all these years," says the 75-year-old electrical-supplies distributor, "makes me very proud." We'll be proud to serve you perpetually, Mr. Katz.

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