Get Marwood & I

Depends who's looking... 

On 4/19/2024 at 11:14 AM, Cushing Fan said:

As a history teacher,  these are a real treasure for me and a highlight in my Peter Cushing collection. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beautiful. A man of many talents, wasn't he Chris. What a lovely thing to own.

To this 

...and closer...

...well, it gets me closer...

I posted some more evidence that WDL distributed Dell UKPVs over in my Dell UKPV thread in the week. Best place to post it, I thought. Anyway, it indicated that the first Dell UKPVs would be on sale in the UK in March 1960. In theory, the first Archie and Marvel UKPVs would have been arriving around the same time. Good times!

The first two Marvels, as we know, were the two 58s, Gunsmoke Western and JIM. Only Gunsmoke Western carried the Miller distribution indicia data - the T&P details were absent from their inaugural UKPV issue:

So if anyone had their eyes open, and spotted the UK printed pricing in that first period, the only books they'd have been able to identify the distributor on would be the Miller Gunsmoke.

What's the point of this rambling...?

Evidence of mucking about, found in the files...

A nice reminder of stamp numbering issue sequentiality...

On 4/19/2024 at 5:46 AM, OtherEric said:

In today.  Nothing major, just a UK variant that somehow made it back to me in the US.  Bronze, but in the time frame of the general topic:

You'd be forgiven for thinking that was No.1.

The Super Friends were pencificated from issue 10 to 47. I wonder if anyone actually collected the title, from the shops, and noticed the transition from stamp to printed price?

Our cover star friends seem to be fixated on the stamp here...

...imagine their surprise when a 12p printed price arrived the next issue...

On 4/18/2024 at 7:06 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

....and here is a South African version of Batman # 140........

     I love that big, awkward looking 15c price font 

    One for the kerning enthusiasts to marvel at...

    DC, sorry.

I've seen it without the hologram, but that's the first time I've seen a copy missing the silver overlay. Very cool.

On 6/1/2022 at 12:35 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

I waste my time here 

Now, I haven't actually found the smoking gun that says who was responsible for soliciting and distributing Dell UK Price Variants in the UK. At an estate sale the other day I picked up this gleaming 1959 book from World Distributors:

 

That's a cracker, isn't it. An absolute riot of colour.

Now, on the back cover, what do I find hiding in plain sight?

All the titles match, as do the dimensions and the 9d price. The ad doesn't appear to be referring to any of the WDL reprint titles - they were priced at 6d and one shilling as far as I can tell. But the reprints fit too - both their comics and annuals are taken from original Dell content.

So is this the smoking gun, finally? Is it really that straightforward? And why haven't I seen this ad before, after all this time! 

 

 

 

Evening 

Back in June 2022, in the post above, I showed the back cover to WDL's Flash Gordon #3 which, for the first time, told me who the distributor was for the Dell UK Price Variants (World Distributors Ltd, funnily enough). Whilst browsing eBay the other day I spotted that same ad on the back of WDL's undated Crime Buster #2 and was just about to dismiss it when I noticed a subtle difference. In this example, instead of saying 'Now on sale', it said 'commencing in March':

The picture above is from the eBay listing I won - I'll replace it when the book arrives - but the wording seems to fit nicely with the start of the UKPVs in Blighty.

On my Dell UKPV tracking spreadsheet, I note the first UKPVs as being dated April 1960:

A number of titles start that month, some of them being dual-month copies (see my spreadsheet note above as to how I chose to record those). Anyway, Sea Hunt #5 is one such April 1960 title - here's my 9d priced UK copy:

Lloyd Bridges, incidentally, bore an uncanny resemblance to my maternal grandad. Must be where I got the stunning good looks of James Bond without being a wanker from. 

According to the late Mike's Comic Newsstand, Sea Hunt #5 was on sale in the US from the 25th of February:

That date matches this actual copy closely, which has an arrival date of the 23rd:

It's likely that the books were printed a week or so prior to that date and the UK priced copies would have presumably gone straight to the port to be shipped to the UK. The actual shipping time to the UK has been debated as being anything from one to three months but there are no definitive records on this. Speculating, if it was, say, two months, then a book printed in the US in early Feb may well have turned up in the UK in late March / early April.  We'll never know that, but it's clear that there is a close match between the 'commencing in March' date of the Crime Buster back cover ad and the start of UKPVs dated April arriving in the UK around that same time. If the ad said 'commencing in September', then we'd have a problem. But it doesn't, so we don't.

All good fun.

On 4/17/2024 at 2:39 PM, Spider-Variant said:

I have not seen a copy, if it exists.  

Indeed. I see I still had it marked as 'tbc' in my old files. Funny, if you did find a copy with his pants correctly coloured, it would be the 'variant'!  Assuming I'm remembering all this correctly of course....

On 4/17/2024 at 1:51 PM, Spider-Variant said:

Get Marwood for the win!

I spent a while back in the day checking to see if it was in every copy, which it was (so not an error 'variant'). Happy days 

On 4/17/2024 at 2:01 PM, Mavrick76 said:

Thx I don’t know much about it other than that it looks like it’s a reprint of stories and it’s a UK variant…

Yes, it largely reprints stories from the Charlton Betsy Crane and Cynthia Doyle titles.

More about the UKPVs here, Mavrick:

https://boards.cgccomics.com/blogs/entry/4897-charlton-comics-uk-price-variants/

Lovely book 

On 4/17/2024 at 2:15 PM, CGC Mike said:

I have sent out all of the PM's.  If you signed up for the contest and didn't get one, please let me know ASAP. 

The contest will begin at 8:00 PM Eastern time tomorrow.  

If you're name is tagged below, you've signed up for the contest - see above note from Mike 

Ignore this post if you got your PM from Mike

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On 4/17/2024 at 4:34 AM, ADAMANTIUM said:

Is this the one where it looks as though Spidey has no pants?

Lol 😅 😆 

From the old Spidey error files...

On 4/17/2024 at 5:04 AM, OtherEric said:

@Get Marwood & I, any thoughts on this one?

Yes - it's lovely 

The images are a little blurry, but I could see CGC going to 7.0 and beyond if there is no surface wear.

On 4/16/2024 at 11:25 PM, Kevin.J said:

Laurel & hardy never gets old for me

+2

On 4/17/2024 at 1:50 AM, Yorick said:

Rusty staples.

 

Still nice though - hard to find these in grade now, Yoz

On 4/16/2024 at 6:48 PM, OtherEric said:

And if my calculations are correct, no less than 75 of those pages contain posts related to the distribution of US published comics in the UK, at least tangentially.

Correct. Or as I like to call them, my ones 

On 4/16/2024 at 6:42 PM, Malacoda said:

Yeah, but you know I'll just post a new hiatus theory and bag it (along with the 7,000th and 8,000th at the same time). 

Only two thousand posts? There's no way you'd ever post an abridged version of a hiatus theory.

On 4/16/2024 at 6:24 PM, Malacoda said:

Rest assured I will be quoting that out of context at every opportunity. 

Thank you Lawrence 

On 4/16/2024 at 6:26 PM, Malacoda said:

Do you not see that on the menu when you right click a pic on ebay?  It's new.  For a while I was having the same issue you were with pics, then that popped up. 

Nay and thrice nay. Thou must be using a newfangled browser.

On 4/16/2024 at 6:27 PM, Malacoda said:

Whoa! Page 300. Congrats, everyone. 

 

Yes, Kev's relentless isn't he. We should have a prize for whoever lands the 6,000th post I think.