Marvel UK Price Variants 16 16

[Get Marwood & I]

2 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

I've got eighteen of the top 20 now and will post a gathering picture later. They look very happy together I tell you.

   

[ADAMANTIUM]

the "battle" ended up a "thorpe!" 

Congrats @Get Marwood & I  looking forward to the story when your ready! Write it down now so you don't forget the details   

Glad you revisited!

[Get Marwood & I]

1 hour ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

the "battle" ended up a "thorpe!" 

Congrats @Get Marwood & I  looking forward to the story when your ready! Write it down now so you don't forget the details   

Glad you revisited!

Forget what....? 

[ADAMANTIUM]

1 minute ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Forget what....? 

I don't want the story of how you obtained the "battle" lost, especially since I'm bringing the marshmellows for the deets!  

[porcupine48]

[Get Marwood & I]

On 1/9/2020 at 11:18 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

One last thing, as if that all wasn’t enough, whilst scrolling the updated master list a thought occurred as to why Marvel Team-Up #81 has always been missing its pence copy while Marvel Super Heroes #80 was always a rather a solitary pence copy:

Hmmmm.

Now, do you think the printer could have made a mistake that month and selected the wrong title…..? 

See ya! 

Well, I thought that was intriguing if no one else did (and not a single meaningful comment regarding Battle #70?).

In a similar vein, I've been plotting the number of UKPVs by month in line with some recently received distribution data (thanks Bob). It has helped to show why some key issues have UKPVs for certain months and not others and supports my theory that all the pence issues have now been found. There's a few years in the seventies where only ten pence issues per cover month were produced, regular as clockwork. With titles beginning and ending during the period, and with some being bi-monthly, it would have had to have been someone's job to work out which ten would be selected each month. There's some odd choices looking at the data.  A summary for another day. 

 

[Redshade]

2 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Well, I thought that was intriguing if no one else did (and not a single meaningful comment regarding Battle #70?).

In a similar vein, I've been plotting the number of UKPVs by month in line with some recently received distribution data (thanks Bob). It has helped to show why some key issues have UKPVs for certain months and not others and supports my theory that all the pence issues have now been found. There's a few years in the seventies where only ten pence issues per cover month were produced, regular as clockwork. With titles beginning and ending during the period, and with some being bi-monthly, it would have had to have been someone's job to work out which ten would be selected each month. There's some odd choices looking at the data.  A summary for another day. 

 

I still log on to your posts Steve and I'm sure that I am not your only follower. You have done an absolutely staggering amount of research, the sheer tenacity and persistence of which is astounding. I just hope that your full findings will published in full. With respect, awe and adimiration. Stephen.

Edited January 21, 2020 by Redshade

[Get Marwood & I]

3 hours ago, Redshade said:

I still log on to your posts Steve and I'm sure that I am not your only follower. You have done an absolutely staggering amount of research, the sheer tenacity and persistence of which is astounding. I just hope that your full findings will published in full. With respect, awe and adimiration. Stephen.

Thanks Stephen. Just having a bad night and made the mistake of posting. Death, cancer, dementia. Sometimes it just drags you down....

[ADAMANTIUM]

6 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Thanks Stephen. Just having a bad night and made the mistake of posting. Death, cancer, dementia. Sometimes it just drags you down....

 

[porcupine48]

4 hours ago, Redshade said:

I still log on to your posts Steve and I'm sure that I am not your only follower. You have done an absolutely staggering amount of research, the sheer tenacity and persistence of which is astounding. I just hope that your full findings will published in full. With respect, awe and adimiration. Stephen.

Right!Steve has it all so covered,it's almost intimidating,he's just done so much!I just enjoy quietly as I worry I'll just say something foolish.He's the expert I'm just a pupil.

 

[Get Marwood & I]

16 hours ago, porcupine48 said:

Right!Steve has it all so covered,it's almost intimidating,he's just done so much!I just enjoy quietly as I worry I'll just say something foolish.He's the expert I'm just a pupil.

 

[tv horror]

On 1/9/2020 at 11:18 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

I've got eighteen of the top 20 now and will post a gathering picture later. They look very happy together I tell you.

WELL DONE STEVE!

[porcupine48]

Here's a pence,but not a price variant.Still nifty wizard cool

And this came with for lucky folk I believe?It's still sealed,so don't know if there's stickers inside

Anyhow,drive by quilling!

Edited January 22, 2020 by porcupine48

[Get Marwood & I]

3 minutes ago, porcupine48 said:

Here's a pence,but not a price variant.Still nifty wizard cool

And this came with for lucky folk I believe?It's still sealed,so don't know if there's stickers inside

Anyhow,drive by quilling!

I remember buying that. The album was for sticking stickers in and came with none as I recall. Tres cool. 

[porcupine48]

2 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

I remember buying that. The album was for sticking stickers in and came with none as I recall. Tres cool. 

Thanks!I have the master of high grade UK stuff Batmiesta to thank for that.He's got the goods on the weeklies!

[rakehell]

On 1/22/2020 at 7:57 PM, porcupine48 said:

Here's a pence,but not a price variant.Still nifty wizard cool

And this came with for lucky folk I believe?It's still sealed,so don't know if there's stickers inside

 

That's the trick thing with a lot of the weeklies. A ton of 'em came with premiums. They're really tough to find. I've got one -

And I'm sure I've only got this because the guy I bought the lot from either forgot or never knew it was in there. I found it about 5 pages in. Just goes to show: always check inside! 

[Get Marwood & I]

Evening 

My good boardie chum @Gnasher Bob sent me this interesting article from an old UK fanzine recently:

It's not often you find any distribution data that helps with your research but this did. Firstly, it correctly identifies that the Incredible Hulk would stop being distributed in the UK at issue #152. This ties in nicely with the presence / absence of pence copies:

'Distributed in the UK' and actual price variants are two different things of course, but it's still a neat tie in. 

Secondly, the article mentions that only ten titles per month were distributed in the UK which, again, ties in with some research I had been doing - and have done for a few of the seven pence publishers - namely the 'how many titles per cover month' assessment - evidence here:

This process is a good way of sense checking whether there may be any missing issues in the 3,020 pence tally and it's interesting what it shows at times. For example, I did an assessment of four months as follows:

What it shows is which of the titles available were selected for the pence treatment. I did it as a bi-monthly snapshot to accommodate bi-monthly titles. You can see a core of the same 9 titles selected in each of the four months. Now, in December 1971 we have Conan #12 as one of the 10 chosen titles. In February, April and June however there are no Conans to select so someone had to choose a different title to keep it up to ten titles. They chose Monsters on the Prowl for February and April. In June, Iron-Man was chosen to be one of the ongoing ten and, accordingly, Monsters was dropped. You can see all that activity here in the snapshot of my spreadsheet below:

The exercise helps you to see why Monsters on The Prowl only has pence copies for 15 and 16 and not the surrounding issues. If issue 14 or 17 appeared that would take the pence total above ten titles.

As to why that title (Monsters on The Prowl) was chosen over other arguably more popular ones in the first place is now likely lost to history. But it's an interesting little snapshot into the thinking and process of the time.

There are more scenarios that I have found. maybe I'll post them another time.

See ya 

 

[Gnasher]

12 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Evening 

My good boardie chum @Gnasher Bob sent me this interesting article from an old UK fanzine recently:

It's not often you find any distribution data that helps with your research but this did. Firstly, it correctly identifies that the Incredible Hulk would stop being distributed in the UK at issue #152. This ties in nicely with the presence / absence of pence copies:

'Distributed in the UK' and actual price variants are two different things of course, but it's still a neat tie in. 

Secondly, the article mentions that only ten titles per month were distributed in the UK which, again, ties in with some research I had been doing - and have done for a few of the seven pence publishers - namely the 'how many titles per cover month' assessment - evidence here:

This process is a good way of sense checking whether there may be any missing issues in the 3,020 pence tally and it's interesting what it shows at times. For example, I did an assessment of four months as follows:

What it shows is which of the titles available were selected for the pence treatment. I did it as a bi-monthly snapshot to accommodate bi-monthly titles. You can see a core of the same 9 titles selected in each of the four months. Now, in December 1971 we have Conan #12 as one of the 10 chosen titles. In February, April and June however there are no Conans to select so someone had to choose a different title to keep it up to ten titles. They chose Monsters on the Prowl for February and April. In June, Iron-Man was chosen to be one of the ongoing ten and, accordingly, Monsters was dropped. You can see all that activity here in the snapshot of my spreadsheet below:

The exercise helps you to see why Monsters on The Prowl only has pence copies for 15 and 16 and not the surrounding issues. If issue 14 or 17 appeared that would take the pence total above ten titles.

As to why that title (Monsters on The Prowl) was chosen over other arguably more popular ones in the first place is now likely lost to history. But it's an interesting little snapshot into the thinking and process of the time.

There are more scenarios that I have found. maybe I'll post them another time.

See ya 

 

Glad that helped, Steve. Nice job in clarifying it

[Get Marwood & I]

1 hour ago, Gnasher said:

Glad that helped, Steve. Nice job in clarifying it

Thanks Bob 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 2/3/2020 at 7:17 AM, Gnasher said:

Glad that helped, Steve. Nice job in clarifying it 

Evening all 

Another link from Bob, this time for the UK newszine 'Comic Media News':

The July-August 1976 has this 'Distribution Game' report...

....which lists out the comics to be distributed to the UK for the four months of December 1976 to March 1977:

Interesting that they mention the monthly issues chosen to fill the bi-monthly title gaps (see my previous post).

I compared the list of titles for December 1976 and January 1977 to my spreadsheet to see if the titles matched those for which we have confirmed UK Price Variants (remember, 'distributed in the UK doesn't always necessarily refer to actual price variants - sometimes it refers to imported cents copies). For December 1976, all 25 of the titles on the CMN list have corresponding 10p UK Price Variants. Great start. But my spreadsheet has a further two books - Fantastic Four #177 (10p) and Marvel Classics Comics #12 (20p).

For January 1997, only 22 of the 25 titles on the CMN list have corresponding 10p UK Price Variants. The three titles not on my spreadsheet are Marvel Feature #8 (doesn't exist, the title was cancelled at issue #7), Werewolf by Night #42 (I have #41 as the final pence copy) and Spectacular Spider-Man #2 (doesn't exist as a pence copy - only #1 and a handful of later copies in the #50/60s had the pence treatment). In addition, my spreadsheet has three additional pence copies for this month - Fantastic Four (again) #178, Marvel Classics Comics (again) #13 and Red Sonja #1. 

So close, but no overall match.

In the following issue of the CMN however, #28, we see this update in the distribution report for that issue:

It notes the addition of Fantastic Four for both months, and the loss of Spectacular Spider-Man #2, but doesn't catch the other changes, showing that things were never cast in stone and that the data - amateur as it is - can't be definitively relied upon.

Quite an enjoyable exercise though, seeing how closely things tie in.

See ya