Redshade

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BLACKHAWK-ANNUAL-1967-DC-SUPERMAN-NATIONAL-COMICS/192536363411?hash=item2cd40fc193:g:pV8AAOSwSK1a9D8N Ends soon. I shall not be bidding. Good luck.

And then this received just now : Matthew Gens 5:29 PM (14 minutes ago) Hello, Thank you for your email. Initially, we will only accept items by appointment only. Once we have established our protocols and volumes we may accept inbound packages but we have yet to determine if this will be done. Thank you.

I sent off an email and got this reply : " Matthew Gens <mgens@ngccoin.com> Thank you for your email. We anticipate the opening of our building to be at the end of June or early July. We will provide an update on our website once the definitive date is set. We are currently remodeling the office to better fit our needs. Please note that submissions will be by drop off only with a scheduled appointment. Thank you. " I had read in another site that it was just going to be a drop off point and that all submissions will be sent to the US for grading before being returned to London for forwarding back to the submitter but this email appears to say that there will be no postal submissions, only in person drop off "by appointment". Very disappointing for those of us who live in the wilderness.

I've only just seen this. Is there any more info? I intend to try them out with a few books. Tell me, tell me, tell me please.

I finally figured out how to delete the unwanted photos from my post. That dustbin icon isn't very clear at all, perhaps I need new spectacles? Thanks to all who helped.

AJD. Thanks for your input mate, I greatly appreciate your help. But I have tried all that select/delete etc and nothing happens. Is it the CGC site or is it my Firefox server that doesn't connect?

Just as a matter of interest, with me having the technological skills of a gnat, how does one remove erroneous photographs from a post?

The book finally arrived. It is "Mystery in Space Annual" although there are no MiS comics in it. The corners are rubbed and there are some loose comics/pages all as described by the bookseller. The comics included are : Forbidden Worlds 135 5-6 1966 (the whole comic has come away from the cover which is glued in). Challengers of the Unknown 55 4-5 1967. (a few cf pages have come off bottom staple). Unknown Worlds 55 4-5 1967. Adventures into the Unknown 172 6-7 1967. Unknown Worlds 48 6-7 1966. World's Finest 165 3 1967. (All comic detached from cover at btm staple and heavily pulled on top staple). I am not the world's finest photographer but I have attempted to take some pictures which I hope will reproduce here. (Ignore last two pictures, I don't know how they snuck in there). EDIT. Only the back cover is shown here, I've no idea where the front cover picture disappeared to. It's late now but I'll try and remember to add the fc tomorrow although it's exactly the same as the back. SECOND EDIT. I added an attempt at a photo of the front cover. What a disaster. I am absolutely exhausted now (what with my being in such poor health) so I'm going to have another of those Scottish shandies that seem to perk me up somewhat.

Yrag this is jolly good work, I am so impressed that you found these pictures ( and I am sure Marwood will be also when he gets back ). You're cleverer than I am that's for sure when it comes to online research.

Thanks for the link, it's always good to find another site.

Hello yrag9591 and welcome to this forum. This is exciting and invaluable information. I hope your friend will join us and give info about what DC comics are in the books he has.

Thanks for that link Steve I cannot find it, or similar, in the online version which is very unsophisticated in that one has to type in the exact title to get to a page and how can one do that if one doesn't know what's there? The hard copy that one could flick through was the better format I think. ANYWAY. Since I commented in this thread some months ago I have been on the lookout for these hardbacks and they seem to be as rare as hens' teeth, partly because, I suspect, that a lot of these were broken up by kids trying to release the individual issues and thereby completely ruining them. Well last week I finally found one, hurrah! Not only that, it is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT title to the ones shown here. I haven't received it yet so I am rather premature with this reveal. Watch this space.

Hi Marwood, thanks for the call out. When I win the lottery I am going to buy thousands and thousands of 60s American comics with the T&P stamp on them and I wouldn't worry too much about condition. When I visit ebay and see an old beat up comic with the black stamps on them I always go into nostalgia mode and think to myself "I used to have that comic" and have visions of the piles of books that I used to own as a child. This is all down to personal preference because, let's face it who wouldn't want to be eight again? As far as I understand the general market then yes I would say that they are less desirable to the average collector and accordingly sell for less than virgin covers. Now where did I put my lottery numbers?

I couldn't find any with a printed number other than the modern reprints. Pedants Corner : I've just noticed that they have missed out an apostrophe in the blurb at bottom left.

I just googled and found this. A handwritten 60 with a printed month.

Nice catch there Marwood.

The four Archie comics in my previous post all seem to be from 1960 too so we could possibly be looking at a very short window when these were produced. Jon McClure's article in Overstreet 40 (where Overstreet finally acknowledges that the pence copies were in fact variants) just has a small paragraph or two under Archie where he states that there were Canadian variants but absolutely no mention of any pence Archie variants. So the hunt is on.

Here are a few pence variants I just found on ebay. They are all from a dealer's site and do seem a tad expensive at from between £14.95 and £19.95 for even these low grades but as this market is new to me I am probably wrong.

Rakehell. This last photo of yours, as you quite rightly say, IS a reprint of course with a UK publisher and printer clearly indicated (GG Swan as mentioned in my last post). The "9d" issues you showed earlier ARE variants printed and published in the US with the original US indicias. My post wasn't aimed at you but at those who periodically ask how to tell the difference between a variant and a reprint. Cheers.

I see from my Denis Gifford Catalogue of British Comics that GG Swan reprinted Archie content for the UK market from 1950 to 1953 and then Thorpe and Porter from 1953 onwards with no finish date given. I have also seen Australian pence reprint issues. So to be clear, these are NOT what we are looking for in this forum. It is specifically USA printed Pence variants that we are looking for. I'm sure that Marwood will correct me should I err.

Hello Rakehell. welcome to the forum. Now that you've brought it to our attention we'll all be seeing Archie pence issues in our sleep. But yes, I have seen Archie pence issues before and some Dell and probably others that I can't recall. And yes, Marwood's work is awe inspiring and not just the vast amounts of research. The technical stuff is way beyond anything that I am capable of vis-a-vis rearranging them all into folders like that. Show us any more you find. Perhaps Marwood (our glorious Leader) could start another non DC/Marvel thread?

At the risk of sounding twee the old advice about collecting what you like is the best way to go. Whilst the print run of pence variants was much smaller than the cents run this scarcity has not in the past translated into higher prices. The pence copies have traditionally sold for 50% - 70% of the cost of their US counterparts. This may be that for various reasons higher grade copies of pence variants are very scarce and I think that in higher grade then they would tend towards nearer the cents prices. I think Pence copies will be selling for close to, or in some cases, above their cents counterparts, relatively soon. Part of the stigma was that collectors, certainly those in the US, always assumed these to be UK reprints printed over here after US versions. Those of us old enough to remember the originals know that this is not the case. This view has been rectified over the years and the fact that these were printed in the US (sometimes in Canada!) along with the cents copies with the same ads and indicias has long been common knowledge. This was "officially " endorsed by Overstreet who acknowledged that these were printed simultaneously with the US Editions & are now officially considered "VARIANT" Originals (See Overstreet #41 Article on pages 1010-1038). I do not have the current (2017) Overstreet but am reliably informed that "Overstreet finally notated pence copies as 1st Print variants of cents copies, in the 2017 Overstreet". So, lower grade pence copies can still be had for less than similar grade cents copies with higher grade pence copies fetching nearer the cents price. I think that in a few years near parity will be the norm.

That's a quest to be sure hunting down all those. Is that where you are Marwood, is that why you rushed off so abruptly yesterday?

I can add another 50+ years to the total. If that GL book went for £113 then trying to track down (and afford) the full set is going to be quite a task and if like the Double Double's the same cover was used with different interiors an almost impossible task to track down all the variants. Now what is my next project going to be? A full set of these or the quest for the 838 DC pence copies?

I'll stick my neck out here and say that they were most likely UK produced, it does mention in the Price Guide piece that sometimes the covers had a T&P pence stamp. Perhaps T&P were the "Double Double" people. Perhaps the hardcovers were a tryout and they subsequently went with the paper cover as being cheaper/quicker to manufacture.