baggsey

On 6/1/2024 at 3:51 PM, Malacoda said:

It sort of looks like T&P and sort of doesn't.  The T&P ones were priced at 2/6 with recognisable T&P stickers, so maybe this is a discounted copy (hence the pen mark)?  Can't get this to expand properly (a familiar problem).....

Interesting that the image you provided has a "4" inside the TeePee stamp, whereas the one I posted has a "1".  Presumably they were following the same batching process they followed for DC imports in the same period.

At the risk of going off-topic, Can anyone point me to what information exists on paperbacks that T&P imported from the US into the UK in the sixties? It looks like T&P imported Belmont paperbacks of the Shadow in the period 1963-1967.  The sticker on this book currently for sale seems tto be a T&P TeePee ?

On 5/17/2024 at 7:35 PM, Malacoda said:

 

I think we concluded that the returns were probably unsold / never distributed copies from wholesalers that never made it to the streets or a combination of those and actual returns from retailers. In the eras when the retailers were ripping off covers or bits of covers, the returns would definitely have to have been the undistributed copies from the wholesalers. 

 

To add a belated two cents to this discussion on pull dates.....back in 1977 (Jul 11th-Jul 31st) on a family visit to the US (Caldwell, NJ) I definitely was pleasantly surprised that the local 7-11 had two consecutive copies of Detective Comics on the spinner rack - #471 and #472 which had cover "pull" dates of August and September. I bought them both. Of course, that is only one data point. Like you, I believe that the comics that turned up in the UK were not comics that had been returned after the pull date, but were comics from wholesalers warehouses more likely to have been returned unsold when the next issue of a comic was published.

On 3/30/2024 at 4:12 AM, themagicrobot said:

 

Yes https://www.comicsfanzines.co.uk/ is the sort of place we visit when others are on dating sites/UToob/social media. I hope someone will let me know when Comics Unlimited 54 (presumably a one-off now everything is accessed via the Interweb) appears. In the meantime I too was looking at some old issues online this week. Actually the site is missing quite a few which I probably own.

Well, @themagicrobot, work is well underway on Comics Unlimited #54. It will be a print-only edition, available via Amazon at cost (it's a non-profit exercise). It is intended as a one-off memorial issue. My pal Nigel Brown will explain the background to it in the editorial. We've managed to identify a lot of the old contributors who have graciously contributed to the contents. I'll post an update over on the SuperStuff blog soon, which we'll pass on to John Freeman at Down The Tubes as well.

Re the Fantasy Unlimited and Comics Unlimited scans over on Dave Hathway-Price's site....I believe that he has the vast majority of the issues scanned, but cleaning up the pages digitally is a time-consuming chore without a doubt. His site is a fabulous resource ; if there was a way that Google could index the contents, it would be even more valuable.

Re the recent re-opening of the discussion about distribution numbers by @themagicrobot , @Malacoda et al, has anyone done a deep dive on the distribution data held by the Alliance of Audited Media here in the US? I learned of its existence in a post on the Doc Savage Flearun, where someone had been using the archive to determine Doc Savage pulp distribution numbers back in the 1930s and 1940s. It can be found at https://sites.lib.jmu.edu/circulating/ .

The archive overview states:

"The Circulating American Magazines Project addresses the critical absence of reliable circulation information by digitizing data publishers submitted to the Audit Bureau of Circulations (A.B.C.), building a robust database of circulation data covering the period 1919 to 1972. This data was extracted from the A.B.C. Blue Book, Periodical Publisher’s Statements, copies of which are held at a handful of research institutions and the archive of the Alliance of Audited Media. "

I took a quick look at the site and on first view the comic-related data is probably insufficiently granular to yield any new insights for us comic chums, nor tell us how many comics went to T&P, but it's certainly worth a look.

On 2/19/2024 at 5:53 PM, Mr Thorpe said:

Mr Thorpe -the lurker here! It's about time I made another contribution.

I've been following the debate on the diamond T&P stamp with a far too unhealthy interest and I've come up with another plausible hypothesis/theory.

We know the diamond stamp extends back to the late 1960's and into the mid 1970's. 

My theory -here goes

1) T&P had a load of old comics which they were looking to dump somewhere. The comics consisted of old unsolds -T&P stamped and unstamped. The comics were too old to be sold through their normal UK channels. 

2) T&P manage to find a buyer in a far off land that was using sterling as currency. I believe (having done a Google search) that Uganda was still using sterling, for example. 

3) A deal is struck.

4) The comics that are part of the deal are all stamped up with this country's currency ie in shillings.

5) Everything is all set then something happens to upset the deal.

6) T&P are stuck with all this sterling stamped stock that is basically a write off.

7) The stock is destined for the dumper and some of it is rescued by Albert!

It's all conjecture on my part, but it ticks all the boxes. I will now step back and wait for someone to take pot shots at my theory.    

How about comics destined for Ireland? According to Wikipedia, although Eire decimalized along with the UK in 1971, the old shilling coin was kept in circulation until 1993.  @Malacoda - did T&P have a distribution centre in Ireland. If we have any Irish lurkers on this forum, perhaps they can confirm if the stamp is familiar?

On 2/13/2024 at 5:21 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

Well done @Albert Tatlock - Flippity moves into the stamped files leaving Peter Porkchops as the only DC title in the first four T&P stamp cycles without a single confirmed stamped issue (#61 and 62, the final issues, just sneak into the cover date window):

 

If we find a stamped Flippity #47, well have the 'set' 

 

Where did you find it Albert - is it your copy or did you spot it online?

I still live in hope that a T&P stamped copy of Detective 272 turns up. As I previously related, I did have a copy back in the 70's. It had a tear in the cover and a taped spine, according to my notes.

On 1/20/2024 at 2:57 AM, themagicrobot said:

On another matter that has nothing to do with the above or anything at all......I have found a few TV Tornados and thought how interesting they were with their unique content of text stories. The painted covers are fun.

 

 

 

 

Looks like Mick Anglo did the spot illustrations for both the Batman and Superman text stories, as well as editing the magazine. I wonder if Douglas Enefer wrote the Batman text story, as he had done for the eleven issues of the Batman digest from World Distributors in the summer of 1967.

On 12/31/2023 at 5:07 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

Happy New Year for tonight boys!

Can you all make sure you stay alive for at least 24 hours, or I'll think I've cursed one of us 

Fake!    Happy New Year!

On 12/28/2023 at 7:16 PM, Malacoda said:

It occured to me that a lot of those phone numbers you found would be the reps.

The first example below of the first Strato entry from the 1958 London phone Directory, which has two different phone numbers at different (adjacent?) exchanges (Hyde Pk and Mayfair).  Perhaps one of the phone numbers is for a rep's home and the other is a physical office?

The second example from 1959 a year later just has the one number 9521, as does the final appearance of Strato in 1960 (included below)

Incidentally, the Hyde Park 9521 number was used as the Thorpe & Porter number at the same address in 1963 and 1964.  I have no info (as yet) on the name associated with that number in 1961-1962. Certainly not T&P or Strato.

If it helps you to find out the actual phone numbers used for any entries, I'm happy to do so.....I love researching this stuff.

On 12/26/2023 at 4:04 AM, themagicrobot said:

I think you'd need a full run of Tomahawk or Kid Colt to see exactly when they adopted the Strato Publications Ltd address in the indicias

I took a quick look in the phone books for Strato Publications......they only appear in the 1958, 1959 and 1960 directories for London, at 39 Upper Brook St.  No record of Strato in England in the phone books either before 1958, or after 1960.@Malacoda

I've now developed a spreadsheet listing the appearances of Thorpe & Porter in BT/GPO Phone books in the UK from 1947 to 1978. It's a bit rough and ready, but I find it interesting to see the explosion of growth in distribution hubs in the early 1960s. Sometimes the address changes within an area (look at various Bristol locations and a Weston-Super-Mare point)  or how the Eastleigh location moves around before settling at Botley, mid-way to serve the Southampton/Portsmouth conurbation.  And there is even a distribution point in Torquay!

I've no idea how to attach it to this post. PM me if anyone interested in a copy.

On 12/22/2023 at 8:31 PM, Malacoda said:

 

Happy to help where I can.   Most of the UK phone books until the 1980s are on Ancestry so its just a case of finding the right page and then peering myopically at the scanned text.  I could look for Top Sellers if it would help.

On 12/22/2023 at 8:19 PM, Malacoda said:

I've never managed to find any in Scotland, so if you find any up there, I'd be fascinated.  I suspect they just had a deal with a Scottish national distributor. Thanks for this. 

Here's the addresses for Scotland:

26 Hamilton Place, Edinburgh (listed in 1962,63,64,and 1965)   and then subsequently in 1968 as "National Distributor"  (whether Scotland or UK it does not say)

36 Farmeloan Road, Rutherglen (listed in 1963 and 1964 only).

Overall I've identified 47 locations.

On 12/22/2023 at 7:48 PM, Malacoda said:

Firstly, whoever wrote the wikipedia entry for T&P is under the impression that the head office moved from Oadby to Cricklewood in London in 1959, which I am very sure it didn't,

From my analysis of 171 phone books, Oadby was the head office starting in 1949.  Then Cedar Ave, Enfield is listed as Nat Distributor in 1963, as is the Blyth Road, Hayes office. The Melton Rd, Thurmaston offices are listed as the main "National Distributors" office in 1965, at which point 19 Upper Brook Street is listed as Publisher.

Cricklewood is first listed as a T&P "Publishers and Distributors" in 1966 for one year . 

On 12/22/2023 at 4:15 PM, baggsey said:

This is not complete. There are a further 80-odd records of addresses of various other locations around the country across the 1950s and 1960s that I could document, if you'd like?

Further to my post above, I'll do the full 111 phone book entries and document in a spreadsheet with addresses as rows and years in columns. Watch this space.

On 12/21/2023 at 8:17 PM, Malacoda said:

I'd particularly like anything from 1953 and 1954, as I think the start date is June 1954.  I think the point where they start publishing the UK edition of Esquire in June 1954 is the first activity out of the Upper Brook St address. 

I've not got any of the magazines of that era, but went through the UK Phone Directories on Ancestry for the period 1948-1959 for T&P addresses, @Malacoda The results for that period are below, plus up to 1963 in London:

1947,1948   86 London Rd, Leicester

1958 - Thorpe & Porter, Wholesalers,  171 Southampton Way, SE 5   (Rodney)   [Nothing at this address outside 1958]

1959,1960  153 Usk Rd, SE 11  (Battersea)  

1949-1959   East St Oadby

1959 2 Gate St Nottingham

1959 18A Halesown Rd, Cradley Heath

1959 Lloyd old Mill Butler St 4, Collyhurst

1959 Stafford Com Passenger Station

1959 66 Palmer St, Weston Super-Mare

1963,1964  39 Upper Brook St, Hyde Park

This is not complete. There are a further 80-odd records of addresses of various other locations around the country across the 1950s and 1960s that I could document, if you'd like?  But as far as I'm aware, Brook St was only listed as a London address in 1963, and 1964. Southampton Way in 1958, and Usk Rd in 1959 and 1960.

Hope this is of some help.

On 11/22/2023 at 4:53 PM, Malacoda said:

 but this would have been every month for ages and in relation to something that (I imagine) was life and death to you. 

 

You're spot on about this being life and death for me back in those days! Probably for all of us.   It is burned into my mind that the duration between the appearance of the comics in Portsmouth and US publication was no more than two monthly issues behind from the time I started to take notice, which was certainly during the 25-cent DC period (mid 71-mid 72). I am aware that collectors of comics I know who were collecting in the late sixties believe that the gap was much wider, so perhaps improved container distribution coupled with non-return comics reduced the cycle time to the UK. Of course, that would mean that a glut of new comics would have occurred on UK spinner racks in the period around 4Q 1971 for a few months, as the newer comics came on stream.  I do remember getting vividly getting Batman #234, #235 and #236 from the same newsagents within weeks of each other at the end of 1971. Of course, this is all anecdotal at this remove.

I agree that Portsmouth probably had its own T&P rep. There were 88 newsagents in Portsmouth in 1975  (I counted them from the Phone book). Of the 88 newsagents alone in Portsmouth in the mid 70s, if we assume that each newsagent got 60 new comics each month - that would be 60x88 = around 5,000 new comics in Portsmouth each month for a population of 200,000,  of which say 2.5% were adolescent lads aged 10-14 (sorry girls). It follows that there were 5,000 lads of comic reading age in Pompey as a market for 5,000 DC comics.

On 11/22/2023 at 12:07 PM, Malacoda said:

To your point, the key first piece of information is: was this driven by T&P or IND/DC?  I think my answer (that IND wanted to test their new distribution system and T&P said 'OK then, but as long as we're doing this, please print PV's') makes sense.   However, your point about the timing - they decided to try it out and between that decision and the execution, things got a lot more unstable, is clearly a strong one.      

 

 

Assuming the decision to drive UKPV's was an opportunity driven by IND's intention for future DC comics sent to the UK to be sourced from first-run comics, rather than returns, do we have evidence that the time between printing in Sparta and arrival on UK spinner racks reduced drastically as a result?  Assuming that UK-bound comics post April 1971 continued to be sourced from brand new printings despite still having a US price on them.

From memory, monthly DC comics I collected in Portsmouth in the late 1971 period onwards were rarely more than two issues behind comics on US stands, and finding a new comic out of sequence was quite rare. Of course, memory plays tricks...

On 10/25/2023 at 4:19 AM, Malacoda said:

 

Yes.

Sorry to jump into this excellent thread a bit late in the day - fantastic research, @Malacoda - absolutely spiffing.

In terms of why DC stopped printing the PV's directly on the comics, it seems to me that a major economic upheaval was in play at this time - the removal of the "pseudo Gold Standard", which had pegged the exchange rate of dollar to the pound as $2.40 = £1 since the devaluation of the pound in 1967. (Prior to this, Bretton Woods agreement in 1945 had set the exchange rate as $4 = £, if I remember correctly).

The "pseudo" Gold Standard enabled comics to be priced in the UK for many years at a set and predictable exchange rate. By early 1971 US inflation was on the rise, and a run on gold was looming.   And on August 15th, President Nixon announced the suspension of the convertibility of dollars into gold, effectively removing the last vestiges of the Gold Standard. Britain was then forced to "float" the pound against the dollar and exchange rates were no longer predictable.

I suppose the question is whether DC set the pricing on those 5 UKPV issues, having made the decision themselves, or was the price printed at the request of the UK distributors? I'm guessing that there was so much worry about the future fluctuating nature of the currency that T&P decided it made more sense to price manually in the UK.

On 10/8/2023 at 12:58 PM, LowGradeBronze said:

Wonder how your haul would be viewed by customs nowadays. There could be a good bit of duty and tax to pay on it....yikes!

As @Albert Tatlock subsequently mentioned, books and magazines being imported into the UK do not attract customs duty. I was not aware of that. I often wondered how US dealers could bring stock worth thousands into the UK for sale at a London Mart and avoid import duty.

On 10/3/2023 at 8:01 AM, themagicrobot said:

 

How expensive was it to fly in the 1970s when some of our early dealers went over with empty suitcases and returned with ND Spider-Mans?

I remember my second solo trip from the UK to New York in 1978 (aged 19) was on Freddie Laker's SKYTRAIN, which charged £59 outwards and a further £78 for the return trip, which amounted to $246 US dollars return at the then-prevailing exchange rates. At the time that Laker transformed Transatlantic pricing, the major airlines were charging $626 return as a basic economy fare. So back in the 1974-78 timeframe, anyone flying with an empty suitcase to pick up comics would have paid $600-odd dollars minimum for the privilege.

I've just shelled out $654 for a return ticket Chicago-London on American Airlines in early December; it's amazing to see how the prices have fallen in real terms in the past 45 years when the dollar price has hardly changed.