UK Collectors in the 70's

[herc2000]

Never seen one before that or since, it must be a pretty scarce comic as 121 cents copies are everywhere (they used to be scarce in the UK, ).

[nmtg9]

I remember seing a guy who had a spidey collection on ebay and he had a 121 that was a pence copy. I was shocked as I thought this did not exist and have never seen one before or since?

 

Any explanations or ideas? I know it's always been stated as ND, and I'm not sure if this was a one off or what, wish I bought them now.

 

That's curious - I was always under the impression that they were,as you say, non distributed in the UK..

 

Very curious.

 

I think some of the ASM's during that time did find their way over here but I have never seen any.

 

Would love for that to be confirmed.

[nmtg9]

I don't know he has been mentioned yet, but I remember a UK fella being talked about when I posted a few BA Brit comics (apparently he was pictured in some) and was referred to as something like "Greatest UK Collector" and may have been on TV as well.

 

These books were from the mid-70's and I think the guy was pretty young - just a major comic freak that somehow the UK comics picked up on.

 

Back in the 80's Duncan McAlpine was sometimes in the newspapers with his collection - I remember him buying Action #1 in about 1988 for (I think) £10000.

 

He then started the UK Price Guides and Stateside Comics (oh the scandal). He now runs his own website for UK prices but you have to subscribe to it.

 

He may be the guy you are thinking of.

[joe_collector]

Was he famous as a kid in the 70's?

 

This was kind of like one of those "newspaper features" when they find a kid with 1,000 Star Wars figures still in the packaging, or some other weird accumulation.

[Ken Aldred]

Slightly off topic, can any UK collector help me in naming a comic shop in Manchester from years ago?

There was supposed to be a comic mart at some Manchester hotel (1979/80) , so i decided to go, but when i got there, it had been cancelled, I wandered around for a bit, then decided to go to the station (Victoria, i think) nearing the station i found a old looking shop with comics in the window, i went in and it was like stepping back in time, it was dark and you could smell the comic pages, the owner was a old bloke and there was comics everywhere, I spent all my money, so the trip was not a complete waste, i often wonder what became of the shop and what it was called, i wish i took the time to see the name, but i was a excited kid at the time...so i never, anyone know of it?

This was around the time I started going to Manchester but, unfortunately, I never found this comic book shop. The only one I knew about in the Victoria Station area was located inside the Corn Exchange Building and, if I remember correctly, was called 'Power Pulse' . Some nice, HG late 60s to early 70s back issues, mainly Marvels and Gold Keys.

[Ken Aldred]

Anyone remember Bob Smart? He imported books and sold them mail order, that's where most of mine came from.

Bob Smart was one of the organisers of the Piccadilly Plaza comic marts here in Manchester, which I started attending in the late 70s.

 

He also owned the small 'Another World' chain, which was bought out by FP.

 

[nmtg9]

Anyone remember Bob Smart? He imported books and sold them mail order, that's where most of mine came from.

Bob Smart was one of the organisers of the Piccadilly Plaza comic marts here in Manchester, which I started attending in the late 70s.

 

He also owned the small 'Another World' chain, which was bought out by FP.

 

There aren't many shops FP didn't buy out.

 

They have killed the UK market for so many!!

[Ken Aldred]

Anyone remember Bob Smart? He imported books and sold them mail order, that's where most of mine came from.

Bob Smart was one of the organisers of the Piccadilly Plaza comic marts here in Manchester, which I started attending in the late 70s.

 

He also owned the small 'Another World' chain, which was bought out by FP.

 

There aren't many shops FP didn't buy out.

 

They have killed the UK market for so many!!

Yeah, exactly. (thumbs u I resisted the temptation to add 'Big surprise there, then.' to my original post.

[steelcity]

Anyone remember Bob Smart? He imported books and sold them mail order, that's where most of mine came from.

 

I saw an advert for Bob Smart at the time in the 1982 Alan Austin price guide. It was for his shop in Hanley, Stoke On Trent. I think he was calling it "Fantasy World" by then. I went down to see and his shop was a treasure trove. Upstairs was packed with long boxes. In the Amazing Spider-Man box there was even a #1 at the front.

 

The last time I went was October 1984. I spent around £100 on SA Marvels. There was so much choice.

 

After that I started going to shows in Manchester and Leeds, which were an easier journey for me. The marts at The Griffin Hotel, Leeds, provided me with many SA DCs, though virtually all had pence stamps.

[nmtg9]

I will have been at the same shows as you at the Griffin.

 

Didn't miss one fron 1986 - 1990.

 

Remember Staetside turning up in 1989 with a Tec27 which they described as Fine for £15000

 

Happy days.

[Ken Aldred]

I really enjoyed the Griffin Hotel shows, nicely located only about a block away from Leeds railway station. Lots of nice stuff there. I attended regularly from late 1981 to mid 1985.

 

Definitely halcyon days - the northern comic marts are just terrible now.

[nmtg9]

I really enjoyed the Griffin Hotel shows, nicely located only about a block away from Leeds railway station. Lots of nice stuff there. I attended regularly from late 1981 to mid 1985.

 

Definitely halcyon days - the northern comic marts are just terrible now.

 

Living in Leeds at the time meant I had only two shops to buy from (Skyrack in the Merrion - ran by Ron, and Odyssey 7 - taken over by FP). Neither were great for back issues but every six weeks (i think) the Griffin would have me excited all week. I remember queuing to get in there regularly.

[Ken Aldred]

Living in Leeds at the time meant I had only two shops to buy from (Skyrack in the Merrion - ran by Ron, and Odyssey 7 - taken over by FP). Neither were great for back issues...

Heard of Skyrack, never visited it. Hope it will be okay if I ask a few questions about it?

 

Wasn't it one of the first comic shops in the UK?

 

Isn't the Merrion Leeds' centrally-located 'Market Hall' - so then, was Skyrack just a smallish unit in there?

 

The back issues were reported to be quite pricey, and what was the grading like? I recall someone mentioning it stocked Silver Age.

[nmtg9]

It was located in the Merrion Centre market and the stall was only a few metres square. It was a corner unit and you would walk up to two smallish rows of comics behind which Ron stood.

 

He sold books too through mail order (a friend of mine still has some of his catalogues but i havent seen them yet.)

 

His comics were a bit over priced but he had a lot of silver age - not major keys really but ok stuff. The ND ASM's from the 70's were all priced at £3 which he would write in pencil on the back cover. - you could get these comics at the marts for much cheaper! (I did get ASM 129 for £3 though - he didn't know it was there.

 

Grading was 70's style - good/fine/mint if i recall.

 

He would discount new comics by 5p if you had a standing order which was great for me as i was buying 30 new books a month from him. Not sure what happened to him - i drifted out of collecting before the shop shut. Neil

[Ken Aldred]

It was located in the Merrion Centre market and the stall was only a few metres square. It was a corner unit and you would walk up to two smallish rows of comics behind which Ron stood. His comics were a bit over priced but he had a lot of silver age - not major keys really but ok stuff.

 

I'd imagined Skyrack as a typical indoor market stall, but that's surprisingly limited. However, it does help explain why his prices were significantly higher.

The ND ASM's from the 70's were all priced at £3 which he would write in pencil on the back cover. -

 

Same with my first source for 'ND' comics - they gouged the price into the back cover with a hard lead pencil. (That was around 1977/ 78). I was so pleased to be able to get these books that it didn't really bother me at the time. How I've changed.

 

you could get these comics at the marts for much cheaper! (I did get ASM 129 for £3 though - he didn't know it was there.

 

Grading was 70's style - good/fine/mint if i recall.

 

He would discount new comics by 5p if you had a standing order which was great for me as i was buying 30 new books a month from him.

 

Roughly what % discount did that work out at, for a standard-sized comic? Still fairly significant, even into the 80s.

 

 

 

[nmtg9]

Well this was 1986 - 1991 when I was buying from him. Eventually other things in life took over comics and the comics started mounting up and I stopped going.

 

So prices for new comics were 60p for standard issues which worked out at about 8%. On more expensive comics like the New format DC comics were (i think) 70p and then discounted down to 65p.

 

I would also order the Prestige format titles that were coming out and again the discount was only 5p.

 

It all added up as a poor teenager I would save £1.50 each month which probably went on more back issues.

 

I would be able to recognise books he once had for sale from the way he wrote the £ sign in the top left of the back cover.

 

For some reason, if I recall correctly, his standard price for back issues was £1.05.

 

[Ken Aldred]

Sorry, Neil - I misunderstood.

 

I thought we were talking about sometime earlier than that. When I first started buying import / ND comics, from the shop mentioned in my last post, I was gouged by them price-wise as well. A standard-size book was 35p, just under 3x the price of a distributed 'All-Colour Comic'. Once I started going to Manchester regularly and discovered the Piccadilly Plaza marts, I found several dealers there selling imports for 25p and so, in this era (late 1978 onwards) a 10p difference was a very significant saving, around 28%, and it remained so into the early 80s. I started picking up my imports once a month whenever there was a mart on, and it's likely that many other collectors made exactly the same transition because, once their local monopoly was broken, the bookshop very quickly stopped selling comics.