Get Marwood & I

But they didn't. They stopped immediately and reverted to the returns model. In fact, they never stopped it, if the stamped cents copies of the existing 1971 UKPVs are any indication? What shipping model did the ongoing post 1971 DC stamped returns go through? If the new container one, then the only cost change is the difference in the old shipping method (port to port) vs the new.

But they were already doing that, Rich, with the DC returns, for ten years. It's 'all they had been doing' since 1960. If leaving the printing press on for an extra 15 minutes to produce UKPVs represents 'absolutely nothing' by comparison then why didn't they do that in the 1960s as they did for Marvel. But Rich, the point I'm trying to get across to you, unsuccessfully, is that I'm not sure what your theory actually is because it doesn't make sense to me as the reason why the DC UKPVs exist? I agree with all your coincidence observations, but I can't feel them, collectively, as being the trigger that made some one say "Pluck out five DC titles and run me off a pallet load of 5p copies. I want to test this new shipping container process". Which, incidentally, then ends immediately. Who was 'testing' the new system against the Marvels, then? What was the nature of the test for them, that led them to stop the stamped returns? The Marvel crowd adopt the new shipping container system and decide to dispense with returns / go UKPV only. The DC crowd test it and revert to the opposite of the Marvel crowd. All the data from that DC test flies back to them and they do what? What could it tell them other than cost and time? And why wouldn't they already know those things, if not only approximately, based on their previous exploits? And who won the FA Cup in 1979? We? Printer, to van, to port, over sea, to port, to distributor is a massive change? It sounds very much like what T&P were doing for Marvel from 1960 up until....

Is that scraping noise the sound of goal posts moving, Rich? I'll shut up now, until you've signalled the finish of the fight back

FLASH! (the Four-Footed Deputy) AH-AAH! Guardian of the Universe! Hang on, what?

Trial what!? T&P had been importing (Marvel) new comics for years at this point. What are they trialling!?

Right, but I think that supports my contention. I know it does, that's why I said it. I was agreeing with you on that point but also noting how odd actions could be.

Sorry to butt in before getting the go ahead, but are you really saying this simple process was an 'unknown' to these distribution specialists, and that the cost couldn't be calculated based on previous design components or by simply asking for a price up to the point of UK arrival?

Rich, I'm going to hold fire posting until you give me the nod that you've finished answering my posts @Malacoda

Repaired that for you

We disagree on the definition of 'hiatus'. There has to be an absence for it to be called one. But yes, one for another day (again).

Lunch was nice by the way.

And this is the same T&P, remember, who distributed UKPVs and/or cents stamped copies for Marvel, but only stamped copies for DC, throughout the 1960s. If the costs of doing one was greater than the other, why do the most expensive one all those years? Why did T&P want to 'guarantee' UK deliveries via printed UKPV production, but not care about DC continuity which was reliant on what sold in the US? It's like someone cared more about Marvel than they did DC. I just cannot settle on a test to determine the cost and procedure of a new container shipping model as the reason why five DC UKPVs pop up in one tiny production window. If you think about it, Charlton overprinted their US copies massively. I've posted about this in other threads. And yet Miller solicited printed UKPVs for 3 years in the early 1960s. Why didn't he just go for the - we're assuming - cheaper option of buying the US returns up cheap, as we're guessing was the case with the DC returns, and stamping them as he had always done? There was no issue to issue story continuity in Charltons to mess up - hell, they didn't even have issues numbers on the covers - so who in the UK would've cared about missing an issue? And if Miller could solicit Charltons with a printed cover price of 6d versus the 9d of T&P - 30% cheaper - why couldn't T&P have a grip on the best way to import and distribute DCs? If UKPV solicitation was more expensive than cents returns, how did Miller make a buck at 6d? Charlton, Marvel, Dell - they all have periods of concurrent UKPV distribution. Why not DC? Did the UK public care more about Charlton and Dell than DC?

I'm off to make some lunch. Back in an hour or so.

Rich has put a lot of work into this, and I'm jumping all over it. I know he loves that though. I don't need to sugar coat things with him, as I do others. You do love it, don't you Rich? Remember - he may still be right. I find my comprehension skills diminishing with age, so all I might be doing is missing the point spectacularly and therefore unfairly dropping a turd on all his great work. What is your take, Albert? Do you buy this theory?

Take a chair then

We keep posting over each other, so I'll finish this comment without checking what lands as I'm doing it (Albert has posted as I type). I feel like you (Rich) are saying that some people, who had DC cents returns shipped to the UK for ten years, being the same (original, at least) people who solicited and distributed Marvel UKPVs in the UK for ten years, were faced with a new, container based shipping opportunity, with cost and process being the unknowns. That opportunity, you're saying, was facilitated by the addition of Product Identifier codes. These people, who had total understanding of the costs of both UKPV and cents returns distribution historically, are suddenly clueless as to the new shipping cost and procedure. Their reaction is to run off five DC UKPVs. All they had to do was ship existing returns to identify the shipping cost and process under the new shipping container model. All they had to do was ask the shippers the new cost, and then factor that into the existing E2E model (of which they had experience). Can you see why I'm struggling, Rich? Do I need to better understand who was distributing Marvel, and who DC, and how those two camps differed in their knowledge and processing?

Good, others would take offense I'm sure, but we're above that nonsense in this thread. I can't answer that, other than to say that there is no evidence that I have found to show that they were returns (in the form of, say, US date stamps). Rich, you've presented many words, sub-divided under many headings, to tell us your theory on why five 1971 DC UKPVs exist. I'm excited to read them. Having done so, I've distilled it all down to one sentence, clarified that I've understood you, and am now testing it. And it isn't working for me. I feel like there is a circle, at the heart of which is one simple question. There are hundreds of considerations floating around in the circle. I feel that you have discussed them all at length, admirably, but that you have not tied them together to deliver one compelling reason that answers the central question. Is it hiding in there, and I'm not seeing it?

Why wouldn't cents priced copies satisfy that shipping test?

So if they have this defined volume to ship, they would approach the shippers and be quoted a price to ship them under the new model. Or did they ship them blind, and then get invoiced? Again, what is the unknown that compels them to run the test?

By the way Rich, a series of coincidences do not themselves always make a case. They can be just that - coincidences. Remember when I said this was a coincidence?: You argued it wasn't the reason that one UKPV existed and the other didn't. Taking the helicopter view, my simply presented coincidence above looks a hell of a lot more plausible to me than your PI/Container test one currently does. And remember when I pointed out that the DC UKPVs coincided with the US cover price increases? I'm not trying to be unkind mate - you did say in our PMs that you prefer robust challenge! One other thought, it's clear the the DC UKPVs weren't a market test of pricing, because the stamped copies were already 5p. So they weren't testing a higher price. Charlton did 15c variants for 2 cover months. So there was no time to get the data in, surely, as you noted in your posts above re these DCs. There are lots of things that don't make sense in the hobby, and the answers to some of these mysteries might not follow any logical analysis pattern.

In the early 1960s, Marvels were printed as cents copies, and pence copies. The pence copies were sent to the docks and shipped to the UK, and then distributed. Costs known. The distributor was Thorpe & Porter. Still in the early 1960s, DCs came over as unsold cents returns, and were stamped up by the distributor, Thorpe & Porter. Costs known. In your Product Identifier / New Container Shipping model, what exactly is different? There would have been a quoted cost associated with the container shipping. Why did the distributor of DC need to have five pence copies printed to establish E2E costs, comparative to their ongoing returns model? And who were these people at this stage, that existed to solicit the new DC shipping experiment, but then were not around to establish whether it worked? Why did Marvel go one way (UKPVs only) post PI and DC the other (stamped returns)? If the costs were wildly different, was one of them an idiot? If costs are a deciding factor, why would the distributors of Marvel and DC be using different models at that stage of the distribution game?

What I'm struggling with is why UKPVs existed well before your proposed DC five book cost / system experiment. Charlton, Dell, King, Marvel, all had long periods of UKPV production. Marvel did so alongside stamped cents copies. If the crux of your argument is that those activities preceded the addition of the Product Identifier, which you say facilitated the container shipping process, then why did Marvel stop the stamps but DC continued (by that I mean the distributors of them)? Why does DC differ?

And you think five comics were enough to prove that? Why would they not already know the costs, or be able to predict them by simply adding each component part up? What are the unknowns here?

That's what I thought.

I know you're online Rich, and I'm hoping for a shortish answer