Get Marwood & I

Indeed. Many grading guides of the past have spoken of 'unobtrusive' stamps not affecting grades but these are almost always in reference to date stamps. Date stamps can be unobtrusive of course and even desirable. Can the same be said for Thorpe & Porters' price stamps though? This one below is definitely unobtrusive, as Spidey has to point it out. You'd miss it otherwise Hopefully CGC will respond this time to my second 'Ask CGC' attempt

I like to keep things simple myself and try to use the minimum words necessary to get across the salient difference. A Newsstand may indeed on occasion have a different price, paper stock and / or ads to its Direct Edition cousin, but the salient overriding descriptor is 'Newsstand Edition'. If you try to shoe-horn in every physical difference it gets too complicated. The incidental differences aside of the main descriptor are interesting to many in their own right - if you check out my Marvel UK Price Variants thread you'll see a multitude of physical differences exist across the production period aside of the country unique cover price - indicias, mast heads, missing cover months. All of these aspects are interesting to document and be aware of but they don't - in my opinion - detract from or influence the main event which is the difference price, unique to the UK copies. Every single UK Price Variant is just that - A UK Price Variant - regardless of all other incidental differences. I myself believe the same applies to your newsstand copies noted earlier. But I'll duck out now as I'll only be repeating myself if I carry on.

You're welcome May I ask why you feel we need a way to describe that? What importance can you attach to a newsstand copy that is differently priced to its direct, when only those two versions exist? I can understand why people would want to classify the ASM #13 $2.49 newsstand variant as such, to distinguish it from the other $1.99 newsstand copy, but why do the descriptors of Newsstand and Direct not satisfy you for ASM #607 when its newsstand copy is the only type extant and, therefore, just the newsstand copy? The moment you call it a 'variant' you create the inevitable confusion that it has a sister copy out there with a different price. Again, something can only be a variant of something if the other something exists. One version type alone does not a 'variant' make.

They do indeed, as @lizards2 often points out when he's in slab cracking mode. I always think simplicity works best myself. In this case, the crossover of terminology is confusing. Restoration cannot be, in the case of Scale #4, Moderate and Extensive concurrently. It's either one or the other. Given how the industry tends to react to restoration you would think a three point scale would suffice - Slight, Moderate and Extensive. In my experience, nothing divides opinion more clearly in the hobby - people either avoid restoration of any level like the plague, or they accept it. If I'm right, the divisions are an unnecessary complication - how many collectors do you know who would say "I like that book but it has 'Moderate' restoration so I won't touch it. Hmmm, hold on. This copy only has 'Slight/Moderate' - I'll take it!" Never happens does it. So here we are, discussing scenarios at the fringes that don't add up because CGC have other thought and over complicated a simple thing. There's either a little resto, quite a bit, or loads of it. Anything else is just getting in the way. See also 9.2, 9.4, 9.6, 9.8, 9.9, 10 and Gem 10 (or whatever it is) - a book cannot be mint and another mint plus. Over-complicated it all, they have...

Hello Corona Smith I agree with @Lazyboy here, but I understand where you are coming from as sometimes it can be difficult to arrive at accurate terminology when discussing variations between comics. Please, let me have a go at convincing you, using pictures to bring it to life. First up, here is Amazing Spider-Man #163: It's not a 'Newsstand' copy. It's just itself, ASM #163, as it is the only version that existed when it came out - every copy looked like this prior to the arrival of Direct Editions so this is just 'Amazing Spider-Man #163'. No other designation is necessary. Hop forward a bit to Amazing Spider-Man #233 and we now have two different looking copies extant: Both copies were produced as part of the same end to printing run, or 'state' (thank you @OtherEric for bringing that industry term to my attention) and neither is a variant of the other - they carry equal status. Because they differ in appearance however, we need to come up with ways of distinguishing them. We use the factual descriptors in this case of 'Newsstand Edition' and 'Direct Edition' in acknowledgement of how they were distributed - one version to the newsstand and one 'directly' to comic shops. Note we call them 'editions' - 'Newsstand Edition' - and not 'variants' because, as stated, they carry equal status and one is not intended to be unique or a variant of the other in as much as they were intended for the same market - Americans. Two edition types, both part of the same production event, just different delivery channels (one returnable, one not, hence the need for the cover difference). Hop forward again to Amazing Spider-Man #607 and we, again, have the same two edition types enduring - Newsstand and Direct: The exact same scenario is in evidence here as with our preceding ASM #233 - one newsstand edition one direct edition, making up the end to end production run / state for that issue. The fact that the prices differ on this issue - and many issues around that time - has no bearing on the overarching issue distinctions. The word 'variant' cannot apply to either issue, as each issue carries equal status and one is not intended to be a variant of the other as previously noted. They are just 'editions'. Now, if we hop back to 1999/2000, and look at Amazing Spider-Man #13 (v2) we now see three edition types: We have our standard Direct Edition, our standard Newsstand Edition but, on this occasion, a third edition. This third edition is a Newsstand copy but with a different price to the standard Newsstand copy. So we need a descriptor for it. It's not a Direct Edition, and Newsstand Edition is already taken. But it is in a newsstand edition format, just with a variant price. So the natural descriptor becomes 'Newsstand Price Variant'. So, for this particular end to end production run / state, three versions exist - Direct Edition, Newsstand Edition and a Newsstand Price Variant. The price variant in this case was likely a market test of price increases. There was a unique, intentional action to produce a variation of the existing Newsstand Edition. Hopefully now you will see why calling the ASM #607 Newsstand Edition a 'Newsstand Price Variant' is wrong, as it places it alongside our 'true' ASM #13 variant above. In short, the best way I think to define a comic as a 'variant' of another comic is where it sits alongside an equivalent 'primary' edition, is part of the same production run / state, but has distinctive visual differences tailored to a specific market (e.g. Canada, Australia, the UK) or for a specific reason (e.g. market tests). For a 'Newsstand Price Variant' to exist, there has to be another Newsstand version in existence for it to be the variant of. Did that help?

Never seen one before in my life Speople Some of these people might have though: Second 'Ask CGC' attempt!

Hello Second attempt at getting a response on this - my last try was deleted unanswered Can you advise CGC's official position on distribution stamps such as these please: Do they affect the grade or are they ignored and accepted as part of the end to end production process? There have been at least three 'Newbie' questions asking this on the boards recently so there is definitely interest in the subject. Thanks Steve

DC take the bronze! As noted earlier, DC are the first publisher for whom someone else has had a go at documenting the first distribution scenario – step forward the UK CBPG. Here’s a reminder of what they posted on their website: So, we have some research at last to compare our own findings to. The UK CBPG provides a list of 43 books dated October 1959 through to January 1960. Their first known cover date is October 1959. Straight away we hit a snag, not dissimilar to the Archie ‘lack of single cover month’ scenario of our previous post. This time, we find books with dual indicia months but which have single cover months. If we look at Pat Boone #1, the cover date is October 1959 but the indicia date is September/October 1959: So we have to decide which month to use to place the book – the September of the indicia or the October of the cover. The UK CBPG make no mention of Pat Boone #1, but they do have #2 listed (Nov/Dec) in their list of 43 first wave books. Pat Boone #1 does exist however with a Thorpe & Porter stamp – here are two examples, courtesy of eBay: In my Dell UK Price Variant work I encounter the same situation and, for the purpose of recording information, make the following decision: “For ease of presentation, where issues are cover / indicia dated with multiple months (e.g. May-July) the first month is recorded as the cover date” I resolve to do the same here, and treat any book with a double cover and / or indicia month as dated the first of the two printed months – even where the cover shows only the later month. That makes our Pat Boone #1 a September 1959 book and, therefore, the earliest known DC example of an officially UK distributed, Thorpe & Porter stamped book. The UK CBPG states that Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer is the ‘rarest’ of all the early DC distributed books. That’s handy, as I have a copy: It is cover and indicia dated ‘1959/1960’: Mikes Comic Newsstand has an ‘on sale’ date of September 29th, placing the book alongside their November 1959 cover dated books, which seems about right: It doesn’t therefore trouble Pat (Boone, not Postman) for the Silver medal, but it is still a cool early book in its own right. To date, I have found DC books with Thorpe & Porter cover stamps for the cover months of September 1959 (Pat Boone), October, November, December and all the early months of 1960. The UK CBPG makes the following interesting additional comment: “It is thought that there are 'market testers' or 'make-weight' pence stamped copies of Action Comics #257, Detective Comics #272 and Strange Adventures #109.” I’ve looked for evidence of these books for many years and have never found anything to support the claim. They are all October 1959 cover dated books anyway so even if one were found with a tell tale distribution cover stamp it wouldn’t beat our Pat Boone book and would only match confirmed books like Batman #127 for a share of second place. But it’s an interesting suggestion by Duncan McAlpine there and I for one would not discount the word of a man of his obvious experience. Perhaps they did come over, but were never sold or stamped? If so, there would be no way of validating the claim alas. I do like the idea of it though. Thorpe and Porter stamps continue to appear on DC comics in the UK more or less up to the demise of the company in 1979 (no sign of L Miller this time, even in the early days prior to DC purchasing the company in 1965). In future posts I’ll dabble some more with them as there are some cool scenarios to report on. Here is just one, for the December 1959 / January 1960 dated ‘A Date with Judy #74’. Two copies below, both with 9d UK price stamps: But zoom closely, and you’ll note one of them isn’t from Thorpe & Porter… Who could ‘A.M. Co’ be I wonder? And is it coincidence that they placed their stamp in the exact same spot as the T&P stamper? All good fun So, Charlton take the Gold, Archie the Silver and DC the bronze. The medalless ACG are up next!

Archie takes the silver! Archie is up next and they are the current Silver Medal holders courtesy of this June 1959 cover dated book – Cosmo the Merry Martian #4: Thorpe and Porter are again the distributors here and we have a nice 9d price stamp, perfectly placed to obscure the US printed cover price: One of the problems I have encountered documenting Archie titles is where the issue doesn’t have a singular month cover date or indicia. If we look at ‘Archie’s Pal ‘n’ Gals’ #8 we see such a book, typical of Archies of this period. There is no date on the cover and the indicia simply say ‘Spring 1959’: So where do we record it on the table? If we look again at Mike’s Comic Newsstand, we can see that the book was on sale in the US from March the 30th 1959: In the main, it seems that books hit the newsstands in the US around three months prior to their printed cover dates. If we apply that concept to this Spring book, being on sale in March, we come up with June 1959 as a possible placement. But Mike’s Comic Newsstand places the book alongside April 1959 cover dated books which doesn’t seem right to me. The lack of a single cover month makes it really difficult therefore to place a book in sequential appearance order as we can’t say for sure when it surfaced – in this case, before, after or alongside our June 1959 dated Cosmo #4. Mike’s Comic Newsstand has the following data for Cosmo incidentally: It shows a March on sale date versus a June cover date which is consistent with the theory that books hit the US newsstands three months prior to their printed cover dates. I don’t see therefore how Mike’s can place Archie’s Pals ‘n’ Gals #8 alongside April cover dated books if was on sale in March – June would be more appropriate wouldn’t it? For now, I will place Cosmo #4 as the first UK distributed Archie and place Archie’s Pal #8 alongside it as a likely June period book. I’d be interested to see if anyone has a contrary view on this. These ‘on paper’ dates are all very well but they would be trumped of course if there was contradictory evidence that one book appeared for sale in the UK before or after the other, regardless of the data analysis above. But no such evidence seems to exists and, even if someone were to come forward, any first hand recollections from around the time would likely be subject to some doubt given the time elapsed. So, for now, Archie is the second earliest known publisher of US books that can be determined to have been officially distributed in the UK, courtesy of their June 1959 Cosmo at least. Even if Archie’s Pals ‘n’ Gals #8 was proven to have preceded it, it couldn’t, being a ‘Spring’ publication, predate the earliest February 1959 cover dated Charlton book anyway. To date I have examples of Thorpe & Porter stamped Archies covering June, July, August, September, and November 1959, and a good number during the early 1960s. Similar to the Charlton position, L Miller stamps start to appear on some Archie cents priced books from December 1961 all the way through to September 1963. And, of course, we have our 9d printed UK Price Variants between March and August 1960. The jury is out on who acted as distributor of those – Thorpe & Porter or L Miller – as either could theoretically be responsible, but T&P are the most likely candidate as only their stamps appear during the UKPV window. So, Charlton take the Gold, Archie the Silver. DC are up next in third and take the Bronze, despite being the indicative front runners by default on the UK CBPG website.

And the winner of the title of ‘Publisher of the First Known Officially Distributed Comic in the UK by Cover Date’ is... Charlton! Yay! Take a look at this beauty, War at Sea #29: The book is cover dated February 1959, beating the first known UK Price Variant (Archie #108, cover dated March 1960) by a whopping 13 months. War at Sea #29 is a 10c original US copy, and comes with a nice Thorpe & Porter 9d price stamp: For those that are interested, I don’t yet know what the ‘2’ in the top half of the T&P stamp means and haven’t met anyone who has been able to decode the numbering sequence – see my other threads / posts for more on that. The NOV 13 A.M. arrival stamp on the book is interesting: Arrival where I wonder, the US or UK? Anecdotal evidence tells us that US books were shipped to the UK as ballast in the early days. Surely the book couldn’t have landed ashore in the UK so quickly given that, according to Mike’s Comic Newsstand, the approximate ‘on sale’ date was December the 1st in the US?: More likely that the book was date stamped in the US and then found its way onto the boat heading to Blighty. I don’t believe the book is a one off by the way or that, speculating, it was stamped in the UK out of date sequence (i.e. later than the natural production / shipping / arrival date sequence). I currently have confirmation of Charlton books with T&P stamps for February, March, May, July and August 1959 in the files (none as yet for April or June, oddly). Here is Atomic Bunny #15, cover dated March 1959, and with a nice fat 9d T&P stamp (and its own indecipherable arrival stamp): Here is Timmy the Timid Ghost #14, also cover dated March 1959 with its nicely placed 9d T&P stamp (but no arrival stamp this time): And here is Outer Space #22, cover dated May 1959: Outer Space #22 has a cool FEBRUARY 11 arrival stamp which precedes the alleged ‘on sale date’ of Mike’s Comic Newsstand by two weeks which is interesting: So, four nice date sequential, 'Charlton Takes The Gold' evidential copies: I haven’t as yet found any concrete evidence regarding how long the shipping from the US to the UK took, but there is some anecdotal commentary online here and there suggesting that it was around 3 months. I believe it took a similar time for our Marvel Australian Price Variants to make the journey as they had actual cover dates printed 3 months later than their US counterparts. Returning to War at Sea #29, the book was ‘on sale’ in the US from the 1st of December which seems about right for a February cover dated book – they usually tended to hit the newsstands 2-3 months ahead of their cover date: If we assume therefore that the books were printed in late October / early November and then shipped to the UK direct from the printers, the books would land around three months later. In this case, War at Sea #29 would go on sale in the UK around February, its actual cover date. I’m not sure about this though, as the early Marvels had their pence copy months removed to take account of the shipping time and avoid ‘confusion’ when sold. But the books wouldn’t ever be ‘out of date’ in the UK if they were printed and shipped 3 months in advance of their cover dates with a US to UK shipping window of 3 months – would they? Unless evidence to the contrary emerges, it seems a reasonable conclusion for now to say that our first official UK distribution appearance was cover dated February 1959 and, as a result of the likely 3 month shipping delay from the point of printing (late October / early November 1958 based on the arrival stamp), was available to buy in February 1959 also. Speculation aside, good old Charlton Comics clearly once again ‘gave us more’ and as a result of this research they are currently the publisher of the earliest known official UK distributed book by cover date that I have found. Only time will tell if Charlton keep this crown, but I have to say it’s looking very likely based on my early findings. In future posts I’ll expand a bit more on Charlton, as they seem to have the most varied distribution history in the UK of any of the US publishers in scope. To give you a clue as to what I mean, here is a very brief summary: From cover date February 1959 - US cents copies begin to appear in the UK with 9d Thorpe & Porter distributor price stamps. These seem to stop around the end of August 1959 From cover date October 1960 - US cents copies begin to appear in the UK with 6d L Miller distributor price stamps. These seem to continue until the end of 1961 From cover date January 1961 – 6d UK Price Variants begin to appear fully in the UK, distributed by L Miller (increasing to 9d from April 1962). These cease from January 1964 From cover date February 1964 – US cents copies begin to appear in the UK with 9d ‘R.V.’ price stamps (distributor unknown). These seem to stop from August 1965 Confused? That’s three different distributors in a six year window with a combination of 6d and 9d cover stamps and 6d and 9d printed prices. More on that phenomenon soon, with examples and pictures! In my next post I’ll start with a review of what I have found for each of the other in-scope publishers in the order that they appear on this work in progress summary table which shows the earliest titles for which a T&P or LM stamped copy exists from February 1959 (our first known official UK distribution cover date): Hopefully others will chip in with examples and comments as we go and the order may change as new examples are found. My research here is based on my own personal review of what I have found out there and is based on the gathering of actual book images, nothing more. Aside of the UK CBPG, I haven’t found or have been influenced by any other reference source online if for no other reason than there doesn’t appear to be any! If you’re aware of one, do shout. There may well have been US printed books distributed in the UK prior to the dates I have recorded here of course, perhaps imported illegally at the time. But there is no way to validate any of that as there would presumably be no evidence and no formal distributor. I’ll continue as is therefore, and work on what can be reasonably ‘proven’ by the physical fact of a US comic materialising with a historically accurate ‘official’ UK price stamp on it, supported by multiple separate examples. It’s something to do in lockdown isn’t it Charlton takes the Gold!

Hello Over the last four years or so some of you may have noticed that I have created a number of threads here on the CGC boards that seek to document which UK Price Variants (UKPVs) exist for the seven known US publishers of: Archie Comics Charlton DC Dell Gold Key King Marvel Each thread has been a factual summary of what I have found to exist along with some speculation on gaps, what came first, printing variations and things like that. Those in the know know that Archie #108 is the first known US published comic distributed in the UK with a printed UK price: Aside of documenting our trusty UKPVs, there are a number of other avenues available to explore in relation to the history of US comics that were brought to and distributed in the UK. For example, one splendid chap I know (not a member here alas) is currently studying in some depth the ‘non-distributed’ (ND) phenomenon that UK collectors of a certain age will be familiar with (i.e. those books that we did not receive in the UK at the time of publication in either cents or pence for numerous reasons). I considered looking into this myself way back but one of the obstacles I found was the inability to prove certain things to any meaningful degree. Decades after the event, and with all books now freely available via online channels, it is hard to say retrospectively with any certainty that a particular book was definitely not distributed. But I wish my fellow history enthusiast well and look forward to the results of his research which I’m sure will be an interesting read regardless. Returning to my own work here into UK Price Variants, I have always followed these two general rules; it ‘doesn’t exist until it exists’ and you can ‘never say never’. That said, if the same scenario manifests continuously over many years of looking (e.g. Amazing Spider-Man #18-27 not appearing as pence copies) then I’ve learned that it can be reasonable to state ‘job done’ at some point as, using that example, the likelihood of no copies appearing at all for such a high profile title over (in my case) 15 years of looking is so unlikely. But never say never will always hold and I won’t be surprised if a three thousand and twenty first Marvel UK Price Variant one day surfaces. Now, to the purpose of this new thread. The aspect of UK comic history that I’m going to study and hopefully debate with others here is the post-WW2 rationing ‘first distribution’ period which I have been dipping in and out of for some years now alongside my main variant pursuits. What follows is in no way definitive by the way, and I hope that it will be more of a developing discussion than a statement of ‘this exists, that exists’ finalised fact. To start, a ‘first distribution’ book doesn’t have to be a pence priced copy of course. It can be a cents priced copy, and the evidence that it has been shipped to and distributed in the UK is the presence of a cover price stamp which will invariably look like one of these: One of the few online resources I have found that review the matter of ‘first distribution’ in any detail is the Comic Book Price Guide for Great Britain (UK CBPG). Here is what they have to say on the matter in respect of DC and Marvel comics: The UK CBPG focus only on DC and Marvel alas, and state that the first known distribution cover dates for those publishers are: October 1959 for DC May 1960 for Marvel Let us ourselves start then with the possible publisher scope and see along the way whether those DC and Marvel dates stand up to scrutiny. Because a first distributed book can be a pence or cents copy, all US comic publishers active at the time fall into scope, not just those who produced printed pence copies. What I have done is research at some length the months from March 1960 back through 1959, looking for price stamps. The rationale for that is that we know that the first known UK Price Variant is cover dated March 1960 (our earlier posted Archie #108) so that is the obvious starting point to see if any other cents priced comics exist prior to that date, adorned with UK price stamps (including of course the DC copies that are suggested to exist from 1959 onwards by the UK CBPG). As I said earlier, my research here is by no means definitive or complete and will hopefully develop over time as others contribute. But in the initial phase, here is what I have gathered. There are two main decipherable UK distributor stamps in evidence that I have found on comics with cover dates in 1959 and 1960. They are: Thorpe and Porter 9d stamps (T&P) L Miller 6d and 9d stamps (LM) They look like this: L Miller & Co Thorpe & Porter Other stamp types have been found to exist but they are in the tiny minority and are not identifiably company specific (more on those later in the thread). So far, I have found T&P and LM UK distribution price stamps on the following US publishers’ books around the target date period: ACG (which, incidentally, have no UK Price Variants known) Archie Charlton DC Dell Harvey (no UK Price Variants known) IW Super (no UK Price Variants known) Marvel There may be other publishers yet to be found, but that is what the first phase of my research has identified. I haven’t studied beyond 1960 in any great depth as the purpose at this stage is just to identify the early ‘first distribution’ ones. I will do later though (it’s something to do isn’t it). As noted earlier, the UK CBPG outlines the first distribution details for Marvel and DC only which is understandable given their market dominance. So, can either of those publishers claim the crown for ‘First Officially Distributed’ book in the UK then, based on their cover date / the presence of a defined UK distributor price stamp? No, they can’t! Tune in to my next post to find out who the current Gold Medal winner is…..

In respect of CT, 'Slight' (1) is 'light': 'Slight' is lower than 'small', as 'small' appears on B-2 labels where 2 is 'slight/moderate' But 'very small' is lower than 'slight', as it gets a Blue and is, presumably, not considered restoration: Small, very small, slight, light, moderate...

I'm not sure I entirely agree with that. Once slabbed, you can't hold a book up to inspect the colour touch for yourself, see where it bleeds through, where it is, check it in the light etc. And a 'small amount of colour touch' label description doesn't itself tell me where, how many instances or how significant the amount is. Take this example posted earlier - "small amount of color touch on cover": The B-2 definition indicates that that 'small amount' could be 1" × 1": Why use the word 'small' on the label wording when the grading scale terms - also on the label - are 'slight' and 'moderate'? I find that misleading, especially if I don't happen to recall the precise definition of B-2 without looking it up. Personally, 'small' to me indicates a dot here or there - a one inch square color touch could hardly be called small in the context of a comic cover's dimensions, could it? CGC would do better to drop the use of the word 'small' and stick to their own 'slight', 'moderate' etc grading terms. If one book can have a tiny dot of CT on the black of the spine, another significant amounts, both books get the same purple label and both see their value and desirability almost equally destroyed. So I see CGC's current practice as unecessarily unclear and the end product - the PLOD - value destroying regardless of the extent of the CT present. It doesn't help either when you see blue labels with 'very small amount of CT' on them either. If 'small' is 'slight/moderate' then 'very small' should be 'slight' and, therefore, a PLOD.

Are you sure it's water?

Is that a printers / industry term then Eric, state? ...seems it is: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_(printmaking) Thanks Eric, not heard that one before.

Is that a printers / industry term then Eric, state?

Correct

A similar scenario here, albeit single colour: And here's one the printer gets right, by clearing the blue for the 'Whitman' copy:

Interesting observation. It's normal for this issue. I don't recall seeing this color pattern on any other diamond. It's like that because Marvel took the relatively unusual step of colouring the price / issue box on the standard newsstand issue - usually that area is printed white. The same blue/yellow colouring was applied the the revised 'Whitman' version, presumably unintentionally: I'm sure there are other examples out there of this.

Don't worry Triple F. I've long since seen the error of my ways. I'm a Bjorn Again convert, you could say

It looks nicer in those photos. I'm still at 3.5 but I could see CGC grading it higher. They seem to be quite 'forgiving' on older books. Looking forward to seeing the others.