Albert Tatlock

And 2 Our Army At War from March 1960, stamped 3. Alles in ordnung, Allied schweinhund. And 3 more Flash 115. whatever the German for ditto is.

The first use of the 7 stamp is theoretically on the October 1959 cover dates, but if none can be found, then the sequence would start with 8, and the number 6 examples would have to be very late arrivals. Best place to look for October 1959 with a 7 stamp would be in the monthly titles. In the meantime, here is another Flash 109, stamped 9. As a bimonthly (Oct - Nov) it would be expected to be a 7, or possibly an 8. Another late arrival, if only by a month?

At least he was spared the ordeal of his mother chucking them out, telling him it's time to grow up. All mine were stamped copies back in the day, too. If only I had known then what I know now.................................

Unlikely to have been the Number 6 stamp, if there were only 2 items in that batch. More likely the Number 7 stamp, on a bundle of October 1959 issues, on sale 3 months after their cover date. Maybe Bob did not notice the first trickle of Number 6's a month earlier, or, more likely, T & P held those back until they could provide a decent range. I know - ask Bob what number stamp was on that boxful back in January 1960 Southend. They are probably on top of his wardrobe somewhere.

Sounds reasonable, in which case DC did not let the grass grow under their feet. They recalled these (or gathered up copies that had not been sent out), chucked them on a ship and told the captain to get his foot down. They would have been in the shops here by the end of 1959, possibly. On a tangent, any hiccups in misalignment of stampings v cover date would possibly have been likeliest around Christmas/New Year break.

Pat Boone 2 should be an 8. If a 6 (please check to see whether it could be a smudged 8), then it arrived 2 months early or several months late. Both are problematical.

You have done a great job, Marwood on digging out some very obscure stuff, a very praiseworthy effort. We have enough info on the DCs to establish the trend, and as more data is added we should soon be able to come up with a best fit for the sequence. In the early 1960s, the cover date on DCs was sometimes 2 months, but more usually 3, behind real time. I can fix this from my own recollections of what I bought matched to birthdays, Christmas, school holidays, etc, and there should be some other collectors with similar tales to tell. Those pesky Charltons, though.............

A few more 1960 stamps. W. Finest 107 = 1, Batman 129 = 1, W. Woman 114 = 6, Batman 132 = 7, MGA 47 = 9, Showcase 28 = 1

Figthin Air Force 12, price 1/3. Cannot be sure of stamp, but looks like a 2. Dated 1958, available on ebay in quantity, not all stamped, though, so remaindered copies likely dumped on T & P back in the day.

And a March 1960 Brave and Bold behaving itself quite nicely.

Here is another batch: 111 = 3, 113 = 8, 114 = 8, 115 = 9 (twice) So the number 4 of 115 is on the naughty step.

A few more examples: In case they are not showing, the numbers are: 109 = 7, 110 = 1, 111 = 3, 112 = 6, 113 = 8, 114 = 8, 115 = 4(!) 116 = 3 and 117 = 4 So the 115 is the odd man out, it should have been a 9. Maybe a late arrival, or possibly a short-sighted T & P stamper who could not tell 4 and 9 apart. But I am sure T & P's rigorous staff selection procedure would have weeded out any Magoo applicants.

Quite correct. There will never be a 1 to 1 correlation between the observations under consideration, but there will a close enough fit to draw a general conclusion, that the number stamp progressed in step with the dates of the comics found in the content of successive shipments.

I think it will settle down as we push on into 1960 and 1961, and these are just teething troubles. Remember that the USA is a vast landmass, so the scope for all the returns arriving on schedule is limited, so there will always be anomalies. Who in the warehouse would have been bothered to check that all the cover dates in a shipment to Europe matched? Near enough would have been good enough.

Hmm, not too far from me... Periodicals can now be ordered into any Reading Room at St Pancras,

How about this, which applies to DC only, not Charlton or anything else: REAL TIME DC COVER DATE T & P STAMP NUMBER JULY 1959 mags only 1 AUG 1959 mags only 2 SEPT 1959 mags only 3 OCT 1959 mags only 4 NOV 1959 mags only 5 DEC 1959 mags only 6 JAN 1960 OCT 1959 7 FEB 1960 NOV 1959 8 MAR 1960 DEC 1959 9 APR 1960 JAN 1960 1 MAY 1960 FEB 1960 2 JUNE 1960 MAR 1960 3 JULY 1960 APR 1960 4 AUG 1960 MAY 1960 5/6 SEPT 1960 JUNE 1960 7 OCT 1960 JULY 1960 8 NOV 1960 AUG 1960 9 DEC 1960 SEPT 1960 1 The bimonthlies would have a stamp number lower by 1, and because of the US publishing schedule, which meant that one cover date was split across 2 shipments, some titles will be 1 higher or lower than expected.

I would suggest moving them all back by 1 month, making stamp 1 first time around April 1959 and stamp 1 second time around January 1960. I have a Flash 110, cover date January, with a number 1. Also Mystery in Space 56 (Dec) with a 9, same as yours. 6 would then correspond to September, fitting with Pat Boone being Sept-Oct. All of your entries above for January 1960 are cover dated 1959. It would fit better to move them all back 1 month, I think.

Will do, but it will take a while

In July 1959 (real time), T & P were stamping first magazine arrivals with a number 1. No comics had yet arrived, maybe the Charltons were just about to. By January 1960 (real time, 6 months later), the stamp had advanced 6 places to 7, and was applied to the recently arrived October 1959 cover dated DCs. The bimonthly Pat Boone arrived in December 1959, so received a number 6 stamp. Presumably any other bimonthly DCs (eg Showcase 22) would also have been stamped with a 6, but I have seen it mentioned that only a very few, if any of that item arrived. Can we find any October 1959 cover dated bimonthlies stamped 6? If so, they would share with Pat Boone the status of earliest officially distributed T & P DCs to be available in Britain.

Sorry, info out of date. British Library now housed at Boston Spa near Wetherby. Mr Google will assist.

Colindale has a library of periodicals, newspapers, etc going back a long way. George V's collection of bound volumes of football programmes found its way there. A few pages earlier, you uploaded a scan of Detective 274 with a number 9 stamp, I reckon Batman 127 with a 9 stamp is one delayed on its journey.

Certainly possible

There are 9 stamps on some December 1959 issues. This copy of Batman 127 is possibly a late arrival. There should be some with a 7 stamp.

See my earlier posting on George Pumphrey. A little earlier in the article I quoted is a passage from a legitimate publisher moaning about the apparent ease with which the importers of comics could obtain their material in spite of paper rationing. This exactly mirrors the well-documented exasperation of football club programme editors of the time, hamstrung by curbs on their ability to obtain supplies of paper, but seeing the hawkers of pirate programmes outside their stadiums apparently operating under no such handicaps. There was a loophole in the legislation which could be, and indeed was, exploited by the distributors of juvenile literature. Imports from Canada, a Commonwealth nation, were not subject to the same restrictions as the USA. How about this for a timeline: Early 1959, Government announce end of restriction on importation of US magazines to follow in a few months. T & P strike deal with US publishers to import unsold stock. June 1959, first batch is shipped, arriving July 1959 (surely 1 month is sufficient for a crossing, even by a slow cargo vessel). July 1959 consignment clears Customs, goes to T & P who stamp it with a 1. December 1959 first batch of DCs are shipped, arriving January 1960, by which time the stamp number has advanced as far as 6 or 7. 1960 - each succeeding month advances the number stamp by 1.

See my earlier posting on George Pumphrey. A little earlier in the article I quoted is a passage from a legitimate publisher moaning about the apparent ease with which the importers of comics could obtain their material in spite of paper rationing. This exactly mirrors the well-documented exasperation of football club programme editors of the time, hamstrung by curbs on their ability to obtain supplies of paper, but seeing the hawkers of pirate programmes outside their stadiums apparently operating under no such handicaps. There was a loophole in the legislation which could be, and indeed was, exploited by the distributors of juvenile literature. Imports from Canada, a Commonwealth nation, were not subject to the same restrictions as the USA.