distributor ink on a diamond book?

[shadroch]

I picked up a bunch of Daredevils from a forumite today. I'm reading DD 181 and noticed it had the Direct Sale Diamond with a spidey in the UPC box. But then I noticed it had what appeared to be what I refer to as Distributor Ink on the top,although none spilled over onto either cover.

Then, as I read the book, I saw that the purple ink was actually very geometric on the inside pages. One side had a small rectangle and the other had more of a square. I checked another copy and it had smaller rectangles on every page.

They look like they were part of the printing process, rather than added later.

What are these ?

[joe_collector]

Distributor codes added at the printing stage, just like you thought.

[shadroch]

What was the purpose? They were non-returnable

[joe_collector]

The covers were the only thing different in those print runs, so I'd imagine they inherited the newsstand paper and format, at least at that time...

[Mr 9.8]

I'm not familiar with this.

Would it hurt the grade of the books?

& is this common with certain books?

[shadroch]

The covers were the only thing different in those print runs, so I'd imagine they inherited the newsstand paper and format, at least at that time...

 

I was under the impression distributor ink was added aftermarket, simply by distributors spraypainting down the bundles of books as they went out.

I can't believe World Press would stop and change colors several times for various distributors.

[shadroch]

I'm not familiar with this.

Would it hurt the grade of the books?

& is this common with certain books?

 

It's the first I noticed. I'm hopeful we get an answer soon.

[DiceX]

The OP is referring to the stripe when it was printed on the books, not the stripe painted on them aftermarket by the distributor.

 

They were printed on the actual pages starting sometime in the late '70s / early '80s. The only difference between the direct and newsstand versions were the covers, so the guts on both have the stripe printed at the top of the interior pages.

 

There is no hit on the grade. It's the way they were produced.

 

 

[shadroch]

It's funny, but I never noticed them before. What were they for?

[Sal]

seems as though they would be there to take a step out of the distribution process.

 

rather than have the warehouse guy spraying the books to go to vendor x or vendor y, they just have it done at the printer. better control over inventory, better ability to track output etc etc

[shadroch]

No, thats incorrect. Each Distributor used different color sprays. Thats how they knew which books were theirs, or which returns might come from somewhere else.

Having all books inked at the factory wouldn;t help them at all.

[Sal]

I'm saying that the press would have the set number for each distributor, marked by their particular color code. For instance, the copy you have has purple markings, there would be some that had blue, others red, others green etc.

 

If I am understanding what you are looking at correctly...

[shadroch]

That doesn't make sense because there were any number of subdistributors, and not all distributors used the spray paint. Remember- these comics were printed for spec. It wasn't like todays market where the distributor is buying X amount of books that have already been pre-ordered.

[RockMyAmadeus]

Go with your gut. These were done because people got tired of their comics being spray painted by distributors. The only....and I mean the ONLY...reason they exist was so newsstand folks could take OUT the "all blue" coded books from the racks, without removing the others at the same time.

[underthebigw]

Go with your gut. These were done because people got tired of their comics being spray painted by distributors. The only....and I mean the ONLY...reason they exist was so newsstand folks could take OUT the "all blue" coded books from the racks, without removing the others at the same time.

 

This is my guess also.

 

But, keep in mind how disorganized this was. Given how pence copies showed up on US newstands, how variants ended up in non-variant markets, etc., anything can happen. I wouldn't preclude the direct books accidentally being printed with the distributor marks.

 

BTW, I have also seen the red pre-printed distributor marks on them. I always wondered if they were a means of deciding which direct distributor received them. Remember, there was more than one direct distributor then.

[shadroch]

Go with your gut. These were done because people got tired of their comics being spray painted by distributors. The only....and I mean the ONLY...reason they exist was so newsstand folks could take OUT the "all blue" coded books from the racks, without removing the others at the same time.

 

 

I'm not buying that. In the first place, the blue streaks only become obvious when several books are put together. The vendor would have needed to take the books off the shelves and lay them flat.

You are suggesting vendors used the spray as a kind of dating mechanism.I disagree.

Distributors used this spray so vendors wouldn't return books that were not purchased from that distributor. Imperial News used a blue spray, Crescent News used a red spray. Try returning books with red spray to Imperial and you had a problem.

[DiceX]

That's incorrect. The spray was used to pull old books from the rack without having to flip through them. It was not used to mark returns.

 

 

[shadroch]

I'm going to disagree.

In the 1970s, I bought books from stores in Queens and in Nassau. They were serviced by two sperate distributors, Imperial and Crescent. As I said, one distributor used one color, the other used another.

In 1978/79, I made a deal with a guy for some 5,000 Marvel Comics that were newstand returns. There were 5-10 copies of almost every title for most months going back two or three years, except X-Men. All had red stripes on them.

I'm sure in some cities, there may have only been one distributor, but on Long Island/Queens, there were at least three that I knew of.

Where there was no competition, distributors may have marked them for dates, but not in my area. Here ,they were used for identifying where the books came from.

If Marvel started adding these onto its books as a form of inventory control, thats another matter,and even makes sense, but that is not the reason distributors added the spray back in the 70s.

Why would so many comics have date stamps if the distributors provided a coded way of knowing when to pull the book?

[RockMyAmadeus]

Why would so many comics have date stamps if the distributors provided a coded way of knowing when to pull the book?

 

There was already a pre-printed method aready on the books for when to take them off sale, and people date stamped them anyways.

 

So....

[DiceX]

A lot of good info here. I wish we could track down some people that used to distribute comics back in the day.