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

[Albert Tatlock]

On 9/29/2023 at 12:31 AM, Kevin.J said:

If I de-boarded all the carp I dont really want,

Tell us about the ones that got away, Kev.

[OtherEric]

On 9/29/2023 at 9:20 AM, Albert Tatlock said:

Tell us about the ones that got away, Kev.

If you keep carping about this we may need to start calling you Albert Haddock instead... 

[Albert Tatlock]

On 9/29/2023 at 5:24 PM, OtherEric said:

If you keep carping about this we may need to start calling you Albert Haddock instead... 

I know, I know.

We have to avoid the anagram of carp, just like the forename of Mr Turpin, which currently escapes me.

Think it's the same as Mr Dastardly, though.

[OtherEric]

On 9/29/2023 at 9:39 AM, Albert Tatlock said:

I know, I know.

We have to avoid the anagram of carp, just like the forename of Mr Turpin, which currently escapes me.

Think it's the same as Mr Dastardly, though.

Or my last name of one of my favorite SF writers.

 

[Albert Tatlock]

On 9/29/2023 at 5:46 PM, OtherEric said:

Or my last name of one of my favorite SF writers.

 

Yes, not a bad little scribbler, Mr PKD.

[Kevin.J]

On 9/29/2023 at 5:20 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

Tell us about the ones that got away, Kev.

[Malacoda]

the most frightful villain ever.  you can say that again. 

[baggsey]

On 5/25/2023 at 2:41 PM, themagicrobot said:

 Is @OtherEric the only person on the other side of the Atlantic with an interest in comics/pulps/paperbacks/Alan Class/everything like us rather than all those people whose life revolves around "keys" whatever they may be,??

 

 

Nope - there is at least me as a dual Brit/Yank who spent the first 41 years of existence in the UK and the last 23 years here in Chicagoland. The manager of my local comic shop loves to hear me ramble on (well, tolerates me rambling on) about Saturday bike rides in Portsmouth for comics in the seventies. Every time a comic crosses his path with a T&P stamp he sets it aside for me. I have no idea how T&P stamped comics have ended up back here - coals to Newcastle - but perhaps there is a new thread to be created on the subject?

[Malacoda]

On 10/2/2023 at 11:48 PM, baggsey said:

Nope - there is at least me as a dual Brit/Yank who spent the first 41 years of existence in the UK and the last 23 years here in Chicagoland. The manager of my local comic shop loves to hear me ramble on (well, tolerates me rambling on) about Saturday bike rides in Portsmouth for comics in the seventies. Every time a comic crosses his path with a T&P stamp he sets it aside for me. I have no idea how T&P stamped comics have ended up back here - coals to Newcastle - but perhaps there is a new thread to be created on the subject?

It's for Steve to say, but I think we have a broad enough base (well I certainly do!) to accommodate that on this thread.  After all, they are US comics that were distributed in the UK first, before a rather baffling homing instinct kicked in.   I assume there are so few of these that they could be attributed to individual collectors bringing them over and later selling them? 

[themagicrobot]

Perhaps that was more a C20th thing.

In the C21st we no doubt have eBay and the Auction Houses to thank for stamped and pence comics crossing the Atlantic twice.

How expensive was it to fly in the 1970s when some of our early dealers went over with empty suitcases and returned with ND Spider-Mans?

Edited October 3, 2023 by themagicrobot

[baggsey]

On 10/3/2023 at 8:01 AM, themagicrobot said:

 

How expensive was it to fly in the 1970s when some of our early dealers went over with empty suitcases and returned with ND Spider-Mans?

I remember my second solo trip from the UK to New York in 1978 (aged 19) was on Freddie Laker's SKYTRAIN, which charged £59 outwards and a further £78 for the return trip, which amounted to $246 US dollars return at the then-prevailing exchange rates. At the time that Laker transformed Transatlantic pricing, the major airlines were charging $626 return as a basic economy fare. So back in the 1974-78 timeframe, anyone flying with an empty suitcase to pick up comics would have paid $600-odd dollars minimum for the privilege.

I've just shelled out $654 for a return ticket Chicago-London on American Airlines in early December; it's amazing to see how the prices have fallen in real terms in the past 45 years when the dollar price has hardly changed.

[Malacoda]

On 10/3/2023 at 3:53 PM, baggsey said:

So back in the 1974-78 timeframe, anyone flying with an empty suitcase to pick up comics would have paid $600-odd dollars minimum for the privilege.

Very good point.  $600 then being about $3,736 now and comics fetching nowhere near the same premium in the 70's.   You'd have to have filled one suitcase with keys & ND's just to cover the air fare. 

That said, I'm sure the Robot's point about the Tinternet is true.  Given that US copies outnumbered UK copies by at least 20 to 1, there are going to be far more US copies of pretty much anything available, but it's still going to happen that US bidders bid on UK located keys and grails, especially if they're happy to take a pence variant (those would obviously not be the stampies your LCS pal is keeping under the counter for you).  

[LowGradeBronze]

Here's another of those Time Machine comics where it's been stamped with a 2/- stamp, well after decimalisation. I'm suspecting this is a foreign 2 shillings. (Austria used shillings.) There has been one on here before but I can't recall which page it's on now. 

 

[LowGradeBronze]

On 10/3/2023 at 3:53 PM, baggsey said:

.... anyone flying with an empty suitcase to pick up comics would have paid $600-odd dollars minimum for the privilege.

Wonder how your haul would be viewed by customs nowadays. There could be a good bit of duty and tax to pay on it....yikes!

[themagicrobot]

On 10/8/2023 at 6:54 PM, LowGradeBronze said:

Here's another of those Time Machine comics where it's been stamped with a 2/- stamp, well after decimalisation. I'm suspecting this is a foreign 2 shillings. (Austria used shillings.) There has been one on here before but I can't recall which page it's on now. 

That Kamandi is from 1973 so I don't think there is an (Austrian?) Australian connection. They went decimal in 1966. This Thor Special Edition was from 1971 so it was still OK to show £sd prices. I lean towards the diamond stamps being experimental ones belonging to T&P. This diamond stamp seems to overstamp a circular one. The diamond stamp has a number one above the price. I have a few (mostly early 1970s) comics with diamond stamps that I purchased  well before the Interweb was created so they were certainly UK distributed. The diamond 2/- on a 1973 comic may well be the most important discovery made as LowGradeBronze proves that time travel was possible. The comic then would have been HighGradeBronze.

 

 

PS: Actually Austria did use Schillings (different spelling) pre-Euro but used the symbol S or öS‎

Edited October 8, 2023 by themagicrobot

[Malacoda]

On 10/8/2023 at 7:39 PM, themagicrobot said:

PS: Actually Austria did use Schillings (different spelling) pre-Euro but used the symbol S or öS‎

Indeed, also an Austrian schilling was about 2.5 new pence in the 70's, so you wouldn't have had a equivalence of 2 Austrian schillings to 10p, but two old UK shillings was 10p.  

[Redshade]

On 10/8/2023 at 6:54 PM, LowGradeBronze said:

Here's another of those Time Machine comics where it's been stamped with a 2/- stamp, well after decimalisation. I'm suspecting this is a foreign 2 shillings. (Austria used shillings.) There has been one on here before but I can't recall which page it's on now. 

 

A few places around the world use shillings, but you have to be very careful in some of them!  
 

[Albert Tatlock]

Is it possible that the anachronistic 2 shilling stamped items were reimported into the UK after failing to sell somewhere overseas which was still pre-decimal?

I have examples dated as late as 1974.

[Albert Tatlock]

Here is a £sd Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika stamp with Her Maj on, but I think that K, U and T went decimal before 1974.

I had one with a picture of a giraffe on when I were but a lad, possibly with shillings and pence, but the versions I can find online now are all priced in cents.

[LowGradeBronze]

On 10/9/2023 at 7:02 PM, Redshade said:

A few places around the world use shillings, but you have to be very careful in some of them!  
 

Interesting to note that it cost women twice as much to wee as it did for men. At those prices, women's comic collections would have been half the size of men's. (Assuming the only things they had to spend their money on was weeing and buying comics.....)

Edited October 9, 2023 by LowGradeBronze