Marvel US Price Font Variations (June 1960 ~ February 1961) 3 3

[ADAMANTIUM]

3 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

You might need to resize the image first as there is a file size limit. More from me tomorrow on this, if it isn't showing by then! 

 it works for me when I right click his quoted image and hit save image as, I just changed mine back to normal  

[Redshade]

9 minutes ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

First save that picture to your computer where you can find it easily to upload, or better yet when you right click on the photo, hit save image as, a screen pops up, scroll on the left of that screen until you get to desktop, click desktop, name the file, and hit save...

Then log in here go to you profile by clicking on your name in the upper right corner and choosing "profile." then when you get to profile, hover over the smaller profile pic box and click on it, and click on upload from computer then scroll on the left of the page that pops up to get to desktop, click on desktop, find the file you named and click on it then hit the "save" button...

should work  

Thank you muchly Mr Adam. I have never found anything online so easy to follow.

[ADAMANTIUM]

Awesome @Redshade when you upload the image, same as you did this time, there is a "crop" feature before  it becomes official and it you hit "done".... 

You could do it again and when the "crop" feature comes up, hover you mouse cursor over the dotted lines in the pic, now in these dotted lines will be slightly bigger circles on the corners and in the middle, hover over those until it gives you opposite facing "arrows" instead of just your normal one-way arrow on your mouse cursor

when you get double the arrow click and drag and you can adjust the box size, as what is inside these dotted lines is what will appear as your profile pic....

Just if you want   

Edited April 16, 2019 by ADAMANTIUM

[Get Marwood & I]

3 minutes ago, Redshade said:

Thank you muchly Mr Adam. I have never found anything online so easy to follow.

Ha! And you've done your profile page too! Show off 

[Redshade]

10 minutes ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

Awesome @Redshade when you upload the image, same as you did this time, there is a "crop" feature before  it becomes official and it you hit "done".... 

You could do it again and when the "crop" feature comes up, hover you mouse cursor over the dotted lines in the pic, now in these dotted lines will be slightly bigger circles on the corners and in the middle, hover over those until it gives you opposite facing "arrows" instead of just your normal one-way arrow on your mouse cursor

when you get double the arrow click and drag and you can adjust the box size, as what is inside these dotted lines is what will appear as your profile pic....

Just if you want   

Now I feel a migraine coming on. I think that I'll quit whilst I am ahead. Where's my bottle of claret*?

*(Cheap supermarket Bordeaux).

[ADAMANTIUM]

1 minute ago, Redshade said:

Now I feel a migraine coming on. I think that I'll quit whilst I am ahead. Where's my bottle of claret*?

*(Cheap supermarket Bordeaux).

No Worries  You wouldn't have to save the file to your computer again or anything, but feel free to pm me or @Get Marwood & I any time  if we're able  we'll figure something out!

[Redshade]

2 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Ha! And you've done your profile page too! Show off 

I did that accidentally whilst trying to upload the image to my avatar, just before I asked for assistance.

[Aman619]

i got curious to search for any videos of comics production.  Found one.  It was shot by Alan Light, founder of the CBG newspaper, on a tour of the Sparta plant in 1977.  Sit through the fluff until around the 8 minute mark where the tram arrives at the comics area of the plant.  A couple of notes I made relative to our discussions here.  Their "new" system could print 42000 comics an hour. Each plate could last for over a million impressions (their previous lead based plates could only mange 350000 before needing to be replaced. You can see piles of pre printed covers with multiple covers on each, he notes that its weird to see covers from different publishers on the same printed sheets!  It was all about getting them printed and out the door. The tour guide commented that every Indian Jones sized pile of printed magazines would be gone in 24 hours!, only to be replaced by all new product to skip out.  At the 10 minute mark you can see the film negatives being worked on ("stripped").   then the film abruptly ends.

Note: this has been posted here on the boards over the years.... but always fun to revisit!

  

[Get Marwood & I]

2 hours ago, Aman619 said:

i got curious to search for any videos of comics production.  Found one.  It was shot by Alan Light, founder of the CBG newspaper, on a tour of the Sparta plant in 1977.  Sit through the fluff until around the 8 minute mark where the tram arrives at the comics area of the plant.  A couple of notes I made relative to our discussions here.  Their "new" system could print 42000 comics an hour. Each plate could last for over a million impressions (their previous lead based plates could only mange 350000 before needing to be replaced. You can see piles of pre printed covers with multiple covers on each, he notes that its weird to see covers from different publishers on the same printed sheets!  It was all about getting them printed and out the door. The tour guide commented that every Indian Jones sized pile of printed magazines would be gone in 24 hours!, only to be replaced by all new product to skip out.  At the 10 minute mark you can see the film negatives being worked on ("stripped").   then the film abruptly ends.

Note: this has been posted here on the boards over the years.... but always fun to revisit!

  

Yes, always good to watch and we've discussed it in this thread before (or one of my threads anyway). The thing is that it's a 1977 film and the period we're concerned with is 1960 to 1961. I appreciate the comments about what the plant 'used to' be able to handle, but 17 years is a long time in any industry and there may have been even less capability in 1960 than implied in the video. And also, 1960 was the first time the printers had ever been required to produce pence versions alongside the cents copies.  They were likely finding their feet - certainly all the many printing inconsistencies that I have documented support that view as they didn't stick to one format for more than five minutes!

The part about having DC and Marvel together on the same pages answers one of our discussion points but only in the context of 1977 capability not 1960. We need a video from then!

For the sake of argument, let's say the 1960's plates could only manage 350k copies before needing to be replaced. According to Comichron,  the comics with the price font variations that I have plotted had average paid circulations of around 150k per issue. So they could easily be produced with one plate even with a healthy overprinting. Also, at some point the plates had to be switched anyway to add the pence stripped copy (I love that one chap in the video is smoking a pipe while doing so).  So whilst interesting, the video doesn't seem to answer any of our questions.  Taking Rawhide Kid #17 again, why does a book with an average paid circulation of 150k have four variations if the plant that allegedly, soley produced it could manage that volume with one plate?

Could it be that whilst the average paid circulation was around 150k, issue 17 was so popular that a further set of printings was requested? Comichron is one of the few sites that explore the history and they don't even have a monthly / issue break down for this period (unless I'm missing it). Sherlock Holmes used to say that once you remove the impossible, what is left must be the truth. So it seems to me, aside of general remembrances and recollections from this period that no one actually knows for sure. So is a reprint not the most obvious explanation for a book with three different cents price fonts?  

Let's hope Brittany and the team take up the challenge to find an answer 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 4/19/2019 at 9:20 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

Let's hope Brittany and the team take up the challenge to find an answer 

They did!  Brittany passed the question on, as I knew she would, and Matt Nelson has been in touch with me expressing an interest and desire to help take this forward. I've shared all my spreadsheets and research with him so we may yet see some progress. It would be great if CGC's industry clout drives out an answer to this long running question. Fingers crossed, and I'll keep you posted 

[ADAMANTIUM]

[Get Marwood & I]

9 minutes ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

[Get Marwood & I]

On 4/20/2019 at 10:16 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

They did!  Brittany passed the question on, as I knew she would, and Matt Nelson has been in touch with me expressing an interest and desire to help take this forward. I've shared all my spreadsheets and research with him so we may yet see some progress. It would be great if CGC's industry clout drives out an answer to this long running question. Fingers crossed, and I'll keep you posted 

 

Quick update from CGC on this:

 

"Also, we're all still trying to unravel the mystery of those varied 10 cent books from 1960-1961, so for the case of US Marvel editions that display two different price fonts (10 cents), we will not differentiate between them for now."

 

That seems fair enough to me. It's been going on long enough, so no point changing anything until we have some clarification. If we never find an answer however, my recommendation would be to add the following wording to the CGC labels for the 13 known examples: "Different 10c price font versions exist". At least that would be an acknowledgement of the phenomenon, if not an explanation. And it may, just may, help to drive out an explanation if the right person gets to see one. 

 

[Get Marwood & I]

[Get Marwood & I]

To my knowledge, this is the first time this information has appeared in Overstreet

Page 175/176 in the current Edition (#49)

[Foley]

Spoiler

To my knowledge, this is the first time this information has appeared in Overstreet

Page 175/176 in the current Edition (#49)

Steve, this is brilliant! Not sure how I missed this at the time, but well done on all the time and effort you put into your research  

I'm really glad that it's now acknowledged in Overstreet 

Any update since from CGC?

[Get Marwood & I]

On 10/14/2019 at 12:19 PM, Foley said:

  Reveal hidden contents

To my knowledge, this is the first time this information has appeared in Overstreet

Page 175/176 in the current Edition (#49)

Steve, this is brilliant! Not sure how I missed this at the time, but well done on all the time and effort you put into your research  

I'm really glad that it's now acknowledged in Overstreet 

Any update since from CGC?

Thanks Ryan. No, nothing heard from CGC. Too busy grading I should think.

[Redshade]

Morning Steve.

Someone asked on a FB page the old "which were printed first pence or cents" chestnut.

My reply :

"I've been reading all the articles that touch on this for decades and as far as I know there has never been any definitive proof one way or another. Given that a researcher on the CGC forums has identified at least seven publishers that produced "Pence Variants" I doubt that they all used the same method or indeed stuck to the one system within the companies. I can imagine it being as something to do with the vagaries of the printing process or whatever the foreman decided".

Unless you've heard anything new?

[Get Marwood & I]

3 hours ago, Redshade said:

Morning Steve.

Someone asked on a FB page the old "which were printed first pence or cents" chestnut.

My reply :

"I've been reading all the articles that touch on this for decades and as far as I know there has never been any definitive proof one way or another. Given that a researcher on the CGC forums has identified at least seven publishers that produced "Pence Variants" I doubt that they all used the same method or indeed stuck to the one system within the companies. I can imagine it being as something to do with the vagaries of the printing process or whatever the foreman decided".

Unless you've heard anything new?

No, nothing new Stephen. Your response seems pretty good to me. It's likely we'll never know the printing order now isn't it. And even if the answer were found, it may indeed be different by publisher, date, shipping requirement or the foreman's fancy as you say. For a book like Rawhide Kid #17, with four different versions out there, maybe the pence copies were printed third. Or second. Or fourth. First maybe. Who knows. 

I've done my bit to get the question out there, and if CGC are now on the hunt too then the chances of finding an answer has increased. I would still like them to recognise the US price fonts on their labels though, as we know which books are involved now. I've documented them fully, and banged on about them for 3 years and no one has found another during all that time. By putting something like "Different US price fonts exist" on the labels of those 13 books, the chances of 'the right person' seeing them and coming forward with information increases still further in my opinion. Also, it 'protects' CGC as it shows that they are aware of the situation if not able to explain it. The buyer who sees such a note on the label knows that they are buying a book over which a production question mark exists, and for which different copies exist. Should a printing order one day be discovered, possibly rendering certain copies as second / subsequent printings, they could at least claim to have noted the discrepancy in a 'buyer beware' type fashion. But I'm probably over thinking it. 

I've said before, it probably wouldn't matter to the vast majority what order of printing was undertaken for the pence copies and, where applicable, cents variations. But to know something about why font variants exist, and in what order different books were printed would be nice given the focus on comics of this period. It's just the ongoing pursuit of knowledge really. 

[rakehell]

18 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

foreman's fancy

Is that like a fondant fancy that someone dropped on the floor?