Albert Tatlock

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.

6 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Is that market test theory of Duncan's a phantom do you think?

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.

45 minutes ago, OtherEric said:

the grouping is such that them all being cycle two books seems slightly implausible

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....................?

18 minutes ago, Mr Thorpe said:

Those 6's look like first cycles to me. I suspect there was a rush to get stuff over, anything, so this was what was in the warehouse in the States at the time and easily available. I don't think they were market testers. As Albert says, it's the wrong titles to use as a market test. Having said that, just to complicate matters, remember you still had the Australian Batman and Superman comics on the stands at the time.

I think we need to add in the ACG's to get more data! I like ACG's!

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.

Diamond T & P lookalike stamp on Wonder Woman # 154.

Triangle stamp on Rawhide Kid # 34.

OP 1/- stamp on Thor # 134, one of the delayed shipment of late 1966. Who were OP?

PB (again, who are they?) 9d stamp on Unusual Tales # 32. I have 3 of these, all with identical stamps, so presumably applied by the wholesaler, not the retailer.

Star sticker to obscure Miller price on Gorgo # 2, but no other price showing anywhere.

1 hour ago, Mr Thorpe said:

if it was theft

I am pretty sure that the fellow who brought them to my attention had no legitimate claim to them. It looked to me like they had been dumped, and if I had not heard about them, they would have gone for salvage.

I reckon these were just dumped on the market to whoever would buy them by T & P.

The one I have came into my possession around 1980, when they were already well out of date. A lot of them are damaged, heavy scuffs, etc, but that could have happened during the last stages of their voyage through the secondhand channels.

T & P stamped had done the rounds, no joy, maybe the unstamped never went out for distribution and just lay orphaned in T & P's vaults until someone decided to take a chance.

Of course, the 2/- price stamp could not really have been an indication of the retail price at that time, post-decimal.

The problem here is that none of us know the workings of the remaindered book trade at the time, so all we can come up with are informed guesses.

I never saw any of these 2/- stamps 'live' in any shops. possibly market traders were flogging them?

But some have T & P stamp and some do not. I have looked through a selection of this batch that I got at the time, and there are stamped and unstamped all jumbled up. The date range covers only a few months, but the stamps are spread seemingly at random across the whole batch.

They would presumably have been stamped very soon after arrival at T & P, so our light fingered suspect would have had to be quick.

And if they went astray before arrival at T & P, why do some of them have a T & P stamp?

They have clearly been offered for sale in retail outlets somewhere before being abandoned, but I have no idea where.

I am stumped.

Yes, but how did they get into the warehouse without T & P handling them to begin with?

These are deeper waters than I thought.

Here are a few Kamandi WITH diamond 2/-, but WITHOUT T & P stamp.

Was someone else able to bypass T & P?

1 minute ago, Get Marwood & I said:

I've written about that one at length in my UKPV thread actually Albert. One of the 'pattern books' as I call them...

But why should the Yanks have sent stuff to colonial Singapore, and not to the glorious motherland?

Was our money not good enough?

Maybe Uncle Sam was not as capitalist as we thought.

More on this later.

7 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Original full price 1/-. Could T & P have handled the returns? Or could MV, or someone else, have handled T & P's unsold stock?

Suspense # 11 (Sept. 1960) apparently did not reach Britain, but I have found one advertised in an old sales list of Ron Bennett's, ex of Singapore.

Here comes towel, catch!

Action War Picture Library also published by MV.

Did they use T & P?

TTT teeters on brink.

Name of publisher is on cover, but who is the DISTRIBUTOR?

Can we get a look at the inside covers?

From CGC census:

FF # 1             cents 2456, pence 20

FF # 6             cents 1120, pence 20

FF # 7            cents 798, pence 2

TTA # 62        cents 332, pence NIL

Why Marvel did not send over adequate supplies of FF # 7, I do not know. The result, though, is that FF # 7 as a pence is rocking horse.

Bilko is still around. He has conned his way onto the Man. Utd board.

23 hours ago, Kevin.J said:

Just seeing Bilko and Colonel Hall on that cover makes me wanna grab the DVDs out and watch one of the greatest comedies of all time

Free Rupert Ritzik!