Malacoda

Blimey, that's a beaut (both the comic and the stamp). No corner blunting or chipping. Yummy.

This is a fantastic table. For my own sinister purposes, I did it differently because, when you put FM, CIC, MTM etc into the table you suddenly see a logical pattern of distribution rather than an illogical pattern of stamping. But this is very cool and useful. I take it that, where you have in the notes 10d, 1/- etc, if it's mentioned then it is ALWAYS and ONLY the same kind of stamp i.e. where you say 10d, it's always that one that we suspect is Goldstar and no other 10d stamp and as far as you're aware there are no other 10d stamps for that issue?

Ahhhh....the white whale. T&P stamp? Nope. Goldstar stamp? Nope. Every other kind of stamp we can't ever identify? Oh yes. Hell yes. By the way.....note the 1/- stamp. Marvel comics did not cost 1/- until a full year after this, so unless it's an expensive Irish one or something, it must have taken the scenic route.

Fred slyly hired a number of ex coppers into the firm. One of them, George Jones, was the Head of Obscene Publications (oh how I want that to be his actual job title!) and part of his job was to go around the newsagents checking what was on the top shelf. Before we get too excited, we should remember that Harold Robbins novels were considered obscene publications (and not just because of the quality of the writing).

Great haul! Some real keys there. Long time period. Mostly 60's comics but some of the magazines are 70's and 80's....you can see this guy's tastes change as he gets older.

A fellow of infinite jest and most excellent fancy.

I've got a theory, but it's probably actually impossible to prove. At the moment, I may possibly have the answers to more than a dozen questions we've raised, but this theory raises other questions I don't yet have the answers for. All will be revealed. Patience.......

Whoop Whoop. 2 years looking for a stampey stampey of this.

Alas....we didn't get it.

I did actually find an Ethel. Unfortunately she only spent 2 weeks putting price stickers on comics (her memory, possibly not actually comics) before she got promoted to the office. She left to have her daughter (who is now 60). I'm amazed people remember this stuff at all. I know I did a bunch of temp jobs 30+ years ago, but I couldn't tell you anything about them.

So, did you base it on just a love of the stamp or is it the mystery aspect that lured you in? I mean, if someone figured out what the stamps were for, would you have to kill him? (asking for a friend).

Seriously, it's very cool. Very personal, as a tattoo should be. Did it hurt much? ( You're going to tell us it's a transfer now, aren't you?)

No. no, it's just that....I've found out what the stamps are for. Apparently, Fred was a massive Satanist. It's the number of the beast. Sorry...should have told you before. I should just pop that arm off if I were you. Just to be on the safe side.

Oh please tell me that's real. Lie to me, I'll believe you.

Greetings, Brains Trust, I just want to check - this example of Steve's from a while back - it is very rare to see a comic/book re-stamped with a second T&P stamp, right? There are loads that have the triangular sale price stamp, and other sale stamps, and other mad rando stamps. but two different roundey price & number T&P stamps are super-rare, right? To be clear, I'm not asking about the changeover from the old, big messy black stamp to the smaller blue stamp, I mean any re-stamping where it acquires a new number from the numbering system. Ta.

This is fascinating. In CMYK printing, you have 2 kinds of black in the Key colour. The more normal, or basic black, is called Plain Black, which is what I absolutely always assumed was used for comics (and still do). For more upscale printing, you can produce what's called Rich Black, where you lay Cyan, Magenta and Yellow down and then put black on top of it (CMY together produce black anyway, then when you put actual black on top of it, you get 'Rich Black'). This is really strange in that only the yellow is visible. If they were doing it in rich black, you wouldn't see this (magenta + cyan = blue, cyan + yellow = green, yellow + magenta = red). If you were printing in plain black, you wouldn't have the price on the CMY plates, and if you were printing in rich black, the yellow would be on top of C and M making it black even before the key colour (black) went on it. There's no obvious (to me) version of events that creates a yellow only 10c price stamp. Maybe, just to emphasise the price, make it pop, they had the 10c price on the yellow plate as well and didn't consider (or didn't care) that the UK price in black would be a different shape? The yellow under the price is a different shade of yellow to the yellow on the cover but that doesn't mean anything (you can set different tones into the colour by what used to be called Dots Per Inch (and is now pixels). The colour toning would be different on the banner to the illustration anyway. Hopefully, someone reading who properly understands this stuff will put me in my place.....? I'm just speculating. And, yes, I know what you're thinking Steve. You've seen colour bleed around that Marvel All Colour Comics banner they did especially for us Brits. Me too. Can't find any examples though. Any up your sleeve? (so to speak).

It gets better. They call the FF the Four Defenders. The Defenders are also called the Defenders. It's very weird that FF are not called the Fantastische Vier, which is what they're called in German (with an added N, different plurals).

In other news, in the Netherlands, Hulk is called Bonk. I'll leave that with you.

Weird that they stopped importing the treasuries because they presumably weren't selling, but then went to the effort of reprinting the last one. I assume World took the decision to stop importing but they were gone by then so Dez Skinn seized the opportunity for a cheap knock off.

Discount Stamp II: This Time, It's Decimal.

No relation, I assume?

Unless...... ....it was stamped to put the number on it rather than the price. If the whole thing was just hit-and-miss, we are sooooo completely screwed.

The other one is even stranger. This is a cents copy from a title that was completely ND except for 4 issues (and this ain't one of 'em). I asked the seller how he acquired it (Vivo is a chain of convenience stores, like 7-11's or Tesco Metro's). It was given to him in the 70's by a kid who bought it at the time in Nottingham and it always had that sticker on it. Theory A. The kid jumped on a train to London, went to Dark They Were or one of the marts, bought a cents copy of Chamber of Chills #13,travelled back to Nottingham, peeled off the DTW sticker, went down his mum's shopping, peeled a 10p sticker off a bunch of bananas, carefully re-stuck the Vivo sticker to the cover of his comic and then gave it to his mate, who, a mere 45 years later, would use the cunning forgery to take me for the princely sum of £3.99. Theory B. He bought it in Vivo. Strangely, it's theory B that raises the most questions. Given that World only received PV's, this must have had an entirely different route to the UK, which is quite possible, but how did it come be sold in a convenience store in Nottingham? Also, it dates from Nov 1974. Marvel comics did not cost 10p until June 1976. Spoiler: for those of you who are worried about Miss Jones, she doesn't even feature in the story about the mansion of missing persons.

Well, on that topic, here's a couple of beauties..... Sgt Fury #86. For 2 years this was the sole hold out in Fury stamps, and I kept seeing this rando which made me wonder if #86 was ND and a bunch got un-crated later, but eventually a stamped 86 turned up. though it does still leave the question of how the first one comes to be sold in a UK newsagent seemingly without passing under Ethel's dainty ink-stained digits.

It's amazing that not even single rando turned-up-later-as-makeweight copies of those have reared their heads. I mean, you'd think just to tease, annoy and confound us....