There's been a few discussions about this in recent months, mainly from people looking to offload their collections, so it's worth keeping a regular eye on the blog.

I suggested that something be put on the website or in the magazine but not seen any comment from Word staff (Didn't Word offer a back issue service for a while?)

Probably best solved by what you're doing - asking on the blog (or looking on ebay.

I'll find out if we have copies left in the office tomorrow and let you know.

I have looked on the buy page, but it says those issues are sold out- also need nov 08 too

cheers

as actually reading a real copy, would it not be possible to offer back issues of The Word in PDF format?
I only discovered Word about two years ago and have read everything available since then, but I would dearly love to browse through some of the previous, long unavailable back issues.
A digital version available for a small fee would go a long way to scratch the itch of all those long lost articles just sitting there gathering digital dust. And while you're about it, how about an online index of all those back issues as well?
I realise that there are probably many picture licensing issues that need to be sorted, not to mention writers fees, but I think you'd make a lot of your readers very happy and generate some secondary revenue as well.