The Distribution of US Published Comics in the UK (1959~1982) 15 15

[Get Marwood & I]

On 8/7/2023 at 11:18 AM, Malacoda said:

A while back I posted a TTA #55 which was a UKPV at 9d which had been re-stamped (by T&P) at 10d, presumably during the 1st hiatus. 

Here's a TOS #53, same scenario.  What caught my eye was that this is the same cover month (May 64) and same on sale month (Feb 64) and they both got re-stamped with a 4 stamp. Looks they shared the same strange journey.  

Coolio in the glass house 

I also have this May 64 ASM in my 'early T&P outliers' folder - not a great image, but the stamp looks like a 3 or an 8:

They all follow the same pattern - UKPV, inked out price, 10d stamp. Maybe they found them on a pallet during the first hi ate us. Hi was hungry, wasn't he. Ate everything that one.

 

[Malacoda]

On 8/7/2023 at 5:18 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

I also have this May 64 ASM in my 'early T&P outliers' folder - not a great image, but the stamp looks like a 3 or an 8:

Good catch. 

This is a Feb release, which could support the idea that they were batched into months there rather than here, which would be surprising. I guess we'll never know. 

Another unrelated May 64.....

 

 

[Get Marwood & I]

I haven't updated this table in a while, after all that checking around the date work earlier in the year, but at cover date January 1968, this seems to be extraordinarily late for a 'Gold Star' shilling stamp:

If it is one, that is....

    

[Albert Tatlock]

On 8/9/2023 at 9:18 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

this seems to be extraordinarily late for a 'Gold Star' shilling stamp:

A puzzle.

If it is the only one to be found, it would be stranger than if there were a few.

A few might indicate that they were, like T & P's merchandise, sent out on a SOR basis.

Let the hunt begin.

 

[Malacoda]

On 8/9/2023 at 9:18 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

this seems to be extraordinarily late for a 'Gold Star' shilling stamp:

Here's another good 'un.  The Doc Strange's were all stampies at 1/-.  This one would have acquired this 10p sticker at least 8 years later. Note, no stamp.  So this looks like a T&P era Marvel which cropped up well into the World era.  You'd imagine it was a dealer import, but dealers never put stickers on the comics, except brand new imports back in the day.  This looks like a high street sticker.  

Edited August 9, 2023 by Malacoda

[Get Marwood & I]

On 8/9/2023 at 5:34 PM, Malacoda said:

Here's another good 'un.  The Doc Strange's were all stampies at 1/-.  This one would have acquired this 10p sticker at least 8 years later. Note, no stamp.  So this looks like a T&P era Marvel which cropped up well into the World era.  You'd imagine it was a dealer import, but dealers never put stickers on the comics, except brand new imports back in the day.  This looks like a high street sticker.  

A good 'un it is, but that could be any old second hand shop's stickered second hand comic. Bought on holiday, maybe, hence no stamp.

The Spidey #56 has a recognisable stamp that is far too late if all the other copies (from all publishers) are indicative. I can see how that 10p sticker ended up on that comic. I can't see how that #56 ASM got stamped that late? Unless, of course, it's just a very, very, very similar looking shilling stamp. And the Monarch of Magical Menace is a poxy name. 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 8/9/2023 at 5:34 PM, Malacoda said:

This looks like a high street sticker. 

Now that's a high street sticker 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 8/9/2023 at 11:31 AM, Albert Tatlock said:

Let the hunt begin.

 

[Malacoda]

On 8/9/2023 at 6:08 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Now that's a high street sticker

Indeed.  Now stop teasing us and show us the front of that comic.   What got repriced at 4p by Woolies? 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 8/9/2023 at 6:43 PM, Malacoda said:

Indeed.  Now stop teasing us and show us the front of that comic.   What got repriced at 4p by Woolies? 

You mean you can't tell? 

 

Spoiler

 

 

[Malacoda]

On 8/9/2023 at 9:27 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

You mean you can't tell? 

Damn! That would have been my first guess. 

That comic is from September 1967.  For it to have a decimal only price, it would have to have been hanging around for years. How on Earth does that find its way onto the shelf in Woolies?

 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 8/10/2023 at 8:25 AM, Malacoda said:

Damn! That would have been my first guess. 

On 8/10/2023 at 8:25 AM, Malacoda said:

That comic is from September 1967.  For it to have a decimal only price, it would have to have been hanging around for years. How on Earth does that find its way onto the shelf in Woolies?

 

I bought a bunch of them a while back, all with Woolies 4p stickers on the back. I've gathered images of others too, some 3p. Too early for my memory but it looks like F.W. dabbled at some point in our increasingly distant past. 

[Malacoda]

While we're on stickers, here's something you don't see every day.  This is a DD 96 with a Dark They Were sticker at 20p (following their fabulous practice of putting price labels on the comics themselves that you could never get off without the cover then sticking to everything everafter).   At some point the purchaser sold it and it was re-sold by LTS, another London comic shop in Denmark Street, who also put the sticker straight on the cover at the now princely sum of 50p.  

Imagine if you could hold a comic in your hands and see every ownership, all the hands its passed through. 

[Garystar]

On 8/11/2023 at 7:34 PM, Malacoda said:

While we're on stickers, here's something you don't see every day.  This is a DD 96 with a Dark They Were sticker at 20p (following their fabulous practice of putting price labels on the comics themselves that you could never get off without the cover then sticking to everything everafter).   At some point the purchaser sold it and it was re-sold by LTS, another London comic shop in Denmark Street, who also put the sticker straight on the cover at the now princely sum of 50p.  

Imagine if you could hold a comic in your hands and see every ownership, all the hands its passed through. 

I seem to recall dark they were stickers as being easy to peel off but then leaving colour fade underneath. 

[Malacoda]

On 8/11/2023 at 10:03 PM, Garystar said:

I seem to recall dark they were stickers as being easy to peel off but then leaving colour fade underneath. 

Good memory. To be honest I was always so excited that I'd bought a comic in DTW, I left the stickers on as a point of pride. LTS stickers were another matter. I think I only tried to peel one or two off and it left a sticky residue that stuck the cover to the back of the next comic.  

[Albert Tatlock]

On 8/12/2023 at 12:02 AM, Malacoda said:

Good memory. To be honest I was always so excited that I'd bought a comic in DTW, I left the stickers on as a point of pride. LTS stickers were another matter. I think I only tried to peel one or two off and it left a sticky residue that stuck the cover to the back of the next comic.  

There are specialised materials available to solve this problem.

One was marketed under the name 'Label Lifter', but I think it is no longer in production.

However, Mr Google should be aware of others in this field.

If you have managed to peel off a label to find sticky residue underneath, talcum powder will deal with it efficiently.

Do not be tempted to use petrol, especially if you have a cig dangling from the corner of your mouth.

'Cig' in my original posting (redacted, of course) was another 3 letter abbreviation for cigarette, also ending in G, and formerly used in our great British education system to denote a junior schoolboy who was required to carry out menial chores on behalf of the more senior pupils. That system has now ended, so I wonder, like George V, how is the Empire? Can it long survive?

Or, if you believe the alternative version, he had no earnest wish to revisit Bognor and said as much in emphatic terms..

Edited August 13, 2023 by Albert Tatlock
correct typo

[Malacoda]

On 8/11/2023 at 10:03 PM, Garystar said:

I seem to recall dark they were stickers as being easy to peel off but then leaving colour fade underneath. 

Something else I never really thought about:  all the pence copies were earmarked for World/high street distribution. Dark They Were bought all their comics in advance....( i.e. they imported them at time of publication, so they arrived here, seemingly by magic three months ahead of the cover date).  This would mean that if you shopped at DTW, you'd always get a cents copy, even of comics which had PV's, because they imported directly from the States.  I remember being excited at getting cents copies at the time  (because up to that point all my comics were bought in the high street, apart from occasional junk shop finds) but I had quite forgotten about it. 

I wonder if that was because all the pence copies were printed for the deal with World and DTW would not have got pence copies even if they wanted them? Or was it because Bram Stokes cannily got cents copies because collectors preferred them?  Did collectors prefer them back then? When did that snobbery start?  Or was it just that he was their sole UK wholesale customer apart from World, so his business was handled alongside the US wholesalers rather than alongside World? My money would be on that. 

Funny to think that DTW was literally unique at that point.  Forbidden Planet, Mega City, Orbital, Eternal, Krypton, Comic Showcase, Heroes, Fantasy Centre, Bookends, Acme Comics, Geek Retreat, Gosh, The Comic Shack, LTS, Paradise Alley, Fantastic Store, Quality Comics and Graphically Speaking  in London, Forever People in Bristol, Odyssey 7 in Manchester, Fantasy World in Stoke, Nostalgia & Comics in Birmingham, Nottingham & Sheffield, Wonderworld in Bournemouth, Timeslip in Newcastle, Brainstorm Bookshop in Gateshead, the SF Bookshop in Edinburgh, AKA Books & Comics in Glasgow, Rodney's in Barking and all the others had yet to exist.  

 

 

Edited August 20, 2023 by Malacoda
Correct omission of Rodney's

[Kevin.J]

On 8/15/2023 at 10:54 AM, Malacoda said:

Timeslip in Newcastle

 

[Kevin.J]

I am not one for sending books to CGC as I prefer raw but I did once just for the experience.

I asked someone about shop stickers and they said to leave them on as CGC would ignore them anyway, they got hammered, CGC really hated my stickers

I guess I should have asked more than one person 

 

[OtherEric]

Had to post this here, there are some pence variants in the mix.  More than I can pay for the collection, but I've got to admit I would love the provenance on these:

https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2023/freddie-mercury-a-world-of-his-own-crazy-little-things-2/comic-books-the-fantastic-four-x-men-and-booster?locale=en