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

[Get Marwood & I]

On 1/25/2024 at 11:31 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

Exactly.

Surely they'd avoid currency altogether and just get a 'No SOR' stamp made up?

How do you explain the earlier examples, and the magazines?

[Albert Tatlock]

On 1/25/2024 at 11:32 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Surely they'd avoid currency altogether and just get a 'No SOR' stamp made up?

How do you explain the earlier examples, and the magazines?

It is just a code for those in the know.

And we do not know when the earlier dated examples were sold on.

The pre-decimal price is just a signal for those in the trade. They would know, but the punters would not.

Maybe they were supposed to think, 'Hey, this should have been two bob, I'm getting a bargain'.

But probably not, by this time, they would be being flogged off cheap, Joe Public would not have troubled his head about a little stamp in the corner of the cover, often one stamp among many.

[Get Marwood & I]

On 1/25/2024 at 11:40 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

It is just a code for those in the know.

And we do not know when the earlier dated examples were sold on.

The pre-decimal price is just a signal for those in the trade. They would know, but the punters would not.

Maybe they were supposed to think, 'Hey, this should have been two bob, I'm getting a bargain'.

That theory I like.

On 1/25/2024 at 11:40 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

But probably not, by this time, they would be being flogged off cheap, Joe Public would not have troubled his head about a little stamp in the corner of the cover, often one stamp among many.

If it was someone's job to look at (potentially) thousands of comics each day to spot valid / invalid SOR items, surely the last thing you would use as an indicator would be a price stamp? Price stamps would all blur into one after the eight thousandth view. Now put a 'No SOR' stamp on it, that's going to stand out. And how do you match any given SOR comic to the client anyway? With records.

If the person(s) who was sold all these "we can't sell these" comics by T&P wasn't an official outlet, would a SOR scenario even be an option? T&P wouldn't pay out as they'd have no official / agreed mechanism to do so with that client(s). No agreed paperwork.

[Albert Tatlock]

On 1/25/2024 at 11:43 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

That theory I like.

If it was someone's job to look at (potentially) thousands of comics each day to spot valid / invalid SOR items, surely the last thing you would use as an indicator would be a price stamp? Price stamps would all blur into one after the eight thousandth view. Now put a 'No SOR' stamp on it, that's going to stand out.

And if the person(s) who was sold all these "we can't sell these" comics by T&P wasn't an official outlet, would a SOR scenario even be an option? T&P wouldn't pay out as they'd have no official / agreed mechanism to do so with the client(s).

Point taken, but the chap who bought them cheap, having been told about the cancellation stamp, would take it as a deterrent and not try it on. 

I think I have got one of these somewhere with a Popular stamp too, will try to dig it out.

[Albert Tatlock]

On 1/25/2024 at 11:21 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

We do for some - your 1974 books must have had the stamp applied at that time. Couldn't be prior, as they hadn't been printed yet, couldn't be after, as that's when you bought them. No?

I bought these maybe 5 years after the cover date. My feeling is that the stamps had been applied not long before I got them, but it could, of course, have been earlier.

[Get Marwood & I]

On 1/25/2024 at 11:49 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

Point taken, but the chap who bought them cheap, having been told about the cancellation stamp, would take it as a deterrent and not try it on. 

If the agreement was that T&P were selling him the comics cheap on a no SOR basis, what mechanism could he use to 'try it on'. He'd have to send his unsold books back with paperwork to show who he was (how else would they know who to refund?). T&P would match his return submission to their 'No SOR' agreement records. No stamp is required. Would any other official dealer launder them for him? Maybe, but I doubt it. 

On 1/25/2024 at 11:49 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

I think I have got one of these somewhere with a Popular stamp too, will try to dig it out.

Yes please 

Here's an alternative theory.

Some bloke nicks a ton of comics from T&P. There's a mix of recent returns, some older. He sticks a 2 shilling stamp that he found on all of them in an attempt to make them look more expensive than they are. And mysterious, in that old currency. He tries to flog them at markets and stuff. You got hold of a load of them. That explains why there are so few online today - it was a local one off thing. The diamond stamp that they used was an old one that someone used to use to sell magazines back in the 1960s....

[Get Marwood & I]

On 1/25/2024 at 11:56 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

I bought these maybe 5 years after the cover date. My feeling is that the stamps had been applied not long before I got them, but it could, of course, have been earlier.

It was all over for T&P stamping in '79, wasn't it? T&P stamps stopped from then. So any stamp would have stood out, assuming he knew who to send them back to! (Rich will be along soon to say something about Transworld or something like that) 

[Albert Tatlock]

On 1/25/2024 at 11:56 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

If the agreement was that T&P were selling him the comics cheap on a no SOR basis, what mechanism could he use to 'try it on'. He'd have to send his unsold books back with paperwork to show who he was (how else would they know who to refund?). T&P would match his return submission to their 'No SOR' agreement records. No stamp is required. Would any other official dealer launder them for him? Maybe, but I doubt it. 

Yes please 

Here's an alternative theory.

Some bloke nicks a ton of comics from T&P. There's a mix of recent returns, some older. He sticks a 2 shilling stamp that he found on all of them in an attempt to make them look more expensive than they are. He tries to flog them at markets and stuff. You got hold of a load of them. That explains why there are so few online today - it was a local one off thing. The diamond stamp that they used was an old one that someone used to use to sell magazines back in the 1960s....

 Dunno why the chap would go to the trouble of making up a stamp, they already had a cover price far in excess of what he was asking.

I think that the 2 bob stamp would already have been there when my man got hold of them.

I think that someone in Brunswick Mill was leaving, and chucked them out.

My bloke spotted them, and told me they were his, and he could let me have them cheap.

They were lying in the open air in an alcove in the yard, surrounded by cinders and all sorts.

If I had not taken them, the rats would have.

[Get Marwood & I]

Anyway, Albert, I've enjoyed our little debate tonight. Just what I needed after a another long day torn straight from Satan's arsehole. 

Would it be fair to say, after all our deliberations tonight, that neither of us a have a Scooby Doo what the stamps were for, who applied them and why?

[Albert Tatlock]

Yawn, yawn, can't keep my eyes open , back tomorrow..........................

[Get Marwood & I]

On 1/26/2024 at 12:07 AM, Albert Tatlock said:

Yawn, yawn, can't keep my eyes open , back tomorrow..........................

Night Albert 

[Albert Tatlock]

On 1/25/2024 at 11:32 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

just get a 'No SOR' stamp made up?

No need to make a new stamp if there is an old one gathering dust at the back of the cupboard.

But what was the diamond stamp used for when we still had shillings and pence?

The traditional circular stamp appears on comics and magazines.

Maybe the T & P reps were freelancers who handled other stuff besides comics, etc.

Can it be found on packaging for toys, records, and so on?

 

[Albert Tatlock]

On 1/25/2024 at 11:49 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

I think I have got one of these somewhere with a Popular stamp too, will try to dig it out.

No original T & P stamp, but a diamond one, followed later (how much later we can only guess) by the ever-popular PBS defacement.

How many times it subsequently changed hands I have no idea, I bought it fairly recently in an auction bundle.

[Malacoda]

First off, can I just say I love this exchange of speculations? For me, this sort of thing is really the heart of this thread and the fact that we can all just throw something out there without the sort of carping oneupmanship that we see on other threads is just brilliant.  That said....

On 1/25/2024 at 11:59 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

It was all over for T&P stamping in '79, wasn't it? T&P stamps stopped from then. So any stamp would have stood out, assuming he knew who to send them back to! (Rich will be along soon to say something about Transworld or something like that) 

World, not Transworld. See me after class. 

Now that I've posted that, that mask looks a bit iffy.  I think I may have given away more about our leisure time activities than I intended. 

 

[Malacoda]

On 1/25/2024 at 8:08 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

I think that the diamond stamp material was offloaded at rock-bottom prices onto someone who reckoned they could shift them on to market traders and the like, and maybe even specialist back issue comic shops, which were up and running long before the date of 1974 found on my batch.

Is that correct?  Dark They Were opened in London in 1969, but to my knowledge the other London shops didn't open til later (FP in 1978 and Comic Showcase in the 80's).  Futureshock opened in Glasgow in 1980.  I think Forever People in Bristol was early 80's.  In Manchester, House on the Borderland bookshop opened in 1972, but I don't know if it sold comics from the off.  I think Orbit in Shudehill came later? Here's an advert for Book Chain from 1977. Don't know when it opened.  I think you'd have to have done a lot of mileage round the country to have shifted a bulk of comics to the comic shops which were very few and very very far between.  I'd love to know if the Manchester ones were around then and I'm sure I'm asking the right person.   

   

[Malacoda]

On 1/25/2024 at 9:08 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

Possibly just a one-off, an experiment from a local agent that was not repeated.

Your Kamandi's are 1974.  This Avengers is Feb 1966. Obviously, it could have been stamped way later, but what was it doing for 8 years?  It would have to be sold through a comic shop not a local agent.  If it had been priced at 2/- in 1966, people would have gone ballistic.   I mean, in them days you could buy 3 new suits n an overcoat, 4 new pair of good boots, goo n see George Formby at Palace Theatre, get blind drunk, have some steak n chips, a bunch of bananas n 3 stone of monkey nuts and still have change out on a farthing...

[Malacoda]

On 1/25/2024 at 11:16 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

My gut feeling is that they were put there as part of the last rites, just to make sure that no one was able to pull a fast one and feed them back into the SOR chain.

I can see the possibility - as we know, the reason they introduced separate bar code boxes for direct vs newsstand was because of unscrupulous LCS dealers returning direct editions - but like Steve, I don't really buy the intentional use of an anachronistic stamp to demarcate them as non returnable. It would have been very easy & low cost to obtain a much clearer 'non-returnable' stamp, but even assuming they pulled an old stamp out of a drawer and re-purposed it, it raises the question of why this person/company  happened to have the 2/- diamond stamp in the first place. What was it originally for?  Surely it's more likely that whatever purpose it had in the first place, it was still serving that purpose now?     

[themagicrobot]

I assumed the diamond stamps were used when the comics were current (and pre 1971) as they did have different numbers as well as the £sd price but now seeing the Kamandis you have to wonder if a random batch of old periodicals turned up and found their way back into circulation.

The stickers sometimes had numbers as well as prices too.

PS: I really ought to make the effort and visit a comic shop this year before they all disappear like record shops haven't. When I lived in Birmingham in the mid 1970s I visited two comic shops regularly. And Birmingham Virgin records sold Underground comics and (of course) LPs that Richard obtained by some dubious scheme where they were supposed to be exported but weren't. When I moved to Nottingham in 1977 there was a comic shop (either already trading or would be shortly) that were up a flight of stairs above a convenience store. They then moved to ground floor premises on Mansfield Road I recall. It was just mad people with a passion for comics with the shops before the shops who shall be nameless cornered the market. 

Edited January 27 by themagicrobot

[Yorick]

On 1/27/2024 at 11:25 AM, themagicrobot said:

Looks like some interesting reading material....

[Albert Tatlock]

On 1/27/2024 at 7:12 PM, Malacoda said:

Surely it's more likely that whatever purpose it had in the first place, it was still serving that purpose now?     

But it could not have been serving that purpose in 1974 or later, as shillings and old pence had been abolished a few years previously.

Maybe it is a prank of Mr Mxyzptlk, who is hooting with laughter from the 5th dimension as he watches us chasing our tails.