Albert Tatlock

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.

Are these all number 5 stamp? Any variations?

Here are a few more 2/- diamond. I believe they are recycled T & P stock. Cover date is 1974, so obviously the diamond stamp was applied after they had passed through T & P's hands. The Charlton 20 cents are post-decimal too, so the 2 shilling stamp is an anachronism, but it must have been applied for a reason. Bought the Superman from an old mill on Bradford Road in Manchester in late 70s or early 80s. They were lying in the open air in an alcove in the mill yard. Filled my car boot up, had to leave a few behind, paid the little man (presumably not the legitimate owner) a few bob, worked out at approx nuppence each. Still selling the odd one on ebay. Also in the parcel were Detective 438 or 439 and Batman 255, plus an assortment of others, Prez, Secret Origins, etc.. Will try to dig out a fe more.

I reckon the profit margin would have been plenty high enough to give SOR facility. How much do you reckon T & P were paying DC for out of date comics that would otherwise have been pulped? Not a lot. I have some figures somewhere on how much Miller were wholesaling for in the 1950s, which i will try to dig out tomorrow. The markup is enormous, which is why they were so popular in the trade.

I believe that the US publishers would have sold their comics outright to T & P, as by the time they had gone through the UK distribution network, they would have been too seriously out of date in the US to have any value there, but T & P would have given their own customers SOR facility.

I think FM 3 is a number 7. If a comic, it would be dated October 1959, so these were running an incredible 9 months later than cover date on arrival here.

Could be, could be. Charlton gives you more, remember, so why can't they give it you sooner? Where is stamp 1, though? Maybe we need to look at different mags.

Yes, number 4, I edited it, but you had already read the misprint.

Here is a FM 3, April 1959, but I CANNOT READ THE BLOODY NUMBER. If Number 4, August 1959, has a 9 stamp, this one, 4 months earlier, should have a 5 stamp. Looks like FM was running a few months behind the DCs as far as arrival in Blighty was concerned.

What if the early (pre-October 1959) Charltons were sent with the first batches of DCs, arriving early 1960? There are no stamped DCs before that date, so presumably DC did the decent thing and sent as up-to-date material as they could, but Charlton just sent any old outdated rubbish, glad to get it off their hands at any price. I reckon anything cover dated before October 1959 actually arrived in 1960, when the market was still being explored. Later, as things settled down, T & P would have expressed a preference for up to date comics and presumably their wishes were seen as not unreasonable. So, I reckon that before the number 6 stamp found on the Pat Boone 1, all the stamps related to non-comic items. Number 1 was probably a magazine from earlier in 1959. Famous Monsters numbers do not tie in. What if they lagged 6 months behind cover date, not 3 as with the DCs?

Comics were definitely SOR in the USA, as can be seen from the copies with US arrival dates, in the US, not European format, written on the cover. A proportion at least of these unsold returns were then sent overseas. Later on, the US publishers began to publish a Direct Sale version, with a different symbol on the cover, signifying that it was sold on a no-return basis. The regular issues still continued to reach the newsvendors, who could return their unsold stock. All this, and much more detailed information, has been published on Overstreet over quite a time.

Maybe a 1 digit stamp was cheaper than a 2 digit one. You do not need numbers in any case. A,B,C,D would do the job just as well as 1,2, 3, 4. The numbers are just an indicator of when the item was processed at T & P's premises, and has no connection with the calendar.