Anyone want to see my collection of trash bin rescued patterns? How about my pattern books?
If the shops are needing to send patterns or envelopes back that's to do with the UK distributors. That hasn't been done in the US for 15 to 20 years. I think they are supposed to be destroyed. The way that's usually done is just to toss them in the dumpster intact. Some over zealous employees take the contents out of the envelopes and get something like a 2 liter bottle of strawberry soda to splash over everything.
My friend was looking for boxes and was told by a record shop to look by their dumpster as they had just put a bunch back there. The bin was shared with a mega fabric store. They had just culled the Vogue patterns, emptied the envelopes and tossed everything. She got about 6 bags worth. She taught high school math to special needs students. The kids had a blast putting the correct instructions, pattern and envelopes together. Had to get the sizes right! I wound up with 2 bags and passed those on.
Last time I bought a pattern, prepandemic, they were selling the discontinued ones for 25 cents each.