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

[Malacoda]

2 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

 

 And if the issues at T&P were bad enough to result in the cessation of Marvels for a month or so, why don't we see a DC blip - T&P stamped cents copies appear to have been unaffected Is that likely? Why weren't DC looking for an alternative distributor too?

 

I think that DC supply to T&P was erratic anyway.  I also think that DC were sending distressed inventory (and much less of it), so they were less bothered. But the main point is this: There wasn't actually an operational collapse at T&P, just a financial one. DC obviously knew IND were buying T&P. It might have been DC who instigated it, might have been IND themselves, might have been T&P begging for a lifeline, but under all scenarios, DC knew that IND were going to buy T&P and I cannot imagine, for a second, that they told Marvel that. So the cessation wasn't actually caused by the issues at T&P,  the cessation was at Marvel's end, fearing what they were hearing. 

I don't know when Marvel learned that T&P were going to be saved, but there must surely have been a period of time when Marvel believed their UK distributor was going or gone and DC knew better.  Also, keep in mind that the relationship between Marvel/IND and DC/IND could not have been more different.  For DC, IND taking over T&P was nothing but good news. For Marvel, it was out of the frying pan....

And that also answers your second question. DC most certainly were not looking for an alternative distributor.  They had just bought their own.

By the way, thank you so much for responding so robustly.  You never know if you've got a diamond until someone scratches it on a window.  

[Malacoda]

14 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

I did try writing to David Gold a few months ago, at his home, not business, address on this very subject.

Signed for the day after I sent it, but so far I have not had the courtesy of a reply.

Wouldn't it be nice if we had a poster on these boards who held a couple of shares in West Ham who could buttonhole him at the next AGM?

He is actually famous for wanting to be seen as a legitimate businessman and not just a smut peddler, so I reckon a question about a legitimate part of his business would go down better than the obvious. I'd be happy to send another one.  What did you ask him specifically? 

[Albert Tatlock]

15 hours ago, Malacoda said:

  What did you ask him specifically? 

                                                                                                                                

                                                                                                                  

                                                                                                                         02 Nov. 2020

 

 

Dear Mr Gold,

 

I know that you are an extremely busy man, but I hope that you will pardon this intrusion.

 

I had formed the intention to write to you some time ago, although I always found something else put it off, but I have now read (or possibly re-read) your autobiography, with considerable interest, especially the section on your early career selling comic books and related items, so I will press on.

 

I am helping to research the importation and distribution of American comic books into the UK in the 1960s, and have made some progress, although the period immediately following the relaxation of the prohibition on importation in mid-1959 still has unanswered questions.

 

The period I would like to get some information from you, however, is the narrow timeframe in late 1966.

 

At that time, the main importer, Thorpe & Porter, seemed to run into a problem, and most titles published by Marvel Comics had a 1 or 2 month gap. The ‘missing’ issues surfaced, in much smaller quantities than usual, in the summer of 1967, about 6 months late, and I seem to recall that they were distributed by your firm, Gold Star Publications.

 

I can find no reliable information elsewhere, so I am turning to you in case you can provide any particular details that may be of assistance, particularly as to why those issues did not appear when they should have done.

 

I realise, of course, that a lot of water has flowed under the many bridges of your multifaceted career, and that this matter, which may have assumed an importance at the time, has receded beyond recall, but I am hoping that you may have some information, however slight, that may advance the frontiers of our current knowledge.

 

I, and my fellow researchers, would be most grateful for any help you are able to provide.

 

My contact details are to be found above.

 

With best regards

Edited April 19, 2021 by Albert Tatlock
remove 2 lines

[Get Marwood & I]

@Albert Tatlock

Nice letter Albert - you might want to edit the post to remove your personal details.

I winder if Mr G ever saw the letter. Possibly some secretary placed it in the round receptacle. I've written to quite a few comic people down the years. I always try to keep it brief, and not overload them with details. Very rare you get a response, but always worth a try.

[Get Marwood & I]

15 hours ago, Malacoda said:

16th May – National Union of Seamen (don’t, we’re better than that) go on strike.

Oh, come on! That would be a stain on the reputation of this thread!

[Get Marwood & I]

15 hours ago, Malacoda said:

The Missing 66’ers. Part Five: Why did we have to sit through all that?

Conclusion:

I posit that T&P were going bankrupt (fact), Marvel knew it (if UK creditors were not getting paid, why would Marvel be? ), Marvel did not know a rescue was on the cards and they ceased all production of UKPV’s and massively reduced the titles and volume they were sending over until T&P sorted themselves out. In the meantime, Marvel may have made overtures to Gold (frankly if they believed T&P was going down the pan, it would be a bizarre business decision NOT to talk to your alternate distributor).  Which is how the missing 66’ers acquired Gold stamps. 

They were the start of Marvel moving away from T&P in case T&P fell and the start of Marvel testing the water with Gold.  I have no idea if the missing 66’ers were always supposed to go to Gold, which is why they eventually did, or if they were just distressed inventory that T&P couldn’t (at the time) or wouldn’t (later) pay for, but if one of your distributors was paying you and the other was not, where would you have sent your goods? Gold at the time were not only distributing for Marvel, but also Warren (and others?) along with their own range of top shelf mags, and had national distribution, so they were definitely a contender.

 

Morning Rich, just read it all again.

You know me, I like a smoking gun, but in the absence of one your theory here - that the missing UKPV issues were directly related to T&P's troubles - certainly holds much more water (no ballast jokes) than the historic dock strike theory.

When you look at all the books ongoing at the time...

 

... the obvious overriding pattern is the cessation of 2 issues for each title. So, like you say, the likelihood is that Marvel just got wind of the T&P financial troubles, stopped producing UKPVs (which they wouldn't have been able to sell in the US due to those weird hieroglyphic prices that scared the hell out of the locals) and made enquiries. As soon as it became clear that ongoing physical distribution wasn't at risk, up they started again. Any T&P stamped cents copies that we see for the non-UKPV bearing titles during the three months (Fantasy Masterpieces, MCIC) may have continued in the normal way (whatever that was) or come late. 

The above sounds eminently sensible and reasonable to me Rich and, as such, would be my go to explanation now if anyone were mad enough to enquire.

I think the Gold Star position could do with more understanding, especially given that T&P stamped copies exist for the non-UKPV bearing titles during the window. I see the links you have made and, again, it makes complete sense that Marvel may have picked up the phone to see if Gold might be ready in the wings. But one aspect that doesn't sit right with me is as follows, if I've understood everything correctly (believe it or not, I have trouble digesting large bodies of other people's research that I have not myself lived through creating). 

Marvel produced cents copies for the US and UKPVs for the UK. In the main, around this time, that was the drill. So if Marvel decided to stop producing the UKPVs as a result of the jitters re T&P's abilities to distribute, then there would be no UKPVs but - presumably - no additional cents copies made.  We know that the 10d stamped Gold Star cents copies exist, but the personal recollection evidence suggests that they arrived some time after when they should have, 6 months or so. Given that those 10d Gold Star stamped books exist before and after the UKPV hiatus, and also for other publishers (I have a Jan 65 stamped Charlton and an Apr 67 Tower for example) could it be that there was no direct overture to Gold at all and that he just picked up the missing comics in a one off bulk deal of unsold US copies covering many publishers, as he saw the clamour for them and saw an opportunity to make a buck while T&P were sleeping. Does that fly at all? I'm not sure it does actually. 

If the UKPV gaps were subsequently filled with cents copies, and 6 months later than would normally be planned, then why didn't the newly energised T&P distribute them with T&P stamps (as they seemed to be doing with the non-UKPV titles)? Why let Gold Star haver any piece of the pie at all? 

I am on board completely with the strike out / T&P troubles in argument now. But the Gold Star bit is still niggling. Probably wrongly though, but it keeps the debate going. Are we to assume that the Gold Star stamped copies were unsold US returns? Maybe that explains the six month delay. 

Anyway, a round of applause for Rich, guys, (not rich guys, who have far too much money as it is nowadays) and his work overlaying the history of Marvel, T&P etc from a contractual perspective 

 

[Get Marwood & I]

Just digging through the files, reminding myself of stuff, and throwing things into the mix.

Apart from the Marvel examples, I can only find Gold Star 10d stamps for two other publishers, Mighty Comics (Archie) and Charlton. I wonder how they find themselves in the mix?

The numbers and dates of each are dependent on whether we agree that Gold Star were responsible for both stamp types prevalent in the Marvel groupings, namely:

 

 

Or were there two distributors? Why price the same comic differently?

Looking at the images for the three Kid Colts, not a single Gold Star example as expected, being out of scope for UKPVs by nature of their issue size...

...but loads of examples of UK / T&P distribution:

So they either continued to be brought to the UK and distributed by T&P with no hiccup re the Marvel jitters, or something else was going on.

Did we discuss and agree on how the Marvels with no UKPVs, but with cents stamped T&P copies, either came to be here in the first instance and whether we thought they were unsold US copies? @Malacoda Rich, you've read it all recently - save me the trouble would ya? 

[Malacoda]

19 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

So they either continued to be brought to the UK and distributed by T&P with no hiccup re the Marvel jitters, or something else was going on.

Did we discuss and agree on how the Marvels with no UKPVs, but with cents stamped T&P copies, either came to be here in the first instance and whether we thought they were unsold US copies? @Malacoda Rich, you've read it all recently - save me the trouble would ya? 

Sure.....you mean MCIC, FM & MT during Q4 1966, right? 

[Get Marwood & I]

1 minute ago, Malacoda said:

Sure.....you mean MCIC, FM & MT during Q4 1966, right? 

Yes, and also in general, whenever there were T&P stamped Marvels appearing while UKPVs were being produced. 

[Malacoda]

9 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Yes, and also in general, whenever there were T&P stamped Marvels appearing while UKPVs were being produced. 

Garystar raised the 66 question amidst a detailed post, and asked if these issues were stamped in the US or if they were a different T&P stamp. 
Albert then told us they were delayed, possibly by dock strikes, and when they appeared 6 months later they were distributed by Gold and with gold stickers which were not very sticky.  He very helpfully listed the ones he remembered being scarce. 
Gary raised the point that the dock strike would not have stopped the UKPV’s being printed. 
After a lot of postings, people begin to discredit the strike as a cause.  Then we go back to discussion of the Triangle stamps and Albert’s TTT and I don’t think a conclusion was ever reached which is why I picked it up. 
Have a look around page 27-28  - that’s the key postings. 
 

[Malacoda]

15 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Yes, and also in general, whenever there were T&P stamped Marvels appearing while UKPVs were being produced. 

Do you mean stamped & printed PV's of the very same issue (like Silver Surfer #13) or do you mean where there are stamped issues of titles appearing in the same month as UKPV's for other titles (like stamped MCIC's alongside UKPV ASM's) ?

[Malacoda]

2 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

 

The above sounds eminently sensible and reasonable to me Rich and, as such, would be my go to explanation now if anyone were mad enough to enquire.

I think the Gold Star position could do with more understanding,

 I think the 2 key new points are that (1)  T&P actually went out of business.  I had always assumed that IND caught them before they fell, not that they let them fall and then picked up the pieces. That surely would have prompted action on Marvel’s part and (2) that the missing 66’ers all fall into that 1-2 or 2-1 pattern with PV’s continuing to be produced for all the 1’s.  That level of order indicates to me it was done on purpose and not an unexpected accident. 2 shooters makes it a conspiracy. I learned that from Kevin Costly.

So I think the missing 66’ers were a deliberate & planned reduction by Marvel and if it was some more important reason than their distributor going bust, I’d be hard pressed to imagine what.  But never say never.

The Gold piece is definitely weak. I cannot imagine that Marvel did not talk to them (they were talking all the time as they were in business together), and it’s too coincidental that it was those very issues which showed up 6 months later…..but what happened?

I do wonder if that oblong stamp indicates a single distributor or if it was just a generic WH Smith / John Bull type stamp which could have been used by others.  The T&P stamp has numbers which were clearly used in a systematised way unique to T&P.  The oblong stamp is equally clearly just there to bang a pence price onto it. Also, we need to stop calling it an oblong stamp because it came in triangles too.  

Does anyone have any idea in what quantities the oblong-stampers eventually arrived?  Alan Austin listed them as rare and Duncan still does. I checked the values on Duncan vs the surrounding issues, but he clearly values from a matrix as does Overstreet, so value is no indication of UK rarity.  I feel like it was relatively small quantities based on how VERY few examples one can find these days.

[Malacoda]

52 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

 

 

 

 

Or were there two distributors? Why price the same comic differently?

I think this is timing. Do you remember that before, I posted how the 67-69 cover stamps coincided with the move from Eastern to Sparta? That's when the price increased to a shilling....in November 1967.  So either this is totally random and they did price them differently, or the missing comics were turning up throughout 67 (or at least in 2 batches) and some arrived after the prices had gone up. 

When did DC go up to 1/- ? 

 

[Get Marwood & I]

10 minutes ago, Malacoda said:

Does anyone have any idea in what quantities the oblong-stampers eventually arrived?  Alan Austin listed them as rare and Duncan still does. I checked the values on Duncan vs the surrounding issues, but he clearly values from a matrix as does Overstreet, so value is no indication of UK rarity.  I feel like it was relatively small quantities based on how VERY few examples one can find these days.

They're not overly prevalent now, based on the limited examples I've seen and gathered. 

2 minutes ago, Malacoda said:

When did DC go up to 1/- ? 

Stamp 7 of the 13th cycle if Action Comics is anything to go by:

[Albert Tatlock]

4 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

you might want to edit the post to remove your personal details.

Dunnit, thanks.

Didn't work at first, then I realised I needed to log back in.

All this was over 50 years ago, and we are still like a dog with a bone over it.

[Malacoda]

29 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

They're not overly prevalent now, based on the limited examples I've seen and gathered. 

When I was gathering these last year, I found, without trying, about 30 examples of FM#4 (T&P cover stamp), but literally only 1 of FM#5 and I had to look for that. Some time later, I found another FM#5 but on close inspection it turned out to be the same copy again. 

Also, with regard to MCIC 4 (sale date May 10, 1966) there are loads of T&P stamped issues, as you'd expect, but also.....

 

 

[Get Marwood & I]

30 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Dunnit, thanks.

Didn't work at first, then I realised I needed to log back in.

All this was over 50 years ago, and we are still like a dog with a bone over it.

It's something to do, isn't it Albert. It's one of the few things in life that I can immerse myself in and never tire of. I just love it, pottering around with comics.

28 minutes ago, Malacoda said:

When I was gathering these last year, I found, without trying, about 30 examples of FM#4 (T&P cover stamp), but literally only 1 of FM#5 and I had to look for that. Some time later, I found another FM#5 but on close inspection it turned out to be the same copy again. 

Also, with regard to MCIC 4 (sale date May 10, 1966) there are loads of T&P stamped issues, as you'd expect, but also.....

Indeed. I have so many different stamp types saved in the files. Some have enough surviving copies to indicate something systematic, others are just dotted about and may just be the work of one shop or outlet. 

I know what you mean about finding the same book - in my DC number sequencing work you had to be really careful not to include the same copy as representing multiples - this one went through three eBay sellers it seems...

 

[Albert Tatlock]

58 minutes ago, Malacoda said:

That's when the price increased to a shilling....in November 1967. 

Chancellor James Callaghan released a statement at 9.30pm on Saturday 18 November 1967 stating that the Government had decided to lower the exchange rate from $2.80 to $2.40 per £1, a 14.3% change. Interest rates were raised from 6.5% to 8.0%, cuts to defence budget announced, and banks and the stock exchanges would be closed on Monday. The statement notes the “heavy cost” of this move in terms of higher prices in imports but also “fresh opportunities”.

Like an opportunity to put the price of comics up by 2d.

[Get Marwood & I]

Changing tack just for a second, I have been saving online images of T&P stamped Dell's for a long time now. Every time I see one, I save it. See it - save it - sort it. That sounds familiar. 

And all I have to show for it is this lot:

Sixty three examples ranging from the middle of 1962 to early 1966 cover dates.

The numbers include quite a few multiples of the same issue too. That's not many examples to show for the best part of four years is it. There aren't that many copies in my files with non-T&P UK distribution evidence either.

We're quite focussed on Marvel and DC as you would expect, but I find some of the other publishers just as intriguing, if not more so. Miller and T&P sharing Archie for example. The Miller only Harveys and IWs. And the single solitary T&P Gold Key:

I do like that one. 

One thing I am getting a strong feeling for, in all my research endeavours, is just how few examples exist now of comics from the early sixties that were imported to the UK either as stamped cents or UKPVs. Especially for the lesser publishers which in some cases are now bordering on non-existent. I own so many comics now which fit into the 'only copy I've ever seen' bracket. None of them are worth anything mind, nor do I expect them ever to be, but they are ridiculously scarce and it's a shame to see them slowly drifting off to a point where one day no one will ever remember that they were even here.

I can't wait to get back to actual live fairs, to see what more is out there - what I may have missed, or not been as focussed on, since the last time I was at one (coming up to two years now). Fingers crossed that the virus recovery continues. 

[Malacoda]

58 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Chancellor James Callaghan released a statement at 9.30pm on Saturday 18 November 1967 stating that the Government had decided to lower the exchange rate from $2.80 to $2.40 per £1, a 14.3% change. Interest rates were raised from 6.5% to 8.0%, cuts to defence budget announced, and banks and the stock exchanges would be closed on Monday. The statement notes the “heavy cost” of this move in terms of higher prices in imports but also “fresh opportunities”.

Like an opportunity to put the price of comics up by 2d.

Fascinating.  Do you think Iain MacLeod is using 'honourable man' in the Shakespearian sense?

So maybe my theory about the change of printers is not the reason for the 67-69 cover stamp era.  I noted before that price changes always seem to be the precursor to periods of CS and even non distribution.  I think Steve proved that that ain't necessarily so, but it does seem to happen a lot.