Overspray? Huh.

[MisterX]

Got a sweet copy of a Deadly Hands of Kung Fu issue the other day from an eBay seller with a bit of distributor overspray on the bottom.

 

I'm not sure why I thought mags were exempt from distributor overspray (maybe because in my experience they're supposed to be "stripped" when returned), but it did throw me for a moment.

 

Anybody else run into this?

[bounty_coder]

I've got mags with overspray. Some of them pretty gnarly

[divad]

Got a sweet copy of a Deadly Hands of Kung Fu issue the other day from an eBay seller with a bit of distributor overspray on the bottom.

 

I'm not sure why I thought mags were exempt from distributor overspray (maybe because in my experience they're supposed to be "stripped" when returned), but it did throw me for a moment.

 

Anybody else run into this?

 

Distributor overspray wasn't typically a way to mark returns. It was a distribution marking prior to retail sale.

[MisterX]

Got a sweet copy of a Deadly Hands of Kung Fu issue the other day from an eBay seller with a bit of distributor overspray on the bottom.

 

I'm not sure why I thought mags were exempt from distributor overspray (maybe because in my experience they're supposed to be "stripped" when returned), but it did throw me for a moment.

 

Anybody else run into this?

 

Distributor overspray wasn't typically a way to mark returns. It was a distribution marking prior to retail sale.

 

Really? I always thought the books that didn't sell were sprayed once their sell-by date was over.

 

 

[Felix1977]

A friend explained to me that comics where marked when they arrived, that way they would use the overspray to tell what books had to be pulled from the shelf each week.

[divad]

Got a sweet copy of a Deadly Hands of Kung Fu issue the other day from an eBay seller with a bit of distributor overspray on the bottom.

 

I'm not sure why I thought mags were exempt from distributor overspray (maybe because in my experience they're supposed to be "stripped" when returned), but it did throw me for a moment.

 

Anybody else run into this?

 

Distributor overspray wasn't typically a way to mark returns. It was a distribution marking prior to retail sale.

 

Really? I always thought the books that didn't sell were sprayed once their sell-by date was over.

 

 

It's possible some remainders were treated like this, but I doubt that was a widespread practice. Practices varied regionally.

[MisterX]

So what purpose did the spray serve in distribution marking? Was it a way to color-code the retailers?

[divad]

So what purpose did the spray serve in distribution marking? Was it a way to color-code the retailers?

 

I can't say how it was done everywhere, but that was my personal experience. When I worked at the drugstore in the early 70's the comics and magazines were delivered by truck. Magazines were banded in stacks with newsprint covering the stacks across their width. Often the end retailers were noted in marker on the newsprint, sometimes a count. The comics were even less of a concern and often didn't even get the newsprint cover. On occasion, the ends of the stacks were sprayed. This may have been to identify which books were periodically expiring, because the magazines were not sprayed, only the comics. But I don't recall the color changing month to month.

 

The stacks were tossed off the truck at our storefront, and it was my job to haul them in first thing in the morning and unbind, (count, ahem, looks like 25 to me!) and shelve all of them. More often than not the comic stacks actually had "TD" sprayed on the ends (for our store, Terry Drugs).

[RCheli]

So what purpose did the spray serve in distribution marking? Was it a way to color-code the retailers?

 

It was a way to figure out which comics to pull from the racks.

 

When you got a shipment of comics and magazines with a green spray, you knew to remove all the current mags and comics up on the rack with a green spray and strip and return them. Later on, publishers started to do it on their own. (Look at comics from the 80s -- they have red, green, black boxes at the top of every page.)

[divad]

So what purpose did the spray serve in distribution marking? Was it a way to color-code the retailers?

 

It was a way to figure out which comics to pull from the racks.

 

When you got a shipment of comics and magazines with a green spray, you knew to remove all the current mags and comics up on the rack with a green spray and strip and return them. Later on, publishers started to do it on their own. (Look at comics from the 80s -- they have red, green, black boxes at the top of every page.)

 

This is not how it was done in the Northeast, and the 80's is completely different. My experience is completely pre-direct market (1970-1975). If what you say were the case, date stamps wouldn't exist.

[RCheli]

Date stamps and overspray were the same thing. You won't see a comic with a date stamp also have an overspray.

 

And I'm from the northeast too, and that's how it was done. Eventually the printers/publishers did the color coding for them.