Get Marwood & I

Three nice links there Albert, thanks

I haven't found one, but I haven't looked that hard either - I did find this the other day though, which makes interesting reading - can't recall if we've posted it before: https://ohdannyboy.blogspot.com/2011/09/ross-andru-mike-esposito.html It leads to other places....

After seven days, my question is the only one with no response - Ashley and Jennifer have answered every other question over at 'Ask CGC' (apart from one I answered for them - a 'thanks' would have been nice, I'm not staff) and have been active for the last three days. Good luck @ganni, if you send any of your Pilipino / Filipino books in. Thanks for the debate Debbie @rakehell Over and out.

Here's a copy of a T&P stamped Action #328: Cover date - September 1965 T&P stamp - 8 Arrival date (Mikes Comic Newsstand) - July 29 1965 Actual stamped arrival date - July 28 1965 Being a copy with a US arrival date stamp we assume it is a return that it did not sell in the US. Speculating: Hits US newsstand 28/07/65 Taken off one month later - 28/08/65 Two months to cover return / shipping / stamping On sale in the UK 28/10/65 That is two months behind, in line with the recollections and makes the 8 stamp slot of the ninth cycle UK star date October 1965: Probably!

I plotted Actions Comics today beyond the first four cycles all the way up to the 18th cycle, the point where the numbered stamps cease. Action #358 starts the 131 issue run with an 8 stamp in cycle 1: The last numbered stamp I could find was #388, stamped a 3 in the 18th plotted cycle: And each issue subsequently was unnumbered as follows with a standard T&P: Following my previous exercises, I wanted to see if the broad ratio of one calendar month equalling one stamp would hold true. It didn't, with 149 stamps existing within the 127 calendar months: It all starts off well, with a close alignment in the first ten cycles.... ....and then goes horribly wrong from the eleventh, going from a couple of issues off track to eight, increasing to thirteen... ....and ending miles off of where it should be if each stamp represented one calendar month: I won't post all 18, but there are lots of slots with no issues and an equal number with a lot of consecutive, bunched issues: I've been looking to see whether any of the cycles should / could logically merge to reduce the misalignment but I can't see it at the moment. My early conclusion is that at some point around the time of the 9th cycle, the sequential nature of the stamps went out the window. There are 22 more stamps than months so about 3 cycles would need to merge to maintain a monthly stamp to calendar / cover month balance. Maybe the stamps in the slots in which no issues appear were not used? I'll have to ponder it. Some interesting events along the way - Action 347 is cover dated April, #348 March - probably something due to #347 being an 80 page giant (and stamped one and six). The same happens with #373 (another one off 80 page giant stamped both one and nine and also two shillings) and #374 (back to 10d regular). #353 is the last 10d issue I found, with #354 being the first printed one shilling copy - although I found a shilling stickered #353 too: There are quite a few more quirks to be found within the 476 examples that I filed across the 131 issues and I may have found a 5p phenonemenomeoenom. More later, if you're lucky....

That sounds about right doesn't it Maurice. I think they call it 'progress'.

Thanking thee I disagree Albert. For a UKPV hiatus to be worthy of the name it must surely have to affect all titles. A few missing issues staggered across a handful of titles in the very early months of their existence isn't indicative of a hiatus especially when at least one UKPV exists in each of the affected cover months and multiple distributors are in play. A ten month window in which all monthly titles miss at least 8 consecutive issues however is a tangible break, worthy of hiatus status. Did you like that - ''hiatus status". It could catch on.

Only if he wants to Steve, thanks - as long as he's ok that's all that matters. Give him my best.

A higher resolution might help, yes. Odd for scanner images to not be sharper.

Hello Tafkap. The photos aren't the best, and go blurry when you zoom in, but it looks to be in the 6.5 to 7.0 range.

Good correction

Any update Steve? I can't reach him.

Not looking good for an answer - Jennifer and Ashley have blitzed every recent question but mine: Maybe they're waiting on an answer themselves before reporting back...

I just plotted the bi-monthly Aquaman across the 8th and 9th cycles and there were no surprises - the same 9d to 10d switch slot, the same old to new 10d switch slot and no 8th cycle 8 slots which appears to be Marvel only if the plotting there is right. And only one Aquaman issue per slot - no bunching - as expected being a bi-monthly title. Found two more of these along the way:

Indeed. The CGC staff are human, make mistakes and miss things like every other company. You will always find examples of missed notations which may have a material impact on value and desirability. I posted some examples recently of J C Penney reprints being graded as first printings. It happens and sometimes you have to accept that you need to do your own homework to decide if a slabbed book is indeed what it has been labelled as, using all the clues and cover variations available.

I've speculated quite a bit about the missing UKPVs in my Marvel, Miller and US Price Font threads. There were 19 titles running when the UKPVs started up from cover date May 1960. Of those 19, 6 have no UKPVs at all so we can discount them (Date with Millie, Kathy, Love Romances, Millie the Model, My Own Romance & Teen-Age Romance). 4 were distributed by L Miller so we can discount them (Gunsmoke Western, Rawhide Kid, Wyatt Earp and TGK). Of the remaining 9 titles, distributed by T&P, the gaps plot by cover date as follows: There is no calendar month where at least one 9d UKPV does not appear and no real overarching patterns (e.g. the same gaps across the board or volume of issues per calendar month). Although KCO's three missing issues corelate with TTA's and JIM's one correlates with ST. Fairly tenuous I did a lot of analysis relating to the Marvel US Price Font Variants and - without going over it all again here - found a link between the presence of a UKPV where a non-bold 10c price font existed. That enabled me to predict that Battle #70 would be found as a UKPV and it finally was. So I'm as confident as I can be that the printed 9d gaps are by design and not just missing in action. There is no obvious reason for their absence that I'm aware of but we can assume that the absence of replacement stamped cents copies is simply down to the fact that they didn't do that so early into the process or considered the gaps too small to warrant it if they did consider it (whereas the 10 month gap that would follow in 64 would lend itself to bothering).

"I know you'll always protect me Lassie, I know it - always!" "I will Timmy, yes. Of course I will. Sorry, I meant 'arf!'" "Even from that angry bull heading this way?" "Angry what? Bull did you say? F that, I'm outta here!" "Lassie!"

@rakehell - what's sad about Lassie, Jane? Have you forgotten the kid in the well? Or was that Skippy?

@ganni - how should we be referring to comics from the Philippines - Pilipino or Filipino? Or are both terms acceptable?

That could lead to confusion though where a book is printed in a different country than the one it is intended for distribution in. "Distributed in the Philippines" would be both factually accurate and less open to confusion (some Marvels are printed in Canada for example) As per Rakehell's post that landed as I was typing!

That could lead to confusion though where a book is printed in a different country than the one it is intended for distribution in. "Distributed in the Philippines" would be both factually accurate and less open to confusion (some Marvels are printed in Canada for example)

Did you have a particular book in mind Jrempel?

I like that as a theory. But I have two actual scenarios from history that undermine it. The first is the L Miller distribution copies which have stamped prices which override the printed one - even the UKPV one - and which show how a distributor could manage a pricing change scenario (albeit downwards in this example): There was nothing to stop T&P following the same principle and stamping the 9d printed UKPVs with the 10d stamps they presumably already had in place for their DCs. The second example, printer related, shows how easy it was for Sparta to make price plate changes. The Marvel Price Font Variants show how the same book can change price format several times in one print run. I can't believe it would have taken the best part of a year to make up and put into use a 10d plate. And whilst it was some years later in the process, they managed the 6p/8p, 7p, 8p, 9p, 10p changes swiftly enough it seems. The fact that the UKPV gaps tend to end with the arrival of increased priced UK copies may just be coincidence. The main two gaps are long enough for it not to be a surprise that it happened. Who knows though.