Garystar

49 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

"Hello, is that Marvel? Oh, good. Marvel, we didn't get Strange Tales # 78, JIM # 61, TTA # 11, 12, 13, and TOS 11 and 12. Why not?"

"Hang on T&P,  we'll check. Ah, yes - here we go - we wanted to annoy Albert Tatlock"

"Roger that Marvel. It worked"

 

Marvel......  It worked, he’s still stressed 60 years later. Why don’t we randomly stop an issue or two every couple of years once readers are hooked to upset everyone in UK?

Marvel..... yes we could do that for the next 30 years, that will teach them to burn the White House down. 

Marvel.... our contract has expired we want to raise the price by 1 cent per unit for the next contract.

T&P.... no but we’ll take some cent copies until we negotiate you down and sign a new contract.  (We’re making money on the arrangement we don’t want to miss out on interim)

Marvel... Ok we’ll let you buy cent copies until we negotiate you up and sign a new contract. (We’re making money on the arrangement we don’t want to miss out in interim).

42 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

But if T&P imported and distributed the cents stamped Marvel copies during the UKPV hiatus, the issue could surely not have been about the timing of price rises. If they were not happy to up the printed price to 10d, why did their books continue as cents copies with a stamped 10d price?

Once T&P have the cents copies they could stamp them whatever they wanted????

.....what about Marvel/T&P initial agreement expired, they couldn’t agree new contract so no UKPV printed, whilst they negotiated T&P took cents copies and stamped them. Nothing to back this up just hypothetical. 

15 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Also, why was the retail price increased in late 1964?

The price rise coincides with the first UKPV gap. Hypothesis - one party wanted to increase the price the other reluctant, hence gap in UKPV whilst agreement made. Perhaps T&P sales so good they were confident they could sell for 10d, Marvel didn’t want to be priced above DC. Perhaps Marvel wanted to increase cost to T&P who would only agree if they could pass cost onto consumer. 
There must have been some agreement/contract between Marvel and T&P, what chance UKPV gap coincides with expiry date. 
Just throwing out some possibles. 

1 hour ago, themagicrobot said:

So. are we saying that all 1960s DCs visited a spinner rack Stateside for a month, were handled numerous times. Shipped over here on a slow boat, handled again by T&P to stamp them, placed into spinner racks here and yet still looked pretty good and shiny when I purchased them? I'm not convinced about that

From Paperbacks Pulp & Comic Collector;

Anyone know who Dennis Juba is?

4 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Look at the lovely big white area - I think the stamper missed a trick here. I bet the popular book centre would have gone to town on this. 

4 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

for these three Marvel titles that I have plotted, there is not one stamped copy for any book preceding or following the UKPV issue gap. Not one. So this process of filling the UKPV gaps with stamped cents copies was - based on this limited sample at least - surprisingly precise.

I did find a few Marvels that were UKPV and stamped but these were very rare(until the final late 60s run after which no more T&P). One of mine;

My TTA #62 is unstamped cents also. When I did Marvel spreadsheet I couldn’t find a stamped copy either.

TOS #59 - nice clear 5. I have a nice unstamped one so this copy is in the pile to sell for charity. 

12 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Stamp the moon

Sgt Fury 87 was one of the early comics I bought, have been keeping an eye half open for a high grade non-stamped copy. 

1 hour ago, Get Marwood & I said:

The elephant in the room - the historic reference to shipping strikes. Maybe they are something to do with the bunching? 

Shipping strike would make sense in this instance - comics came across but were late. However with Marvels there are so many issues that don’t fit a straight linear pattern there must have been loads of strikes and a few flown over by plane. Just in small sample for my spreadsheet although 4 is the dominant number june-aug 1965 there are several other numbers appearing in that period, FF for instances has different numbers for each month (as well as 4s). Very puzzling. 

My mate’s recollections;

“comics that I recall buying were usually the current month or a month or two behind so would have been released in the States 3 or 4 months earlier. We were behind US release probably due to slower sea shipping back then. This continued for years I think until the late 70’s or so. Also I’m pretty sure that they were firm sale as you could often find comics a couple of years old on the spinner racks. I can recall buying a Spidey # 37 (1966) in a newsagents in Crownhill in 1968. The newsagent at Peverell where I bought mine would receive his US comics once a month. They were always mixed together DC/Marvel and wrapped in newspaper and tied up with string. I would go up to the shop early on the Saturday morning when they arrived (with pocket money that I had saved each month) and while he was setting out his newspapers he would give me some scissors to open the parcel. I then had first pick of the new books and when finished put what’s left in the spinner. I would sometimes sneakily put books that I couldn’t yet afford behind older comics so that I could come back later when I had more money and could afford them. Happy  days!”

By 1973 Marvels were on sale in the UK in the month they were cover dated (World Distributors were distributors by then) so this was a three month lag. Cover dated November were on sale in November which seemed perfectly normal to me at the time, I never gave it any thought that they had been on sale in US three months prior to their cover date.

It would seem odd if by 1973 they were taking three months to reach UK that it could be any faster in the 1960s.

The brief history of Thorpe and Porter I read states that when T&P first started importing comics they were US returns. A conundrum then if UKPVs hot off the presses especially for UK were taking as long to get to UK as returns.

As stated before perhaps Marvel and DC had different routes and/or the method of distribution changed over time. Perhaps Marvels were always new off the presses whilst DC were returns.

I'll ask my mate who was buying off the shelf in 1965 what his recollections are.   

14 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

The colouring on that puts me in mind of the old Bazooka Joe bubble gum comics.

hardly the dark Knight is he.

Have to have a look on bigger screen pc rather than phone. The eighth eight is odd - no DC but there are Marvel. Did DC perhaps have period when no issues came across like Marvel or is it just the stamping sequence is out?

On 11/25/2020 at 6:07 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Quote

my spidey 18 had a 9d stamp. 

It shouldn't though really, should it!?

Should it......?  

I think this is a case of US distribution week rather than cover month. November 1965 appears to have preprinted 9d (Kid Colt 119) stamped 10d and stamped 9d. Here's a Strange Tales #126 with a 9d stamp to match my spider-man #18

And a Journey into Mystery 110 with a 10d stamp;

The 9d ones are stamped numbers 4 and 5, the 10d stamped one stamped 6. Not sure if that indicates a progression, probably bigger sample needed.

10 hours ago, Ruskoinabiscuit said:

Thanks. I didn’t buy these to never look at though.

I’m with you on this. I display my autographed music memorabilia, I want to look at and enjoy it everyday, I accept over time it’s going to fade and lose its value so I’m paying depreciation costs to enjoy it in the moment. 

One of the reasons I struggle to believe stamp numbers were for returns processes is illustrated on this page - seven different Spider-man comics on this page and I struggle to read the number on six of them. 

Is my spreadsheet wrong? I have sept 65 as UKPV 9d - should that be 10d I’ll have to check. 
my spidey 18 had a 9d stamp. 
good work all coming together. 

Just been looking through Millie 130-158 for the MMMS thread so thought I’d photograph and post here. 

13 hours ago, ivrimark said:

I do NOT have access to any of the girls' titles so I don't even know if the 25 MMMS members were even published in those books.  Any help would be appreciated!  That would be Millie the Model 130-158, Modeling With Millie 39-54, Patsy and Hedy 100-110 and Patsy Walker 121-125.

The answer is no. As mentioned previously none of the romance books had the MMMS Wants You logo on cover. I’ve looked through the complete Millie run 130-158 and odd issues from other titles at random and they do not have the same in-house adds as superhero mags - no Marvel bulletin pages, no Stan’s soapbox and no MMMS adds or lists of MMMS members. 

You also need to consider where you’ll keep this mountain of comics. 

14 hours ago, themagicrobot said:

When I haven't got the attention span to even read a comic I head over to that ultimate timewaster called UToob

 

 

Thanks for posting this. I have this record but not having a record player I don’t recall ever hearing it. I never thought to look on YouTube - I thought it was quite good. Despite not being an official Marvel product I recall seeing it get a plug in Marvel comics of the time. 

I consider myself a Marvel completist but I have far from everything and my boundaries are all the titles that were extant at the time of FF#1 or since. I built my collection (17,000 ish) by not concentrating on anything particular; I would go to comic fairs and get sales lists and buy whatever seemed a good buy- so if one fair someone had Daredevils at a good price I would stock up on those, at the next fair if someone had Marvel reprints cheap I would get those. 
As others have said if you’re going for everything you can’t afford to be too picky on grade when it comes to early silver age keys (unless you are a millionaire). 
The other thing I would say is accept now that you’re not going to ever get everything. I’ve had target of all Marvels since 1990 and even with my boundaries I’ve accepted there are titles I’ll never complete- millie the model, kid colt, patsy Walker etc. If I concentrated on just one of these it’s doable but when I want them all and strange tales and journey into mystery etc etc and all MMMS and Marvelnania memorabilia there’s just too much to fit in a lifetime collecting.

I would think attempting to collect a complete DC or Timley/atlas/marvel collection from scratch starting today would be impossible even if you were a millionaire. 

1 hour ago, Get Marwood & I said:

 

2 hours ago, Garystar said:

Was February 1971 the first month with 10 titles distributed? If so it would seem to be the date World Distributors took over from T&P. 

No, the ten book average goes all the way back to April 69 Gary, when the UKPVs start up again after their third hiatus. 

 

Oh well that’s that theory out the window. The article presumably printed not long before hulk 153, july 1972, says T&P stoped handling them some months ago so presumably sometime in 1971???