Date Stamp (and Store Stamp) Love 14 14

[comicginger1789]

41 minutes ago, thehumantorch said:

I spent a lot of time as a kid riding the bus to local book stores looking for comics.  I'm having trouble making out the address on the stamp.  Is it 10428 82 Ave?

I’ll check when I get home!

[NoMan]

5 hours ago, lizards2 said:

I recall stacks of comics in various rooms, that were unsorted. I don't recall how the pricing was done. However, I used to put stickers on the bags I put them in, and I got a bunch of 20 cent Marvels I had missed that I bought from 20 to 35 cents - I still come across them in my boxes. I just looked at yelp reviews for the store, and apparently I wasn't the only person that found the place "creepy".

My sister lived up in the Terwilliger area, and I would walk down and catch the bus on Barbur Boulevard and go all over Portland to the various comic stores.  This was between 1973 and 1977, and later in 1978-up I had my own car. I remember lots of conventions at the Memorial Coliseum, and some downtown, maybe at a Masonic Temple or something (by psycho-Safeway?), and elsewhere. There must have been 30-40 shops in the area back in the "good old days" - full of geeks, creepy shop-owners and other shady characters. I used to work for my brother-in-law there in Portland and would go up every summer from about 1973 to 1978. Then, in January 1979 I got out of Redmond HS early on the work-release program (just what it sounds like ), and was there from January to June, working to make money until graduation, and blowing most of it on comic books.   I even recall going over to some sewing/manufacturing sweatshop on the eastside of the river, and buying Silver Surfer 1 & 4 (maybe more) from the guy running the place. Have no idea how I found about the guy/comics, as it was in a garment factory, filled with sewing machines and women.

I found a picture of Armchair on the internet - I can almost smell it :

it's still there?

[lizards2]

5 minutes ago, NoMan said:

it's still there?

Googley says it is out of business, but photos still reside on the internets / google/maps.

[Venomous72]

Now that I have a taste of date stamps, my other books look naked. I want more date stamps.

Edited June 7, 2021 by Venomous72

[comicginger1789]

On 6/6/2021 at 1:48 PM, thehumantorch said:

I spent a lot of time as a kid riding the bus to local book stores looking for comics.  I'm having trouble making out the address on the stamp.  Is it 10428 82 Ave?

Yes that appears to be the address! That or there might be a faint “4” in front of 82 if 482nd ave makes very sense but it’s extremely hard to tell....

[MattTheDuck]

Here's one that's probably not a "store" stamp, but probably the work of JL Lewis, Jr .  From the splash page of Thor 173.

 

 

[catman76]

On 5/29/2021 at 10:25 AM, gadzukes said:

Coverless, with a cool old stamp at the bottom.

"compliments"..... does that mean they were giving it away?

Shoe Stores were famous for giving away comics to kids. They would either buy remaindered comics and take the covers off and staple on their own cover, like Weather Bird Shoes did this in the 50s and 60s, or have some generic cover staple on the coverless comic, or slap a sticker advertising the store on the cover. or other shoe stores like Buster Brown went all out and had their own original comics produced to give away. J.C. penny probably went really cheap and just stamped the coverless comics and gave them away

Edited June 9, 2021 by catman76

[comicginger1789]

34 minutes ago, catman76 said:

Shoe Stores were famous for giving away comics to kids. They would either buy remaindered comics and take the covers off and staple on their own cover, like Weather Bird Shoes did this in the 50s and 60s, or have some generic cover staple on the coverless comic, or slap a sticker advertising the store on the cover. or other shoe stores like Buster Brown went all out and had their own original comics produced to give away. J.C. penny probably went really cheap and just stamped the coverless comics and gave them away

Annnnnnd it’s info like this that I LOVE most. Never stop learning in this hobby…truly the best!

[gadzukes]

11 hours ago, catman76 said:

Shoe Stores were famous for giving away comics to kids. They would either buy remaindered comics and take the covers off and staple on their own cover, like Weather Bird Shoes did this in the 50s and 60s, or have some generic cover staple on the coverless comic, or slap a sticker advertising the store on the cover. or other shoe stores like Buster Brown went all out and had their own original comics produced to give away. J.C. penny probably went really cheap and just stamped the coverless comics and gave them away

Now that you mention it, I remember when I got shoes as a kid, the store (probably Sears) would give us a "March of Comics" comic.

[catman76]

7 hours ago, gadzukes said:

Now that you mention it, I remember when I got shoes as a kid, the store (probably Sears) would give us a "March of Comics" comic.

Yeah that's one that western publishing made specifically for stores to buy as giveaways and the store could order them with their store name actually printed on the comic or order then with just the blank area on the cover and stamp them themselves if they wanted. Charlton did that too but would print different versions of their comics with a area on the cover printed with the store name...

[valiantman]

I'm surprised this book survived Camp Namuncura in West Haverstraw, NY, in the 1950s-1960s at all, much less with the cover intact.

http://www.campdonbosco.org/about-us/our-history.aspx

I guess Ken Hille||||||er took pretty good care of the comics he stole from the camp. 

Edited June 9, 2021 by valiantman

[Venomous72]

Not mine unfortunately, saw it on Instagram, but too awesome not to share 

[Venomous72]

Here’s a better shot of my recent pick up, really happy with the placement and clarity on it. 

[Morganmi]

Here's a recent pick up.

[Venomous72]

Another one I found on Instagram (not mine, I wish)

[Venomous72]

I have noticed that stamp dates vary by several months on the same books. For example on my FF5 it has a JUL. 1962 stamp, and on two others I have found they have April 62 stamps.

Did distributors send out books at different times or did marvel send them out to newsstands directly themselves? I wonder what accounts for when one shop receives a book in April vs July, etc

[comicginger1789]

15 minutes ago, Venomous72 said:

I have noticed that stamp dates vary by several months on the same books. For example on my FF5 it has a JUL. 1962 stamp, and on two others I have found they have April 62 stamps.

Did distributors send out books at different times or did marvel send them out to newsstands directly themselves? I wonder what accounts for when one shop receives a book in April vs July, etc

An interesting question. If I made a guess, more rural areas probably got their books later than the more urbanized cities and such. 

[rexinnih]

I've always enjoyed seeing a date stamp. For me its a recording of history. 

[Venomous72]

1 hour ago, comicginger1789 said:

An interesting question. If I made a guess, more rural areas probably got their books later than the more urbanized cities and such. 

Yeah I imagine it’s something like that, or they send out more copies they have sitting around later on 🤷🏻‍♂️

[namisgr]

15 hours ago, Venomous72 said:

I have noticed that stamp dates vary by several months on the same books. For example on my FF5 it has a JUL. 1962 stamp, and on two others I have found they have April 62 stamps.

Did distributors send out books at different times or did marvel send them out to newsstands directly themselves? I wonder what accounts for when one shop receives a book in April vs July, etc

In those days, Marvel comics would hit the newsstand about 3 months before their publication date.  Since FF5 has a July pub date, and the stamp on your book has a month but no day, I suspect this may be a return stamp date (if unsold) rather than an arrival stamp date.