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The Distribution of US Published Comics in the UK (1959~1982)
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5,828 posts in this topic

On 7/21/2020 at 7:29 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Posting in one of my threads is the very definition of barrel scraping TMR :) (thanks for the kind post on your own blog by the way)

And what's up with Spider-Man? 

The later ones are the same colour as the ink pads we used to use in the Bank years ago to stamp cheques and stuff. Sort of purpley. But having already burrowed through the bottom of the barrel with the numbering, even I wouldn't dare research stamp colour variations.

hm

 

Or would I! 

I posed this question earlier in the thread - what happened to the unsold UK newsagents copies? No evidence I'm aware of and there aren't enough remaindered compendiums out there to cover all titles in my opinion (Double Doubles only had DC and the odd Marvel - what about the Charltons, Archies etc?). I bet they just sat there until sold or were dumped. 

Thorpe & Porter recycled their unsold stock periodically, usually at reduced prices.

The triangular stamp on this was found on comics alongside the regular 9d and 10d versions, usually on issues 2 or 3 years out of date. 

I had thought they tailed off about 1966/67, but have recently noticed a couple from 1971.

In theory, there is a chance they could turn up on anything from 1959 onwards.

Anyone want to do the spadework on gathering a full set? There could be even more than the 3021 or so Marvel UKPVs, as they appeared on anything T & P distributed.

comicjim109.jpg

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24 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Thorpe & Porter recycled their unsold stock periodically, usually at reduced prices.

The triangular stamp on this was found on comics alongside the regular 9d and 10d versions, usually on issues 2 or 3 years out of date. 

I had thought they tailed off about 1966/67, but have recently noticed a couple from 1971.

In theory, there is a chance they could turn up on anything from 1959 onwards.

Anyone want to do the spadework on gathering a full set? There could be even more than the 3021 or so Marvel UKPVs, as they appeared on anything T & P distributed.

comicjim109.jpg

You made it Antoni! Albert Tatlock - Wikipedia

Sorry, I didn't realise you'd Tatlocked, I said I didn't realise you'd Tatlocked (Fred Elliott)

I have quite a few of the triangular 'Sale Price' stamps in the First Distribution files:

sale.jpg.75eded060e0ed50070f9d9d467468d16.jpgs-l1600.jpg.3ba6c66f98d5977264dffe67e010aec5.jpgs-l16001.jpg.c807d024a8b9bb1ead82fc1a521bb134.jpg

How do you know they were the work of T&P then? What more can you tell us? Spill the beans, or I'll get Sharples onto you :)

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Cheers

I am presuming that they were being recycled by T & P, as they arrived alongside the regular priced items, not every month in my locality, probably 3 or 4 times a year. 

As T & P had an effective monopoly on the distribution, who else could have supplied them? There are enough of them around to suggest that they were available nationwide and had not passed through the hands of a purely  local outlet.

T & P would surely not have supplied a third party to undercut their own items, so the only explanation I can think of (and I thought of it at the time) is that these had been dredged up out of the warehouse whence came the current month's crop, to try and squeeze a little more revenue out of them.

Also, who but T & P would put a comic on sale with an INCREASE in the cover price, as on the Flash 142 you have shown, and my FF 2?

I have some more of the triangular stamped items squirreled away, will try to unearth some soon.

On the subject of the numbers in the top half of the earlier T & P stamps, surely these were a coded signal to the newsagent on which to return at the next opportunity, to receive a credit. if a comic had not shifted after say 2 months, it would be parcelled up and sent back when the next delivery came in.

Having said that, back issues could quite frequently be found, up to a year after they were originally offered for sale. It would depend on the alertness level of the individual shopkeeper. I obtained JIM 58 still on sale in a nearby shop in the late summer of 1961, along with a couple of other  supposedly expired issues. I went back a couple of weeks later expecting to be able to fill more gaps, but alas there were by that time only the latest batch, the same as those available everywhere, 

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3 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

On the subject of the numbers in the top half of the earlier T & P stamps, surely these were a coded signal to the newsagent on which to return at the next opportunity, to receive a credit. if a comic had not shifted after say 2 months, it would be parcelled up and sent back when the next delivery came in.

How would that work with a 1-9 number range though Albert? What would a newsagent infer from an 'eight' for example?

445612824_TP1-9Grid(9d).thumb.PNG.6fbba48b9f6635d6a59d5065c2d52141.PNG  8.jpg.08dc5f370014987e6aa2bebe17b61e91.jpg hm

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If the newsagent went through his stock, he could see that if his new delivery was, say, numbered 8, then anything lower than that was now out of date.

Not every comic sold, so to hold onto them all would mean an ever-increasing stockpile, meaning more money tied up.

At intervals, therefore, he would weed out the oldest items and return them for a credit. 

In the case of my local newsagent, a little man came and parked his little dark blue or purple van outside the door and carried various bundles in and out. If I pestered the owner for a look at the comics, I would be told that they were not ready yet (they must have been lower down the packing order that the stuff for older customers), and if I came back a little later all would be well. The van driver and the newsagent would then hold a conclave with various sheets of paper, but no money, changing hands. Highly mysterious to me at the time, knowing nothing of the inner workings of the capitalist system.

I still remember what my mother told me what to say when taking in the money for our account 'pay for the papers, 138'. We had a daily newspaper, a woman's magazine and 2 weekly British comics on order, so the amount never varied.

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12 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

If the newsagent went through his stock, he could see that if his new delivery was, say, numbered 8, then anything lower than that was now out of date.

I don't think that works Albert. There are 12 months in a year so a 1-9 numbering system would mean 9 'deliveries' which doesn't fit with a 12 monthly comic cycle.

Also, think about it, once a full cycle was complete and delivery 1 arrived again, what would be out of date at that point? All 2 to 9's?  It doesn't work does it. 

This is what Ena thinks of your theory Albert: GOODBYE, STORM DORIS; HELLO STORM ENA TEACUP! - Voice of The North

 

Run! :grin:

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But the numbers are not tied to any particular month. They are just an indicator of how up-to -date any given issue is.

if your shop has just taken delivery of a batch of comics stamped with No 1, you can keep the Number 9 and 8 for the time being, but anything lower has had its chance, and can be returned for a credit.

And the numbers do not correspond exactly with the cover date.

As previously noted, Journey Into Mystery was running a month behind, so the, for example, its December issue was current as long as the January issues of other titles. What mattered was the number stamped on that JIM. It corresponded with the rest of the batch with which it had arrived, which would have shown a variety of cover dates in the case of DC, and no cover date at all in the case of Marvel. The newsagent would have been bewildered if there had not been this method of indicating how up-to-date each comic was.

My Uncle Albert, who I am running this account for, has fallen out with Ena for the time being, but he says you seem a decent chap.

He is 140 next birthday, so cannot get out much, but he says to let us know next time you will be in t'Rovers and he will shuffle round an treat you to half a mild.

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32 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

But the numbers are not tied to any particular month. They are just an indicator of how up-to -date any given issue is.

if your shop has just taken delivery of a batch of comics stamped with No 1, you can keep the Number 9 and 8 for the time being, but anything lower has had its chance, and can be returned for a credit.

And the numbers do not correspond exactly with the cover date.

As previously noted, Journey Into Mystery was running a month behind, so the, for example, its December issue was current as long as the January issues of other titles. What mattered was the number stamped on that JIM. It corresponded with the rest of the batch with which it had arrived, which would have shown a variety of cover dates in the case of DC, and no cover date at all in the case of Marvel. The newsagent would have been bewildered if there had not been this method of indicating how up-to-date each comic was.

My Uncle Albert, who I am running this account for, has fallen out with Ena for the time being, but he says you seem a decent chap.

He is 140 next birthday, so cannot get out much, but he says to let us know next time you will be in t'Rovers and he will shuffle round an treat you to half a mild.

I'll be down t'road, up t'bar, in t'Rovers. 

Now stop mitherin ya daft apeth. 

Night Albert :)

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When comics were returned they tore off the logo and just returned that as proof of no sale, comics not sold were of no value and this saved postage costs.

They were supposed to destroy the comic but I think most newsagents still sold remaindered books at a knock down price or bagged them and sold them as a set

Just like my poor Batman 83 :( 

 

450052005_Batman83.thumb.jpg.d8443a05d34558053497ea8003679a52.jpg

 

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4 hours ago, Albert Tatlock said:

If the newsagent went through his stock, he could see that if his new delivery was, say, numbered 8, then anything lower than that was now out of date.

Not every comic sold, so to hold onto them all would mean an ever-increasing stockpile, meaning more money tied up.

At intervals, therefore, he would weed out the oldest items and return them for a credit. 

 

 

I think that you are over thinking things here mate. Newsagents that I frequented in the 60s never had the option of returning unsold stock of US comics. They were sent a box of random comics every week and put them out in the racks. I remember seeing the same comics on display week after week unsold.. I also remember complaining to my local newsagent  that the US comics were out of sequence and complaining that I had missed an issue of Action Comics or Superman. They pointed me to the box of unsold Richie Rich and Caspar  the Ghost etc.

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31 minutes ago, Kevin.J said:

When comics were returned they tore off the logo and just returned that as proof of no sale, comics not sold were of no value and this saved postage costs.

They were supposed to destroy the comic but I think most newsagents still sold remaindered books at a knock down price or bagged them and sold them as a set

Just like my poor Batman 83 :( 

 

450052005_Batman83.thumb.jpg.d8443a05d34558053497ea8003679a52.jpg

 

I remember buying US comics as an eight/nine/ten/eleven year old  in 1962 to 1966 at various outlets such as School bring and buy sales  and Church fetes  and Charity stalls and a lot of them were obviously second hand used comics, but I never saw title stripped comics anywhere. Not in the UK anyway. It just did not happen.

Edited by Redshade
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@Redshade @Kevin.J @Albert Tatlock

I love to read your recollections of how things were back in the day guys, and then try to fit them to an outline of what the distribution process may have been. I wonder how much of the disagreement we see is based on different regional practices?

Stephen, you say you have never seen a proliferation of covers with the mastheads removed to indicate a returns process and that ties in with my experience. And yet it actually makes a kind of sense as we know that some coverless books at least turned up in T&P's 'Double Double' formats (mostly DC with the odd Marvel) and annuals. So the Double Double's either were made up of newsagent returns, or perhaps from overstock that T&P did not distribute to the newsagent network. We don't know.

Stephen, you also say that your newsagents got a random delivery of comics. That makes sense as, if T&P imported the unsold US DC comics, it makes sense that the mix would vary wildly. Marvel's were imported by T&P with printed pence prices so they would have some structure as T&P would request the books in volumes that suited the UK market and their sales intentions. For DC, before they started printed pence prices, we can presume that what came over to the UK was entirely dependent on the US buying habits. So a DC delivery may, for illustrative purposes only, have comprised a thousand copies of Superman and only a hundred of the Flash if that is how the unsold numbers panned out in the US. So some newsagents would clearly miss out if there were insufficient issues to distribute.

I can understand for DC that the early distribution would have been completely random. And I see anecdotal evidence that some newsagents returned unsold copies - and maybe these ended up as Double Doubles and the T&P 1967 remaindered annuals - and maybe some newsagents didn't and stuck them in a sale box or indeed just left them there until they sold. There is no direct evidence that I have seen that T&P were responsible for the triangular 'Sale Price' stamps Albert - maybe these were the newsagents work.

For Marvel, the arrangement was more formal as the imported copies started off with printed prices and, if the dates are any indicator, the T&P stamped US copies seemed to arrive later, e.g. when shipping strikes stopped the printed pence copies coming over.

It amazes me how unclear everything is, which is why I started the thread. There are aspects that we can prove through the physical presence of evidence - and indeed have proven in this thread - but so much of the early distribution process is based on speculation and individual - often conflicting - recollections. 

I find it fascinating all the same. 

 

 

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By the way, I've started a piece of work which seeks to plot every event that I have posted about in this thread and all my other UK focussed research threads. I often lose track of how many aspects I have researched and posted about over the last 4 years and, bizarrely, sometimes I read an old post and think "That is an interesting snippet, I wasn't aware of that" only to find that I wrote it. 

The timeline will include things like the printed pence start / end dates for all seven publishers, the dates that stamped copies show for all publishers, the link to US price fonts, who distributed what publishers by date (Miller / T&P), the cover price changes and other differences (including indicias) and a whole host of other aspects, links and patterns. It already looks a big ugly thing and, as is often the case, I will end up reformatting it a thousand times before I present anything here.

A bit like this date sequence from my Marvel UKPV thread, but much bigger and all publisher focussed:

450179098_KeyMarvelUKPriceVariantDates.PNG.cf348d7436cf7868090179c6703ce418.PNG

Hopefully it will act as a baseline of all the combined knowledge which we can all challenge and finesse and then use in subsequent discussions without having to constantly refer back and hunt for things. I've looked at so many things now I've lost track of it (which is why I did the separate 'Pence Palace' Journal summary pages)

Wish me luck :)

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This is mostly speculation, I readily admit, but there may be some ideas worth pursuing.

 The circular T & P stamp had a dual function, the primary one being to display the price.

 The top half, with the number, was intended to convey some information, but what information, and to whom?

 Clearly not to the purchaser, the end user, to whom it would have been unintelligible.

 So it was for the benefit of the wholesaler, the retailer, or possibly T & P themselves

 If it were an indicator of the shelf life of the individual comic, then it would inform the newsagent of how long that item had been on his shelf, and when he could return it for a credit.

 Maybe there was a window of opportunity for returns. Say, for example, the new delivery were stamped with a number 7. The newsagent would have known when to expect this delivery, and would have his returns bundled up ready, an operation, after all, which he performed daily with his newspapers. Say that he was entitled at this point to return anything marked with a 5, and those found their way back to the warehouse. The following month, he would return number 6, and receive fresh stock marked 8, and so on.

 This would prevent his stock from becoming stale.

 If the number represents a deadline for returns, it would incentivise him to weed out the out of date items. It would also help T & P to guard against any unscrupulous dealers who attempted to take advantage of the SOR facility by introducing cheaply bought secondhand material back into the supply chain. If T & P would accept only that month’s legitimate returns, stamped with the relevant number, any would-be fraudster would have to wait up to 9 months to cash in.

 The SOR system was already open to abuse in the USA, as the publishers accepted returns of just the top portion of the front cover, leading to the availability of incomplete copies on the secondhand market, sometimes marked with a price as low as 1 cent. These can still be found on ebay to this day, but there do not seem to be any three quarter British equivalents, so T & P must have insisted on the return of the full comic.

 Once again, I stress that the number was not connected to any calendar month, but just to T & P’s internal accounting system. More numbers could have been used, of course, but 9 would be sufficient in these circumstances. It did not even need to be numbers, letters would have been an acceptable alternative. After all, A, B, C, D could perform the same function as 1, 2. 3, 4 and so on.

 

 

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41 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

 So it was for the benefit of the wholesaler, the retailer, or possibly T & P themselves

 If it were an indicator of the shelf life of the individual comic, then it would inform the newsagent of how long that item had been on his shelf, and when he could return it for a credit.

Cool theory, but I think the physical evidence doesn't bear it out Albert.

Look at some issue sequential examples (click to enlarge):

Detectives Comics:

  • #274 - T&P 9
  • #275 - T&P 9
  • #276 - T&P 4
  • #277 - T&P 3
  • #278 - T&P 2
  • #279 - T&P 6

There is no logical pattern to these numbers so, in my view, no logical way that they could tell a newsagent anything meaningful about stock rotation or sequential returns.

357746891_274Dec1959-9.thumb.jpg.bea17856358a6c2df41cd8741806b3d0.jpg    1364950898_275Jan1960-9.thumb.jpg.187b83efa2201266c124708d259a7ca5.jpg     1593267485_276Feb1960-4.thumb.jpg.cdcabed055537fe0cb722f89cd377d79.jpg 

1936519523_277Mar1960-3b.thumb.jpg.c323e53a99f764906d2994c50a79d96a.jpg 1209619847_278Apr1960-2a.thumb.jpg.197ada9bcd486ed09da91827950a91ac.jpg 1117535669_279May1960-6a.thumb.jpg.c30b3771afd00b665946832cc9d1f7e7.jpg

The other elephant in the room - certainly for DC - is that the cover date and / or issue number is the glaringly obvious way for the newsagent to determine shelf life. If Detective Comics #279 arrives, he only has to look at his shelf stock issue numbers to make any judgement as to what to remove ("About time I got rid of that there issue 274 me thinks..."). The T&P stamp numbering is impenetrably complicated an indicator by comparison.

My belief is that the numbers relate to the internal T&P process and have no bearing on the newsagents' procedures or even dates.

I have looked at the numbering in detail and in most cases the same issue carries the same stamp number but not always which further complicates a stamp driven shelf life indicator theory.

Have I convinced you yet Albert? :grin:

 

 

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I have many sleepless nights contemplating UK distribution, lots of questions, some answers but these seem to lead to other questions.

Why do T&P stamped cents and UKPV of the same issues exist? As I understand it T&P started distribution of US comics with issues remaindered In the US which he could buy below wholesale prices because they would otherwise be pulped. Later struck a deal to have them printed at source with UK price to save the stamping process. If T&P wanted prices preprinted And eliminate stamping it suggests that the stamp and its number was of no importance does it not?
Does it mean that T&P got an equally good deal on purchasing pence preprinted issues as he did on buying the remaindered issues? If not why didn’t they just stick to stamping them?  If T&P did get a good deal on preprinted and had their print run order for UKPV why would they then buy a batch of cents issues on top and stamp them? Couldn’t they have just ordered a bigger print run?

if T&P could order a set amount of pence copies on the print run why is existence of pence copies so random? Wouldn’t they have just asked for a set number each month of the best sellers say 10,000 every month of Spider-Man and FF etc. I can understand a break for dock strike but why do some titles have numerous pence gaps (Or did we have lots of dock strikes in 60/70s)? Why do odd issues appear, I don’t see T&P asking for a print run of Patsy Walker for one issue, never before or never again. Why does one issue of Patsy Walker exist in pence?

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5 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Maybe Patsy Walker burnt their fingers and they said never again. Ditto My Girl Pearl.

Possibly but if they had ordered a pence print run it would have been many months before they knew sales - a tester perhaps?

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4 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Cool theory, but I think the physical evidence doesn't bear it out Albert.

Look at some issue sequential examples (click to enlarge):

Detectives Comics:

  • #274 - T&P 9
  • #275 - T&P 9
  • #276 - T&P 4
  • #277 - T&P 3
  • #278 - T&P 2
  • #279 - T&P 6

There is no logical pattern to these numbers so, in my view, no logical way that they could tell a newsagent anything meaningful about stock rotation or sequential returns.

357746891_274Dec1959-9.thumb.jpg.bea17856358a6c2df41cd8741806b3d0.jpg    1364950898_275Jan1960-9.thumb.jpg.187b83efa2201266c124708d259a7ca5.jpg     1593267485_276Feb1960-4.thumb.jpg.cdcabed055537fe0cb722f89cd377d79.jpg 

1936519523_277Mar1960-3b.thumb.jpg.c323e53a99f764906d2994c50a79d96a.jpg 1209619847_278Apr1960-2a.thumb.jpg.197ada9bcd486ed09da91827950a91ac.jpg 1117535669_279May1960-6a.thumb.jpg.c30b3771afd00b665946832cc9d1f7e7.jpg

The other elephant in the room - certainly for DC - is that the cover date and / or issue number is the glaringly obvious way for the newsagent to determine shelf life. If Detective Comics #279 arrives, he only has to look at his shelf stock issue numbers to make any judgement as to what to remove ("About time I got rid of that there issue 274 me thinks..."). The T&P stamp numbering is impenetrably complicated an indicator by comparison.

My belief is that the numbers relate to the internal T&P process and have no bearing on the newsagents' procedures or even dates.

I have looked at the numbering in detail and in most cases the same issue carries the same stamp number but not always which further complicates a stamp driven shelf life indicator theory.

Have I convinced you yet Albert? :grin:

 

 

Here is a set of 1961 stamped DCs.

All available 8 Flash are there, and the 4 missing months I have filled in with other titles.

They follow a logical sequence, gradually ascending. In case they are not showing too clearly, the number are:

Jan  4, Feb 6, Mar 7, Apr 8, May 8, June 1, July 2, Aug 3, Sept 4, Oct 6, Nov 7, Dec 8.

There will always be slight anomalies because T & P were at that time importing unsold returns from DC, so there must have been instances where an odd number of stragglers went on a later shipment. Also, different publication dates in the US would have meant that a particular cover date would have been split between 2 consecutive shipments.

The first few months should have been stamped:

Oct '59........7

Nov '59.......8

Dec '59.......9

and so on. The Pat Boone cover dated October '59 was a bi-monthly, so received a stamp that corresponded with September.

Same applies to JLA 2, which it seem from the cover date should have been a 5, but it has received a 4 because JLA was also a bi-monthly at the time, this one being Dec '60/Jan '61.

Confusing enough?

comic611.jpg

comic612.jpg

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