Malacoda

On 4/28/2024 at 6:20 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

I think you misunderstood me Richmond - in your post with all the copies, the first and last copies are the same 9d stamped image. I thought that was by mistake. 

Indeed it was, you were correct. I try not to end up with these twice, but sometimes they hang around or come back so many times, you end up with it twice. You also made the same point so I was just adding to that.  Just tried to amend it and no matter how many times I deleted the picture AND the one in 'choose files' at the bottom, it just kept putting it back in.  Reached the point where literally anything seemed a better use of my time that fighting this website, so I just deleted the lot.  Didn't really need to paste them in the first place. 

On 4/27/2024 at 11:02 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

You have the same 9d copy up twice Rich. 

Indeed.  I think it came up a buttload of times.  I certainly captured it a few.  As you said about Albert's one (though that 9d and Albert's one are not the same comic). 

On 4/27/2024 at 11:02 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Assuming the manufacturer was asked to make them up new 10d stamps, the presence of the numbering indicates that it was still important operationally at this point. They could have just carried on with what went before without thinking I suppose. It likely was intentional though, as they would have continued with that months number if it still had operational meaning. 

Yes, yes and I believe it did.

It is a good issue in that it spans the increase from 9d to 10d, which makes it one of the issues that tells you that DC's carried on coming in right through the first Marvel hiatus and is therefore one of the ways you know it had nothing to do with dock strikes. However, I would be pretty impressed if this ebay seller was referencing that. 

......also noting with interest that both the 9d ones and the 10d ones are 5 stamps.  Mmmmmm. Interesting.

You get extra points for making a Sid James - Bless This House - type era-appropriate gag. 

Just found this in an old box. Strangely, it completely failed to have a long forgotten copy of ASM #1 in it. 

What do you notice about this?  (Let's not always see the same hands). 

On 4/25/2024 at 12:07 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Something you don't see often in geography - two from the same eBonk seller:

MMmmmm. And the Miller stamps are both 6d's which makes it look like they both got sent back to the wrong distributor but then re-priced and sent back out anyway, because....why wouldn't you?

I note 70 is a 1 but 74 is still only a 2.  The usual DC chaos. 

On 4/25/2024 at 10:51 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

I used to love those Doctor Who Weetabix promotions. I wouldn't be lying, if I told you I can remember to this day the thrill of putting your hand inside that box and pulling out those cards 

I don't remember them at all, but I was probably off the Doctor by then.  I remember the Brain of Morbius as being really gruesome and scary (i.e. brilliant) but after that I was out. I think I watched intermittently, but after Lalla Ward's comedy regenerations and the robot dog, I was out for 25 years. 

On 4/25/2024 at 9:46 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

You're examining this because it might actually be a rare Charlton, right? 

Almost perfect. 

OK guys, I thought I'd better alert you to this bargain. £300. Empty Weetabix box.  Thank me later. 

On 4/22/2024 at 7:10 PM, Redshade said:

Alas my bid of £32 was not high enough.

Ouch.  I hate losing by a quid. I'd rather pay more than I wanted and then forget I overpaid than get pipped at the post and never forget it.  Condolences.

On 4/21/2024 at 7:50 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

(unless you have more unposted).

I definitely remember buying Iron Man 75 long after (years after) it was out and with a re-price sticker.  Can't access my comics at the moment, but will find it at some point. However, that was the same newsagent again, so doesn't add anything. 

On 4/20/2024 at 8:55 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

I just wanted you to know that 12p stickers were a thing as early as cd August 1976, for Charlton at least, 8 months earlier than the date in your quoted post.

Thanks.  And those 12p stickers look very much like T&P stickers. Do we know that T&P were distributing Charltons in 1976? 

On 4/21/2024 at 7:40 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

Yes, agreed. The point of my post was to point out that your two posts below both base their dates on an assertion that comics 'went up to 12p from March 1977':

Right, but I think your post also opens up the much wider conversation that distributors as well as probably sales reps and newsagents were all scurrying in all kinds of ways to stay ahead of 27% inflation.  I can remember being infuriated that every time comics went up by a penny it put them further away from my meagre pocket money, but really 2p and 3p increases would have been more in line with inflation. 

Interesting.  Noted.  Thank you.  If I understand, this is PV Charlies (duals) rocking up in the UK at first importation and,  due to bonkers inflation since they were printed, being repriced to 12p directly from 10p before even hitting the spinners, right?  So it's the same environment, but a key difference is the Marvels were seemingly distributed at cover price up to 2 years earlier, then re-circulated with stickers, having jumped straight across 3 price increases.  

On 9/3/2022 at 6:42 PM, Malacoda said:

So in the 70's, World distributed to newsagents (via local & national wholesalers) on a SOR basis.  Obviously, their comics were non-returnable to Marvel (and it would have been financial insanity to send them back across the Atlantic), but the newsagents could send back what returns there were to World and World would bundle them up in bags of 6 or so, shrink wrap them (relatively new technology for newsprint) and re-sell them to newsagents on a non-returnable basis.  They did this under several names, but the main one (or certainly most remembered) is Marvel Lucky Bags. 

I am pretty sure the reason I never saw one is because newsagents used to tear them open, reprice them with stickers and put them back on the shelves.  In the inflation-ravaged 70’s, this was obviously too good to be true – you could buy bags of comics for pennies and then re-price them to 10x what you paid for them. And, of course, you had little Herberts like me, delightedly finding comics from a year or more ago and excitedly asking ‘hey Mister, got any more like this?’.

I have previously shared with the group my copy of Astonishing Tales #34 (cd March 1976) bought from a spinner rack more than a year later, repriced to the then current UK price of 12p.  It’s demonstrably more than a year later because comics only went up to 12p in March 1977.

But for an even better example, here’s Thor 233 (cd March 1975) cunningly repriced with a mere +50% uplift at least 2 years after it’s original sell by date.  

 

The only person I know who consistently refers to Marvel Lucky Bags is Steve Walker (Steve Does Comics), both on pinterest and he has a regular feature on his blog called ‘the Marvel Lucky Bag’. I did write and ask him what his memories of Lucky Bags were but didn’t get an answer (or maybe I lost which thread it was on), so if anyone is on good terms with Steve, I’d love to know. He probably has a photo of one. 

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/61783826126104690/

https://stevedoescomics.blogspot.com/2022/08/the-marvel-lucky-bag-august-1982.html

 

 

Update on this.  I had always assumed it was my newsagent who was opening the Lucky Bags and repricing them (if, indeed, that was happening), because I only ever saw it at this one newsagents (though it seems very unlikely to me that that was the only one doing it, given what we know about returns never finding their way into the pulper).  

Recently, I finally found another one of these for sale. Ghost Rider 11 from April 1975, repriced all the way from 8p to 12p (+50%, nice work if you can get it) some time after March 1977.  So the same as the Thor above.  Why am I telling you this? Because, unless he happened to shop at the same newsagent to me, it might well indicate it was the sales rep, not the newsagent.  I checked the seller.  He was from Slough (about 13 miles from my newsagent, so almost certainly the same rep). But then I got chatting with the seller (lovely chap) and he told me that he bought his comics on the way to school from a kiosk on Osterley station which is less than 3 miles from my newsagent.  So pretty much certainly the same world rep.  

Can we agree, it would be an almost impossible coincidence for two different newsagents miles apart to unearth three different comics, years apart and re-price them to the then-current price of 12p with the same stickers.  This has to be the world rep, doesn't it? 

On 4/20/2024 at 6:00 PM, Yorick said:

Careful.  Don't read the rest of the cover....

I see it's Charlatan, not Charlton, but the reference to cancer must be unintentional, surely?  I mean, they're bad, but not that bad. 

On 4/19/2024 at 8:03 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

There's a number of incidences of companies using names or slogans that later became unfortunate, but calling yourself 'the Big C' ....?

On 4/19/2024 at 5:45 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Thissa one, Richmond:

https://www.cpvpriceguide.com/

Right, right, right.  So is that actually Ben's blog? I thought he was the Evil Overlord behind it, or does he contribute to someone else's grand folly? 

On 4/19/2024 at 4:48 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Is there another Stephen Cranch that I haven't heard of? 

What's the guide they're talking about? 

Well, that's 6,000. Congrats, everyone.  

7,000 beckons....

As you know, for years I've been interested in the 7th era of T&P distribution (the bit where there are stamps and PV's at the same time).  For the last few months, I've been following all of the missing ones plus a basket of other issues (89 in total) to see what patterns emerge.  Results to follow when I have a representative sample base.  After trawling through hundreds of each issue, this DD #59 with a very faint big stamp rocked up. 

 Does anyone have an interesting stamp / sticker of DD #59?

On 4/19/2024 at 8:03 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

Evidence of mucking about, found in the files...

Is this a Rogue's Gallery of the earliest PV's to celebrate the 6,000th post? 

Also, I like the 20 posts per page thing. It means we always hit page anniversaries at the same time as post anniversaries. 

On 4/18/2024 at 6:59 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

The original thread has thrown out many roots, branches and even twiglets in a multitude of directions, but I am happy with that.

Totally agree.  I mean, if you were literally just focussed on the actual physical distribution of comics, you'd be.....well....me, I suppose. 

On 4/16/2024 at 6:39 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Yes, Kev's relentless isn't he. We should have a prize for whoever lands the 6,000th post I think. 

Yeah, but you know I'll just post a new hiatus theory and bag it (along with the 7,000th and 8,000th at the same time). 

Whoa! Page 300. Congrats, everyone.