Albert Tatlock

Quite possibly. When order is restored we will be able to find out.

Garystar takes swift rearward step, who is left?

Here is a project waiting to be undertaken by an intrepid researcher: There was a periodical entitled The Newsagents' and Booksellers' Review. It continued under various titles from late Victorian times until about August 1956, after which it appears not to have regenerated, although the trade presumably still had some kind of journal. It will necessitate a visit to the British Library at St Pancras, where copies are held. A Reader's Pass is required, but its acquisition appears to be a formality. N&BR does not cover the timeframe covered in this thread, but from it we may be able to glean background information of value regarding the wholesale and retail magazine trade in the 1950s. I know that it has provided reference material to researchers into the 'Horror Comics' scare campaign of the mid-1950s. So who will volunteer (everyone else take one step backwards, that's the way it's done)?

T'riffic, Marwood. That is a prodigious amount of graft you have put in there. Comrade Stakhanov doffs his cap to you! And so do !.

A humble paperboy.

Just uploaded rest of 1960 and 1961 B & B. I have put a tag at the bottom so you know where each came from, which you can trim off when necessary. The B & B 28 above is the same as 1 of the 2 partial scans I sent a couple of days ago, it is not a fresh one, please take a note so you are not adding duplicate material to the database.

How about this scenario.... The newsagent is aware that his new delivery of comics is due some time tomorrow, so he knows he has to get the returns ready, as the delivery driver is on a tight schedule and cannot hang about while the newsagent laboriously gathers up some stuff and counts it out. So, when he shuts up his shop for the evening and turns his little sign round from 'OPEN' to 'CLOSED', he is free of distractions and can get on with the job. He goes through his stock and removes all the stamped comics more than 1 or 2 months old, guided by the stamp number. He has to retain the most recent stamp, or he will, at least temporarily, have no stock in case a snotty- nosed kid comes in early next morning with his 9d. He counts them, enters the quantity on a returns sheet, along with whatever has to go back to the same place, bundles them up ready and puts them down behind the counter. Then he can have his Ovaltine and turn in early. Remember he has to be open by about 6am to take delivery of his daily newspapers, and return yesterday's unsold papers, a routine procedure that he performs every weekday. Next day the delivery driver arrives, takes the returns with their associated paperwork and drops off a new bundle, with another sheet and a copy for the newsagent to sign. Driver speeds off to his next call, and at the end of the round is back at the wholesalers. The returns are unbundled and tallied against the stock sheets, in case anyone is trying to pull a fast one. Now all the various comics and magazines have to be separated into stacks according to where they are going back to. Everything for T & P sits there until the next delivery, when it is returned. New delivery from T & P - wholesaler's staff split the consignment up into bundles tailored to each of their customers' regular order amounts, they go out with the delivery driver, the whole process roll round again. Only thing left to do now is for the T & P staff to have a laugh in their tea break about how some anoraks in the distant future will be scratching their heads over the little stamp on the comics.

Just a half, please, my bladder is not what it used to be.

He would have sent them back at the same time as all the other 9s, irrespective of cover date. Unlikely that all those 3 arrived in the same shop at the same time, though.

The newsagent, if the top number indicates a connection to expiry date, would not have needed to sift through cover dates, which would have contained late arrival examples out of sync calendar wise. If he was entitled to a credit on unsold items, he would have needed to know, not how long it had been since the magazine had been printed, but how long it had lain on his shelf. Surely the habit of US retailers adding arrival dates to the cover serves the same purpose. He already had the issue date, what he needed in addition, or instead of, that, was an indication of how long the item had been in his store, and therefore when it was time to send it back. The T & P method was more obvious. Consider this - the stamps, as far as possible, were applied in a clear area of the cover, and just about always in the upper right quadrant. Consequently, they were easily visible in the spinner racks of the time. These racks concealed the lower portion of the comic, but left the stamped area easily available for inspection. I would suggest, for logistical reasons, at least a 2 month gap between delivery and return. T & P stock sheets would have been in use at the time no doubt, but now, as I know from chatting to staff at my local Tesco, a QR code performs the same function,

It has a US arrival date.

So the regular numbers indicate returnable in that case. And the sequence of them indicates the end of the shelf life. I suggested this some time back, but the response I got was 'Pshaw!!', or words to that effect. Worth having another look at?

Promised to upload B & B # 32 today, but scans are stuck on my ipad and will not send to my laptop. It has a 3 stamp, will try whatever spells and incantations there are to get Ipad to behave itself.

My # 27 is unstamped, but I have a #32 with stamp, will send tomorrow.

From trawling through second hand shops and markets in the period 1963-66, the only ones from 1959 and 1960 that were plentiful were Superman and Batman titles, and even then Lois Lane were scarce. Some of the 'mystery' titles, MGA, Unexpected, etc, were hard to find. Probably the most lesser-spotted was JLA # 1. Marvels were almost non-existent until 1961/62.

I will try, when I get time, to dig out a few mid 1960, to try and beef up that quite thinly populated area. In the meantime, here are a couple from March, both stamped as expected with a 3.

I think so. Any pre official distribution DCs that Duncan saw around would most likely have been from other sources, possibly PXs on USAF bases.

Yes, there are problems in either case. We will never be able, I think, to sift the late arrivals from the ontime stuff, but we can make informed guesses.

It would be implausible if they were the only ones arriving late, but if they were accompanied at about the same time by lots of other stuff....................?

The objection to this would be why was this rush job not followed up immediately with another rush job, a shipload stamped on arrival with a 7.

If these No 6 stamped items were late arrivals, what would have been accompanying them? What do we have as definitely late arrivals stamped 6 in 1960?

Surely a one month gap would not have been sufficient to gather a meaningful amount of data on sales figures. Also, the titles with a 6 stamp are less well selling titles. Superman and Batman titles would would have been a better test of marketability.

A Mystery and 4 Secrets.

If they are old T & P stamps, they must have been used on something other than comics, or one of the eagle-eyed denizens of these boards would have dragged them into the light of day.