UK Price Variant Mark Jewelers 4 4

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 11/21/2022 at 4:24 PM, Beyonder123 said:

I collect MJ inserts whenever I can get them for cheap. I have some really good ones I'll have to post at some point. But as for selling this one, I don't even know what a good starting price would be. 100? 200? It's really one of a kind. Maybe I'd sell it at some point, but for now it's mine. 😁

Just submit it to CGC

 

That will give you plenty of time to contemplate selling it

[Stronguy]

On 11/21/2022 at 7:13 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

I'm hoping @Stronguy will chime in - I recall him speaking knowledgably about the comic collation process

Unfortunately, without having a time machine we're not going to know the exact what and wherefore of how these were stapled 45 years ago.

From what we see, it looks legit.  It is possible that a book with an MJI made it into the pence stack.  That just adds a twist to the whole manufacturing sequence.
I know for things like newspapers (I had a friend who worked as a pressman), special inserts happen in a separate collating step similar to how that video showed the cover going on after the fact.  A customer could contract for x-number of inserts to be put in and those would be run first.  Let's say they wanted 10,000 with their inserts.  Those inserts would get added in a step that was separate from the collating of the normal pages.

My theory on this is, the MJIs were added in the allocated number but some extra remained.  Somehow one of more of those guts, with the MJI made its way into the pence-cover sort.  Since the staples line up with all the rest of the pence books, it would have had to have come out of the stapler at the same time.  Just my 2c.

As for the reason the staples are in a different position on MJIs goes, I think it might (and this is just a guess) have something to do with the thickness of the insert.  Driving a staple through the comic with a cardboard MJI would require a lot more force than one without.  Maybe that required a reset of the stapler pressure or maybe it went through a completely different stapler.  Just a theory.

[Get Marwood & I]

On 11/22/2022 at 1:06 AM, Stronguy said:

As for the reason the staples are in a different position on MJIs goes, I think it might (and this is just a guess) have something to do with the thickness of the insert.  Driving a staple through the comic with a cardboard MJI would require a lot more force than one without.  Maybe that required a reset of the stapler pressure or maybe it went through a completely different stapler.  Just a theory.

You'd imagine they'd have more than one stapling machine wouldn't you, if only in case one broke down. They were producing millions of comics, after all. The additional thickness of the MJI copy may indeed have needed a different pressure / calibration. Or, the expert of the time might laugh at that notion and say "That machine could put a staple through a brick" and the different staple location could be just down to a different machine's set up. Like you say, we'll likely never know for sure, for the specific time frame of the MJIs, but it's fun speculating all the same.

[Cpt Kirk]

On 11/21/2022 at 4:21 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

How cool is that!

Pence copies and MJIs. Two of my favourite things 

Inserts werent placed in pence copies by design of course, but things can happen in error at the factory, or later by post production manipulation. Can you show us a clearer shot of the bottom staple placement please Beyonder? A higher placement than on regular copies can be an indication that it is genuine and yours does indeed look higher if the staple is where I think it is: 

https://boards.cgccomics.com/topic/215201-mark-jewelers-inserts/?do=findComment&comment=12264264

I'd post your copy in that MJI thread and get some more eyes on it.

Also, do you remember where you got it?

@trademarkcomics @Cpt Kirk @Stronguy

wow... I'm pretty sure that would have to be a manufacturing error.  Great post!

[Get Marwood & I]

On 11/24/2022 at 5:30 PM, Cpt Kirk said:

wow... I'm pretty sure that would have to be a manufacturing error.  Great post!

@trademarkcomics was the first to spot the staple difference thing. He actually trade marked the find, so we both have to pay him fifty pence now