Comic distribution in the 40s & 50s 2 2

[gadzukes]

When comics were shipped to Newsstands, Drugstores and where ever else they were sent in the 40s & 50s did the newsstand actually order the title and amount of each comic they wanted from (DC, Timely, Dell, ect...) or were there default titles and amounts that were shipped.  For instance if a Newsstand ordered from DC, did DC send them a box of 100 comics split between all the titles?  Maybe 15 Superman, 15 Action, 10 Batman, 10 Detective, 10 Wonder Woman, 10 Sensation, 10 Adventure, 5 All-American, 5 Green Lantern, 5 All Star, & 5 Mutt & Jeff... something like this, or would the Newsstand actually pick the titles & amounts they wanted for each comic?  Maybe it was a combination of both?  

 

[AJD]

Perhaps @Marty Mann, our man on the ground in the 1940s, could shed some light on this? What do you recall Marty - were most of the sellers holding similar stock, or did it seem that they could shape the inventory to suit their customers?

[PopKulture]

On 1/12/2020 at 10:17 AM, gadzukes said:

When comics were shipped to Newsstands, Drugstores and where ever else they were sent in the 40s & 50s did the newsstand actually order the title and amount of each comic they wanted from (DC, Timely, Dell, ect...) or were there default titles and amounts that were shipped.  For instance if a Newsstand ordered from DC, did DC send them a box of 100 comics split between all the titles?  Maybe 15 Superman, 15 Action, 10 Batman, 10 Detective, 10 Wonder Woman, 10 Sensation, 10 Adventure, 5 All-American, 5 Green Lantern, 5 All Star, & 5 Mutt & Jeff... something like this, or would the Newsstand actually pick the titles & amounts they wanted for each comic?  Maybe it was a combination of both?  

 

Somewhere I have some 1950's receipts from a periodical distributor here in Illinois and everything had number of copies ordered written in pencil for every magazine and comic. I presume it was either the proprietor or the delivery driver that penciled in the numbers. In this case, it appeared not to be random. 

[Marty Mann]

5 hours ago, AJD said:

Perhaps @Marty Mann, our man on the ground in the 1940s, could shed some light on this? What do you recall Marty - were most of the sellers holding similar stock, or did it seem that they could shape the inventory to suit their customers?

Thank you for asking!...I never thought about the distribution method of my comics but I did know that no one carried them all.

The Train Station and the Greyhound Bus Station were the place to buy STREET & SMITH COMICS...W.T. GRANTS was the

place to find DELLS and CLASSIC COMICS.  One corner store only carried a wall rack of TIMELY/MARVEL COMICS and the

Drugstore always had ARCHIE & PEP Comics.  The major Newsroom I went to had the DC's and FAWCETT's and a variety of

other titles but I could never count on finding the next months issue of any title.

I guess the search was half the fun and then there was always the pleasure of finding a book in a completely different store than

you normally  went to and seeing FUNNYMAN #1 hanging by a clothes pin in the window...and running home for a dime.

Marty

[lou_fine]

2 hours ago, Marty Mann said:

Thank you for asking!...I never thought about the distribution method of my comics but I did know that no one carried them all.

Makes me wonder what kind of outlet good old Edgar went to since he had an extensive cross section of pretty much everything in his collection.    

[Electricmastro]

2 hours ago, Marty Mann said:

you normally  went to and seeing FUNNYMAN #1 hanging by a clothes pin in the window...and running home for a dime.

Like this, right?

[Badger]

5 hours ago, Marty Mann said:

Thank you for asking!...I never thought about the distribution method of my comics but I did know that no one carried them all.

The Train Station and the Greyhound Bus Station were the place to buy STREET & SMITH COMICS...W.T. GRANTS was the

place to find DELLS and CLASSIC COMICS.  One corner store only carried a wall rack of TIMELY/MARVEL COMICS and the

Drugstore always had ARCHIE & PEP Comics.  The major Newsroom I went to had the DC's and FAWCETT's and a variety of

other titles but I could never count on finding the next months issue of any title.

I guess the search was half the fun and then there was always the pleasure of finding a book in a completely different store than

you normally  went to and seeing FUNNYMAN #1 hanging by a clothes pin in the window...and running home for a dime.

Marty

Was W.T. Grants a Five and Dime? There was a Grants Five and Dime in the town I grew up in and it was the only place to find Gold Key. This was in the early to mid-70s. The Circle K carried mainly Marvels with a couple of DC mainstays like Superman. The TG&Y carried Star Trek even after it quit publishing. I could go in there as late as 1978 and find early issues. The College book store carried Marvels and DCs. They also had 1000s of back issues; mainly early Marvel Westerns. I've always wondered what happened to them.

Edited January 13, 2020 by Badger

[Marty Mann]

27 minutes ago, Badger said:

Was W.T. Grants a Five and Dime? There was a Grants Five and Dime in the town I grew up in and it was the only place to find Gold Key. This was in the early to mid-70s. The Circle K carried mainly Marvels with a couple of DC mainstays like Superman. The TG&Y carried Star Trek even after it quit publishing. I could go in there as late as 1978 and find early issues. The College book store carried Marvels and DCs. They also had 1000s of back issues; mainly early Marvel Westerns. I've always wondered what happened to them.

Yes W.T. GRANTS was an "Up-Scale" five & dime  compared to WOOLWORTH & S.S. KRESGE...but they all had comic book

racks in their Toy Department...but again they all seemed to only carry DELL's.

Marty

Edited January 13, 2020 by Marty Mann

[Robot Man]

3 hours ago, lou_fine said:

Makes me wonder what kind of outlet good old Edgar went to since he had an extensive cross section of pretty much everything in his collection.    

Yeah, he didn't seem to miss much did he? Most of his earlier books had pencil arrival dates and what appears to be the number of copies received by the store in the upper right. Being, that he seemed to get everything though, I wonder if his store did not order them for him.

My local drug store seemed to get pretty much everything too. If you didn't go on the first day you could miss out on certain issues though.

[lou_fine]

13 minutes ago, Robot Man said:

4 hours ago, lou_fine said:

Makes me wonder what kind of outlet good old Edgar went to since he had an extensive cross section of pretty much everything in his collection.    

Yeah, he didn't seem to miss much did he? Most of his earlier books had pencil arrival dates and what appears to be the number of copies received by the store in the upper right. Being, that he seemed to get everything though, I wonder if his store did not order them for him.

Strongly doubt they were just ordered for Edgar hinself only, as I believed the Mile High codes indicate they were all multiple copies since the code also included a count of the number of copies ordered as the last number in the MH code.  

Edited January 14, 2020 by lou_fine

[gadzukes]

6 hours ago, Marty Mann said:

Thank you for asking!...I never thought about the distribution method of my comics but I did know that no one carried them all.

The Train Station and the Greyhound Bus Station were the place to buy STREET & SMITH COMICS...W.T. GRANTS was the

place to find DELLS and CLASSIC COMICS.  One corner store only carried a wall rack of TIMELY/MARVEL COMICS and the

Drugstore always had ARCHIE & PEP Comics.  The major Newsroom I went to had the DC's and FAWCETT's and a variety of

other titles but I could never count on finding the next months issue of any title.

I guess the search was half the fun and then there was always the pleasure of finding a book in a completely different store than

you normally  went to and seeing FUNNYMAN #1 hanging by a clothes pin in the window...and running home for a dime.

Marty

Wow, that's 6 different locations you were scoping out!  That's very interesting.  So did you figure out a weekly/monthly schedule of when to go to which store for when the new comics would arrive?

When the you did notice there were new comics how many of each comic would there normally be?  5? 10?  Do you suppose they left some in the back room to restock?

[gadzukes]

3 hours ago, Electricmastro said:

Like this, right?

Were the clothes pins a way many comics were displayed in the 40s?  I'll have to check my old comics to see if they have a "dent" in one of the upper corners.

[Electricmastro]

On 1/13/2020 at 8:07 PM, gadzukes said:

Were the clothes pins a way many comics were displayed in the 40s?  I'll have to check my old comics to see if they have a "dent" in one of the upper corners.

Probably not. It's rare for me to see old pictures of comics displayed front and center like that. Attention like that seemed to usually be reserved more for regular magazines.

1936:

1939:

1939:

1940:

1941:

1942:

1942:

1946:

1947:

1947:

1949:

1952:

1952:

1952:

1954:

Edited January 17, 2020 by Electricmastro

[Math Teacher]

On 1/13/2020 at 2:59 PM, lou_fine said:

Makes me wonder what kind of outlet good old Edgar went to since he had an extensive cross section of pretty much everything in his collection.    

Today, Edgar would be ostracized by some for not reading each comic!

[N e r V]

Pretty cool. I have that first issue of Life magazine in this one...

 

[Electricmastro]

20 minutes ago, N e r V said:

Pretty cool. I have that first issue of Life magazine in this one...

 

It’s also the earliest photo I’ve seen which features comics published by DC, because issues of More Fun Comics and New Comics are present.

[shadroch]

Thai was much much later, but when Atlas/Seaboard was announced, I asked my regular candy store to make sure they carried them and was told what comes in, comes in.

When the first ones showed up, I pointed them out to the owner and he didn't care. I did ask him if he could reorder a book I missed and he said he would try but it never showed up.

He only carried DC, Marvel and Charlton until carrying Atlas for a few months. Interestingly, he did not get any of the last issues of the Atlas  titles, so I guess the distributor bailed on them early.

[N e r V]

I really hate looking at photos like these. Makes me scan everything to see what I have including all the non comics stuff...

 

 

Probably could waste a few hours just browsing the photos for stuff...

[Randall Dowling]

On 1/13/2020 at 8:13 PM, Electricmastro said:

Probably not. It's rare for me to see old pictures of comics displayed front and center like that. Attention like that seemed to usually be reserved more for regular magazines.

 

1941:

1954:

Forgive my confusion, but I do think it was not uncommon to display comics and magazines with a clothes pin as shown in these photos you posted.  Also, this thread has many, many images of comics being sold that way as well.

Finally, I’ve personally owned and seen many, many golden age books that had what I used to assume were bundling tie marks at the top of the cover but have since realized at least some were dented by clothes pins like shown.  
Just wanted to clarify the response to @gadzukes original question.

[N e r V]

36 minutes ago, Randall Dowling said:

Forgive my confusion, but I do think it was not uncommon to display comics and magazines with a clothes pin as shown in these photos you posted.  Also, this thread has many, many images of comics being sold that way as well.

Finally, I’ve personally owned and seen many, many golden age books that had what I used to assume were bundling tie marks at the top of the cover but have since realized at least some were dented by clothes pins like shown.  
Just wanted to clarify the response to @gadzukes original question.

Clothes pins are long before my time but I still remember a number of dealers back in the day displaying their golden age and key silvers up on peg board. Maybe not as harmful but I do remember them occasionally getting knocked off. Also having a stack of gold and silver age comics just sitting there for someone to thumb through seems mind boggling by today’s standards but that’s how it was at times. I used to buy sets of SA comics bundled with string around them at a local flea market too. I picked up a run of FF #12-30 that way...