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

[Albert Tatlock]

3 hours ago, yrag9591 said:

Super, smashing, great.

[Malacoda]

20 hours ago, Garystar said:

There is a subby 39 with T&P stamp on eBayUK now (not sure how to do links on phone) search sub mariner 39 vg+.
This sits correctly with comics released before 13 April having stamps. 

Got it, thanks.  And Ethel landed the stamp right on the smokey wisp - the only bit of white on the cover. 

[Malacoda]

21 hours ago, themagicrobot said:

Mr Thorpe said:

I agree that it appeared that way for me too. Newsagents in that timeframe tended to have either DCs or Marvels. Conan the Barbarian 2 was cover dated Dec 1970. Decimalisation was Feb 1971 and didn't T&P have dual price stamps for a while? So this comic would have come in as an unsold return from the States at some point in 1971.

 

 

Superb.  So the dual PV/CS issues don't really give us a problem, as they are basically distributed as normal and then distributed some more later.  This little beauty, however, was non distributed and then presumably some johnny-come-latelies turned up, in unknown quantities but through normal distribution channels.  Tremendous.  In my spreadsheets, I have four levels of 'distributedness' but this means.....I have to add a new colour to my table. Good God. And other people think they've got problems! 

[Malacoda]

19 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

I know it's not really relevant to anything, but doesn't Daredevil look a tosser out there in the jungle in that suit. Then again, it might be colder than it looks, as Ka-Zar has got his woolly socks on. 

I like the way Captain Plunder is a 17th century buccaneer, yet his men are wearing jeans, T shirts and windbreakers. The dress code on that ship needs a serious overhaul. Mind you, they are carrying guns from the 26th century and being watched by a sabre tooth from the Pleistocene epoch, so maybe the woollen breeches aren't the real issue. DD's looking better and better.

[Garystar]

44 minutes ago, Malacoda said:

Superb.  So the dual PV/CS issues don't really give us a problem, as they are basically distributed as normal and then distributed some more later.  This little beauty, however, was non distributed and then presumably some johnny-come-latelies turned up, in unknown quantities but through normal distribution channels.  Tremendous.  In my spreadsheets, I have four levels of 'distributedness' but this means.....I have to add a new colour to my table. Good God. And other people think they've got problems! 

Can we deduce that about this Conan #2? Marvels cover dated December  1970 were being stamped by T&P 5p so could it not have been distributed with all the other December Marvels?

I don’t think we’ve any evidence that UKPVs (in Sterling) were contemporary whilst the stamped (decimal) were back issues and imported post decimalisation feb 71 - or have we? It would explain why there are two different types?

[Garystar]

Talking to myself here. The first stamp with 5p was Aug 1970, if they were imported post decimalisation that’s 7 or 8 months backlog - that wouldn’t have happened would it? especially if these had already been on sale as UKPVs?

[Albert Tatlock]

On 5/10/2021 at 5:43 PM, Malacoda said:

I agree.  I think TTA 62, FF 80, Nick Fury 14 and Silver Surfer 10 are The Unfindables. 

Cap 113, 115, 116, 117 Fury 13, Doc Strange 179, 181, Tower of Shadows 4,5,6,7,8 & COTL 12,  Chamber of Darkness 3,4,5, Am Adv 1 & 2, Astonishing Tales 1 and Conan 2 and 7 might turn up one day, especially Fury 13 & Doc 179, but those top four are not happening. 

 

[Malacoda]

Ooops sorry Albert.  I meant....

 

 

[Albert Tatlock]

1 minute ago, Malacoda said:

Ooops sorry Albert.  I meant....

Gotcha now. I knew the Sgt Fury was in circulation in 1964, so I did wonder a bit how it had escaped the dragnet.

[Malacoda]

My fault.  Mind you, if you can find this one, I will be properly impressed.  #14 I'm pretty sure is ND. Literally no one thinks it was distributed, but #13 allegedly came in. 

And many thanks for looking for the items on that list.  Those are, I believe, the full list of all ND SA Marvels so I can really a bang a lid shut when I get to them.  ( I feel the Bronze Age will be less easy to corral).  

Edited May 12, 2021 by Malacoda

[Albert Tatlock]

60p? I'll have a couple of those.

[Garystar]

On 5/11/2021 at 12:21 PM, Malacoda said:

while we're here, does anyone else have any evidence that the following were or definitely were not distributed in the UK: 

TTA 62, FF 80, Nick Fury 14, Silver Surfer 10, Cap 113, 115, 116, 117 Fury 13, Doc Strange 179, 181, Tower of Shadows 4,5,6,7,8 & COTL 12,  Chamber of Darkness 3,4,5, Am Adv 1 & 2, Astonishing Tales 1 and Conan 2 and 7. 

Much appreciated. I mean....very much!!!

Just checked mine and all of the above are cents unstamped in my collection. 
I’m sure we all have stories of finding the odd non-distributed issue in a newsagent, but these would have still been cents, with only a store stamp or sticker rather than a T&P. 

[Malacoda]

On 5/11/2021 at 6:15 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

I don't think they're there - you get a feel for it don't you, and my gut is telling me they won't appear. I'm not going to spend too much time looking therefore - July 71 it is for me, until your ND work says otherwise Rich. 

OK, so I've been through the rest of 71 (July - Dec) for Thor, Hulk, FF, ASM, Avengers, DD, Iron Man, Subby, Xmen, Where Monsters Dwell,  Amazing Adventures &  Astonishing Tales and not found one single CS.  Contrast this with pre July (pre 13/4/71 release dates) and you can immediately find anything up to a dozen copies without even trying.  Everything indicates this is handover point from T&P to World and the end of CS/PV duality and nothing counter-indicates it. 

@Garystar  Hi Gary, when you did this, did you find examples for every issue of every title for the last 28 months of T&P?  I've only taken one swing at it so far, and immediately  found examples for most of them (e.g.  out of 27 possible Thors, I found 21 immediately, out of 28 possible Hulks I found 21).  I wonder if you found the whole lot?   

The reason I'm asking is (stay with me here, everyone): 

We're conjecturing that Marvel started exporting their US newsstand returns to the UK at this point.

We know from history that DC always did this, but it resulted in patchy, non-sequential imports with lots of missing issues. 

We also know that Marvel had far fewer returns than DC ( 30% vs 50%) so you would expect the remains of Marvel returns to be even patchier. 

However, it looks to me like a decently conducted search might yield a full table i.e.  examples of virtually every issue of every title. 

Could this perhaps indicate that they weren't returns, but rather something else? 

If they were returns, and the consequence of this was a full set of cents variants every single month (from 30% returns), what the Hell were DC playing at all those years?

 

 

[Malacoda]

10 hours ago, Garystar said:

Just checked mine and all of the above are cents unstamped in my collection. 
I’m sure we all have stories of finding the odd non-distributed issue in a newsagent, but these would have still been cents, with only a store stamp or sticker rather than a T&P. 

Many thanks for all the effort (and to everyone else...especially the Robot for that Conan).  I agree. There is no doubt in my mind that odd issues, old issues and extra issues were put in as makeweights.  I haven't checked it yet, but I have a pet theory that during the World years (when it was supposedly much more tightly organised) there were no two months exactly the same.  I will try to substantiate this at some point. Unless it begins to interfere with my will to live. 

The interesting question is: how did they get there?  One can only assume that if Marvel were sending a load of odds-and-sods across the Atlantic, they would still have sent them to T&P (and if they were makeweights, they'd definitely have been bound for Leicester)  so why did they not acquire T&P stamps? If they were brought over by dealers, they'd have the dealers stamps or have been sold bagged and boarded, but I think in 69-71, you are literally just talking about Dark They Were. 

Two theories:  one that I think Albert posited, that canny newsagents, retailers or wholesalers were getting people to bring back an extra suitcase from their holidays. 

Another would be that these came over long after their cover dates, and with World having no means of date stamping, they were passed on to newsagents who put their own labels on  (or just wrote on the covers, as we've seen).  These would clearly not be on SOR, so it would explain why some of these were found on shelves years later. 

Edited May 14, 2021 by Malacoda

[themagicrobot]

As for the ND comics where odd copies were found in the UK (I'm sure I once owned a FF 80) what about the "ballast" theory? Certainly market stalls in London and Glasgow (I used to trade comics with someone from there in the late 60s/early 70s) had comics that hadn't arrived in the UK by the usual distributors. Not sure if everything in this link is correct but some interesting thoughts are made:

https://g1rm.wordpress.com/2020/04/18/a-short-history-of-ballast-comics/ 

Edited May 14, 2021 by themagicrobot

[Garystar]

I think the ballast theory holds up. Collecting circa 73-75 whenever I came across a wrinkled comic in a shop it was invariably a cents copy priced by the shop. The wrinkled ones were never UKPV or T&P stamped. I still have my slightly water damaged Spider-Man #121 which I picked up in a caravan site shop in Tenby Wales. 

[Garystar]

11 hours ago, Malacoda said:

Hi Gary, when you did this, did you find examples for every issue of every title for the last 28 months of T&P?  I've only taken one swing at it so far, and immediately  found examples for most of them (e.g.  out of 27 possible Thors, I found 21 immediately, out of 28 possible Hulks I found 21).  I wonder if you found the whole lot?   

Malacoda, when I did this exercise it was to see if there was a pattern in the numbers on the top bit of T&P stamps. It was during this exercise it was noted that UKPV and stamps didn’t co-exist until the last period but then T&Ps abruptly ended July 71. As such I only did a sample based on Marvels major titles. 

If you want to pm me your email address I will send you my spreadsheet. (Boards notification system can’t accommodate attaching excel spreadsheets).

[yrag9591]

5 hours ago, Garystar said:

I think the ballast theory holds up. Collecting circa 73-75 whenever I came across a wrinkled comic in a shop it was invariably a cents copy priced by the shop. The wrinkled ones were never UKPV or T&P stamped. I still have my slightly water damaged Spider-Man #121 which I picked up in a caravan site shop in Tenby Wales. 

I remember those wrinkled Marvels. They were 10p and I could sell them to a dealer for 15p because they were ‘ND’. The most common one was Spider-Man 128 but there were several others, including Hero For Hire 4. I can’t remember the others offhand.

[yrag9591]

I seem to remember that Alan Austin’s Price Guide referred to those issues as ‘nd’ as opposed to ‘ND’.

[Garystar]

2 hours ago, yrag9591 said:

I seem to remember that Alan Austin’s Price Guide referred to those issues as ‘nd’ as opposed to ‘ND’.

You are correct. From his 1975 guide;

I found Spider-man #128 and 129 (not water damaged) in a news agents in Swindon.