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

[themagicrobot]

If Ethel had taken home all those thousands of discarded DC covers for little Willie to play with and he'd kept hold of them he'd now be sitting on a Goldmine/heap of rubbish.

[Get Marwood & I]

On 7/18/2022 at 7:46 PM, themagicrobot said:

If Ethel had taken home all those thousands of discarded DC covers for little Willie to play with and he'd kept hold of them he'd now be sitting on a Goldmine/heap of rubbish.

I never liked little Willie. He was far too cocky.

[themagicrobot]

 

[Kevin.J]

[themagicrobot]

It was Ethel's first day in the legendary T&P Ink-Stamp Dept. She had been handed the tool of her new trade and received 30 seconds of training explaining which way was up for the 9d price. The first few Detective Comics took two goes as she needed to perfect her technique of how hard you needed to press down and how much ink was required. Then it was a simple matter of working on her hand-to-eye coordination so than the comic rather than the workbench got stamped.

 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 7/19/2022 at 9:01 AM, themagicrobot said:

It was Ethel's first day in the legendary T&P Ink-Stamp Dept. She had been handed the tool of her new trade and received 30 seconds of training explaining which way was up for the 9d price. The first few Detective Comics took two goes as she needed to perfect her technique of how hard you needed to press down and how much ink was required. Then it was a simple matter of working on her hand-to-eye coordination so than the comic rather than the workbench got stamped.

 

If at first you don't succeed...

[Get Marwood & I]

Books like this make me wonder what might have happened back in the day.

It's already a shilling priced book, and every single copy that I have ever seen is stamp free, as you would expect. Except this one:

So how does that book get into the T&P stamping mix? Did Ethel stamp anything and everything that was put in front of her? Maybe her fellow stamper, Doris - a keen fan of the western genre - brought it in to read in her lunchbreak and....

I've got quite a few examples of UK shilling priced publications with T&P shilling stamps on them in the files as it goes. I put them in order of preference the other day - this one just made the top three:

[Kevin.J]

On 7/19/2022 at 9:01 AM, themagicrobot said:

It was Ethel's first day in the legendary T&P Ink-Stamp Dept. She had been handed the tool of her new trade and received 30 seconds of training explaining which way was up for the 9d price. The first few Detective Comics took two goes as she needed to perfect her technique of how hard you needed to press down and how much ink was required. Then it was a simple matter of working on her hand-to-eye coordination so than the comic rather than the workbench got stamped.

 

Yeah, whoever was on the Jimmy Olsen's was a real bad shot

 

[Kevin.J]

Wow. just seeing these stamps brings back so many memories, it was a long way for a little kid on his bike with a few pence and dreams of comics to be had.

If my Ma, knew I was travelling up here every few weeks I would have been toast  

 

[themagicrobot]

Millers??

[Albert Tatlock]

On 6/18/2022 at 4:36 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

I plotted the thousands of DC books to prove the T&P stamp number sequencing because I found that effort to be worth it to finalise that conclusion - the reason for the numbering had been bugging me for years, so to get the answer, and then prove it, was satisfying. I still chuckle when I see my first attempt at seeing whether the numbers were sequential. It was too small, and I foolishly discarded it having proven, so I thought, that there was no sequence. When Albert said there was - having noted it on his original owner DC title runs - I expanded the sample massively, after being sceptical at first, and proved he was right.

If I could have unearthed my Action collection at the time, I may have been able to confound the naysayers.

No 276 should have borne a 1 stamp, but my original copy was upgraded to an unstamped version back in the mists of time.

[Malacoda]

On 7/20/2022 at 9:25 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

If I could have unearthed my Action collection at the time, I may have been able to confound the naysayers.

No 276 should have borne a 1 stamp, but my original copy was upgraded to an unstamped version back in the mists of time.

Beautiful  - 277 to 284 numbered 2 to 9.   It's practically dinner and dancing with Ethel. 

BTW Albert, I'm ready to go next level and prove (well...within reason....) both you and the Robot right about some of this.  You have conflicting theories, but I think you're both right. 

[themagicrobot]

Just looking inside those early 1960s DC comics we see adverts for forthcoming comics and they seem to be issued in weekly batches so various titles can all show a May cover date but could have been on sale over a period of weeks. Bi-monthly comics complicate things too as an April/May comic appears before monthly May comics.

We don't know how often T&P received deliveries. Monthly? Every 4 weeks? Every week? I favour weekly deliveries if only to ensure the smooth running of the warehouse and to give Ethel a fighting chance with the ink stamps.

Albert says that Action 276 would have had a Number 1. Adventure comics 284 is a May comic and along with the Action was released in the US on 30/03/61 but doesn't have a Number 1 stamp. Here is Superman 145 (US on sale date 16th March) and World's Finest 117 (US on sale date 2nd March) which favour my weekly arrival theory.

At what point did Ethel change stamps then? On her own initiative every 4 weeks? When she saw a different Action cover (as looking at the covers all day long she would soon memorize them). Or was there a shadowy supervisor leaning over a lectern like something out of a Dickens novel with a hand-written spreadsheet and boxes full of the various stamps that ensured an April/May Tomahawk got a Number 8 stamp whilst a May Action received a Number 1. 

And still the unsolved question of what use the stamps were to T&P. To keep changing numbers would be a monumental task. Did it help the packing dept? I'm sure the kids buying their Superman family comics couldn't have cared less.

Edited July 21, 2022 by themagicrobot

[Kevin.J]

My Action's match Albert's above, my 276 has no stamp either,

275 = 8,

274= 6,

273 = no stamp

272=4,

271 =3,

270 = no stamp

269 =1

etc.

Dunno if any of this helps  

 

 

[Albert Tatlock]

On 7/21/2022 at 9:51 AM, themagicrobot said:

We don't know how often T&P received deliveries. Monthly? Every 4 weeks? Every week?

Would it have been cheaper to ship one large batch per month as opposed to 4 smaller, one per week?

If the comics did arrive in one big monthly delivery, that would have meant a short frantic flurry of activity, followed by a slacker period when Ethel was assigned other duties, tidying up the filing cabinet, dusting the picture frames, brewing the tea, sitting on the foreman's knee, etc.

Unless, of course, T & P spaced out their deliveries to newsagents via their wholesalers to cover the whole month.

[Albert Tatlock]

On 7/21/2022 at 9:51 AM, themagicrobot said:

When she saw a different Action cover (as looking at the covers all day long she would soon memorize them)

I think that, after years of practice, Ethel could have stamped blindfolded. That would explain some of the near misses.

[Albert Tatlock]

A run of Strange Adventures, 1960/61.

122 is unstamped, and 126 is the Corporal Jones of this platoon, but the others are pretty well drilled.

[themagicrobot]

You would assume that Ethel would be handed batches of the same comic so she could get into a smooth rhythm of stamp comic, move comic, stamp next comic. The fact that these comics have ink stamps on opposite sides suggests Ethel had at least one help-mate, possibly Enid (who may have been left-handed??)

Edited July 21, 2022 by themagicrobot

[Kevin.J]

-or they were whizzing past on a conveyor belt and she was using both hands  

[Albert Tatlock]

On 7/21/2022 at 7:49 PM, themagicrobot said:

The fact that these comics have ink stamps on opposite sides suggests Ethel had at least one help-mate, possibly Enid (who may have been left-handed??)

If Ethel was ambidextrous, would she have been on double pay?