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

[Malacoda]

On 5/14/2021 at 9:35 AM, 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'm never sure where we are on the ballast theory.  Depending on which accounts you read, it dates back to before the war. After the war, comics and books which were scheduled to be pulped were sent to the UK as ballast deliberately to circumvent the ban on US imports.  They were used on the strict understanding they would be destroyed on arrival (and full knowledge that they would not be).  This carries on into the 60's where cargo ships are still rocking up to traditional docks and being unloaded by stevedores and longshoremen.  However, Felixstowe container port was opened in 67 and by the 70's comics were arriving in container ships, but container ships still need ballast, so that could still tie up, even though the import ban ended in 1959.  However, ballast tanks sit below the water and are typically flooded with sea water. Ballast for transatlantic voyages typically comprised rocks and stone. During WW2 they carried rubble from bomb damage which was used for construction in the US. I can see why you would use paper - it probably makes fantastic ballast as it soaks up the water, so it can actually be made heavier after loading.  But how did anything that was made of paper survive being used as ballast after 3 weeks under Atlantic seawater? Unless it was meticulously wrapped and protected, which would defeat the object. I mean, clearly it did, but how? Is this because comics were loaded as counterweights in cargo holds, rather than ballast, and therefore not well packed and therefore suffered water damage?  That works for me, but that's not ballast. 

Edited May 15, 2021 by Malacoda

[Malacoda]

This intrigued me.  I thought it was one of the T&P 128 page giants from 1949 to 1953, but I thought these were all Weird Tales and SF & more like magazines than comics. Then I realised that the genius selling it has put 1950 in the title, but the CGC clearly says 1958, so these are the comics T&P were printing from US matrices while waiting for the import ban to end. This is a kind of proto-double-double. And despite being published, not imported, by T&P, it retains the Atlas logo from the original cover which cunningly makes it look even more like the (forbidden fruit) US mags.  Anyone who winces at 'UK Edition' rather than 'UK variant' should look away now. 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/353454014576?hash=item524b804070:g:~tsAAOSw5P9gdGud

Edited May 16, 2021 by Malacoda

[yrag9591]

They should also look away if they are allergic to absurd prices!

[Malacoda]

14 hours ago, yrag9591 said:

They should also look away if they are allergic to absurd prices!

This is my current favourite.  I don't have the latest Overstreet, but I feel this maybe slightly above book value. 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/333969529065?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649

[Get Marwood & I]

Two more from the list

 

[yrag9591]

5 hours ago, Malacoda said:

This is my current favourite.  I don't have the latest Overstreet, but I feel this maybe slightly above book value. 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/333969529065?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649

No, no, that’s a bargain. But that Kid Colt Album even has a page missing! 

[Malacoda]

On 5/11/2021 at 7:50 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

• Returning to the Hulk examples you posted Rich, notice how the later shilling priced UKPVs have 5p on their 15c cousin copies. That implies that they were distributed later than their sequential UKPVs, which makes sense if they were US returns. 

 I don't think this is so.  I think the opposite is borne out.  And actually decimalisation gives us a weirdly specific line in the sand. 

Stamps and PV's went decimal at wildly different times. 

Officially decimalisation was Valentines day 1971. Cover stamps went decimal over the space of 2 months of issues, 6 months in advance.  July 70 cover date everything was shillings.  Aug cover date, stamps were split  (5p and 1 shilling on each stamp).  Sept 70 cover date, everything was 5p.

PV’s remained in shillings to October 71 and went decimal in the GS month of Nov 71, 9 months after decimalisation.

So there are 14 months where a shilling PV being re-stamped with 5p doesn’t prove anything because the stamps were all 5p anyway.

If you look at the cover dates of the issues after the 3^rd hiatus:

Hulk cents issues are stamped 1/- up to 129 (July 70).   #130 is stamped 5p (Aug 70).

FF cents issues are stamped 1/- up to 100 (July 70). 101 is stamped 5p (Aug 70).

You get the idea.  The issues which are PV AND CS are stamped with exactly the same values they would have been stamped with had the CS come in the same month as the PV.

I guess maybe the absence of a split price in Aug means something, but then the fact that these issues arrived as PV first and then the stamped copies were done later answers that? Maybe, maybe not.

This doesn’t mean the returns idea is necessarily wrong.  The stamped ones could be returns (due to the gap between release dates and cover dates in the States vs cover date release in the UK)  but surely the fact that the stamps on these changed at the exact same time as for CS only issues strongly indicates otherwise?   

For example, if Hulk 129 was printed with 1/- for the UK and 15c for the US, then the US copies went off, spent 2 or 3 months in circulation before being returned to Marvel, then shipped to the UK and re-stamped by T&P, why would they have a 1/- stamp on them when T&P had gone over to decimal stamping 2 months before?

It’s still possible, depending on how long they spent on the shelves in the US and how fast they got hauled back to Marvel and re-shipped, but then how do you explain that these issues changed from the same cover date as the ones that were shipped as cents / cover stamp issues in the first place?  There’s no gap between the change for cover stamp issues which had no PV’s (normal circulated issues) and the cover stamps which did have PV’s which we’re postulating were returns that rocked up months later.  I’m sure that when Ethel chucked her pre-decimal stamps in the bin in August 1970,  that was that. A comic could not acquire a 1/- stamp 3 months later.

So what was going on? Returns really feels like the right answer, but the stamps say otherwise. 

[Get Marwood & I]

There's value in this Rich, plotting the stamp values and cut off points - nicely done.

We always seem to come back to the same stumbling block though don't we. We can say factually what exists, in what denominations, and for what cover dates. But we can never really say why, it seems, or identify the arrival method, book status (US returns or freshly printed) or calendar distribution dates. 

Keep plugging away though mate. It's a nice change for me to be reading, not leading, on UK related research 

[Garystar]

I too struggle to see the 5p stamps as being returns, as I postulated earlier -  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?

Also bear in mind that many months prior to decimalisation goods were being priced in pence to get people used to the new money - 5p and 10p coins were introduced in 1968 replacing 1/- and 2/- coins. 
 

The question remains why do 5p stamps and 1/- UKPVs exist simultaneously.  

 

[Malacoda]

35 minutes ago, Garystar said:

I too struggle to see the 5p stamps as being returns, as I postulated earlier -  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?

Indeed.  Between 9 months from US release dates when the PV's were minted and 6 months from cover date / UK on sale, so definitely not imported after decimalisation and very very definitely not after the PV's went decimal, unless something super-bonkers was happening. 

There's another point I forgot to add which we've mentioned before:  these PV/CS dual issues go right the way up to cover date July 1971, when T&P handed over to World. Now, I'm sure there were some already-distributed leftover T&P issues, both CS and PV, hanging around on spinner racks in the first couple of months of World's reign, but do we think that US returns of comics were rocking up in their thousands or tens of thousands at T&P 3 or 4 months after the handover? 

[Malacoda]

3 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Keep plugging away though mate. It's a nice change for me to be reading, not leading, on UK related research 

Well, it's a dialogue.  When I posted those Hulks late night, it occurred to me to go back the next day and check the stamp changeover dates, but it was only when you said that the change to 5p indicated they likely came later that I remembered the surprising difference between when the CS's went decimal and when the PV's did, which meant (1) the change didn't prove they came later and (2) if the change of the stamps on the issues that had PV's exactly synchronised with the change on the issues that only had CS's, it would prove the opposite. A dialectic! 

Having said that, the stamps for that month are a mess. Marvel’s Greatest Comics & Kazar were both 25c giants, so stamps.  No idea if we can read anything into that.  Outlaw Kid and Western Gunfighters were both number 1’s and I haven’t seen copies of either.  Captain America is, as always, flying the flag for this one.  Also Sgt Fury 80 (Sept) is stamped 5p. 

OK, here’s another speculation about why the stamping changed so far in advance of decimalisation: one of the things I believe is that there were very few returns of Marvel comics to T&P.  There were comparatively few returns in the States, and in the UK American comics were more glamorous and sought after, and followed 15 years where any American magazine was like gold dust.  What returns there were, I believe were re-circulated  some months later, particularly to seaside and holiday towns at knock down prices on a no-return basis.  Various sources back this up. 

Now, if you knew decimalisation was coming in a few months’ time, and you were in the habit of recirculating your returned issues months later or the following summer, what would you do?  You’d start putting decimal stamps on them as early as possible, wouldn’t you? 

 

[Get Marwood & I]

5 hours ago, Garystar said:

The question remains why do 5p stamps and 1/- UKPVs exist simultaneously. 

And why a 5p stamp, and not 6p, the printed price that followed the shilling printed price? DC managed a 5p printed price in July/Aug 71. Maybe because the 6p printed Marvel UKPVs were 'new', and the 5p stamped copies were second hand.

And didn't our 'Operation Third Form' analysis indicate that, in 1965, the DC books on the stands were 10 months behind schedule? Maybe that has something to do with it - just a massive gap between the UKPVs and their cents stamped equivalents that we've all managed to miss or forget down the years, that carried on well into the 70's (or can anyone actually remember seeing Hulk #130 as a shilling in one shop and a stamp in another? It was 50 years ago)

Maybe the US printers didn't have a 5p print slug. Maybe the shilling UKPVs continued as such because they had to be requested a year in advance, so the price was set contractually. Maybe someone just forgot to change the shilling to 5p. Maybe there should have been a 5p 12 month window, leading to 6p. 

Maybe no one had the first clue what was going on during decimalisation (I'm channeling Colonel Nathan R Jessop) 

 

[Get Marwood & I]

Here's an interesting book, which came to me in a lot recently.

How does a 12c printed book, stickered in the US to 15c (way in advance of any printed price rise, and probably why it didn't sell), find its way over here for a 9d stamp I wonder?

And when.... 

Spoiler

 

[Malacoda]

2 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Here's an interesting book, which came to me in a lot recently.

How does a 12c printed book, stickered in the US to 15c (way in advance of any printed price rise, and probably why it didn't sell), find its way over here for a 9d stamp I wonder?

And when.... 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

What were the Canadian & Aus prices at this point? Maybe the cents aren't US cents? 

[Get Marwood & I]

10 minutes ago, Malacoda said:

 

What were the Canadian & Aus prices at this point? Maybe the cents aren't US cents? 

Not sure I follow you Rich, but to my knowledge there weren't any DC Canadian or Australian priced copies around that time, if that's what you meant. If you meant the sticker, I've seen that one on many comics in the US and assume it to be of US origin.

Spoiler

For the comic to get to the UK, it would have had to be unsold in the US. I thought it odd that (presumably) a US outlet placed a higher price sticker on the book and then returned it to the re-distribution arm once it didn't sell, thereby giving the game away that they were overcharging. Potentially!

[Albert Tatlock]

3 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Here's an interesting book, which came to me in a lot recently.

How does a 12c printed book, stickered in the US to 15c (way in advance of any printed price rise, and probably why it didn't sell), find its way over here for a 9d stamp I wonder?

And when.

We do not know whether the 15 cent sticker could have been added AFTER the 9d stamp was applied.

For that to have happened, though, the book would have had to set off on its travels to foreign parts. Maybe a British colony (using cents) that T & P supplied?

But if the item has been in the UK ever since T & P stamped it, it must have arrived with the sticker still in place.

Was this bought from a UK seller?

[Get Marwood & I]

Just now, Albert Tatlock said:

We do not know whether the 15 cent sticker could have been added AFTER the 9d stamp was applied.

For that to have happened, though, the book would have had to set off on its travels to foreign parts. Maybe a British colony (using cents) that T & P supplied?

But if the item has been in the UK ever since T & P stamped it, it must have arrived with the sticker still in place.

Was this bought from a UK seller?

Yes, it came in a Charlton lot I purchased from eBay Albert. No way of knowing where these books have been really, is there. Or what order, anyway. 

[Malacoda]

On 5/23/2021 at 9:41 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

There's value in this Rich, plotting the stamp values and cut off points - nicely done.

We always seem to come back to the same stumbling block though don't we. We can say factually what exists, in what denominations, and for what cover dates. But we can never really say why, it seems, or identify the arrival method, book status (US returns or freshly printed) or calendar distribution dates. 

Keep plugging away though mate. It's a nice change for me to be reading, not leading, on UK related research 

A question for DC collectors: 

Anecdotally, I always hear that DC's importation in the UK was far more scattergun than Marvel : made up of returns, inconsistent in which titles, what volumes and where distributed, with a brief flirtation with PV's but pretty much all inkstamped. How random was it? 

With regard to the Marvel PV/CS duality after the 3rd hiatus, I had always thought of this as the period when the PV's came back. In fact, with some help from Gary & Marwood, I've so far ascertained that only 16% of issues were purely PV's (84% being CS+PV, CS or ND) and that's after only three sweeps of the T'internet. I find another couple more CS's every time I search, so the 16% keeps going down. 

CS&PV			210
CS only			161
ND			55
PV only			80

I suspect there may be a CS for every PV. If this is the case, it would certainly strengthen the idea that these are not random (i.e. not returns) but that distribution was a fully dual system after April 1969. 

If the Marvel CS's were returns, it raises another very interesting question.  I've never been able to ascertain if Marvel's distribution to T&P was via IND or a separate deal between Marvel and T&P.  Various factors make me suspect it was separate deal. After July 66 it sort of becomes irrelevant because IND owned T&P,  then when you get into the dual pricing time (April 69 - July 71) or more specifically November 69 -  July 71, after Curtis replace IND, it becomes interesting again, because it's potentially 2 separate distribution deals. 

The PV's were printed by Sparta and shipped to Newark, then sailed to the UK. Was the US leg of this done by Curtis? By IND in the period up to Oct 69? Or by World Color in Sparta?  Or by a separate contractor as part of the container package? The reason it becomes significant is that if the CS's during this period actually were returns, then they were being distributed by Curtis to US regional & local wholesalers and then the returns were being gathered up and shipped separately to T&P in the UK, that means there were in fact 2 wholly separate distribution and shipping processes going on for the PV's and CS's.  

If the CS's are not returns, as I suspect, and were shipped alongside the PV's, it raises the question of why they weren't just printed as PV's.  Sparta easily had the resources to do as much or as little of this as Marvel wanted.  

[Get Marwood & I]

14 minutes ago, Malacoda said:

A question for DC collectors: 

Anecdotally, I always hear that DC's importation in the UK was far more scattergun than Marvel : made up of returns, inconsistent in which titles, what volumes and where distributed, with a brief flirtation with PV's but pretty much all inkstamped. How random was it? 

I'm not a DC collector as such, but I thought the plotting exercise that I did for the first four cycles of the T&P stamps on DCs (20 cycles for selected titles) if anything proved there was consistency. There are only a handful of missing stamped issues for the first 46 in scope titles which is admirable given that it was the start of it all, wouldn't you say?

For DC, UKPVs appeared briefly in July/August 1971 for just five issues and then more fully from cover date February 1978 to October 1981. That's much smaller than Marvel's UKPV window of course but I wouldn't call a near four year run a flirtation Rich?

There were 840 UKPVs in the cover date windows vs 1,227 cover dated issues in total. I haven't ever looked to see whether the titles and issues that did not get a UKPV during the time arrived as stamped copies. Not enough hours in the day!

[Malacoda]

1 hour ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Not sure I follow you Rich, but to my knowledge there weren't any DC Canadian or Australian priced copies around that time, if that's what you meant. If you meant the sticker, I've seen that one on many comics in the US and assume it to be of US origin.

  Reveal hidden contents

For the comic to get to the UK, it would have had to be unsold in the US. I thought it odd that (presumably) a US outlet placed a higher price sticker on the book and then returned it to the re-distribution arm once it didn't sell, thereby giving the game away that they were overcharging. Potentially!

Yes, I was wondering if the sticker was an Aus or Can re-price. All of the Aus DC comics I've seen just seem to sit with the US price on them, so I have no idea how the re-pricing was done.  ( I mean actual DC, not the Murray repackages).