The Distribution of US Published Comics in the UK (1959~1982) 15 15

[Albert Tatlock]

7 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

here 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.

Another is attached.

There are just too many of these around to be the work of one particular newsagent. A wholesaler possibly (the one in these parts was Abel Heywood), but if they turned up nationwide, we can surely assume that they were from the T & P warehouse.

What we need is some input from a (probably retired) newsdealer of the day.

[Redshade]

21 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Another is attached.

There are just too many of these around to be the work of one particular newsagent. A wholesaler possibly (the one in these parts was Abel Heywood), but if they turned up nationwide, we can surely assume that they were from the T & P warehouse.

What we need is some input from a (probably retired) newsdealer of the day.

 

Evening Albert. I did my comic foraging in the West Riding in the 60s and do not recall seeing this triangular sale price stamp at all. Any comics that were looking tired or dog eared after sitting in the racks for months on end were thrown into a box on the floor with a reduced price written in biro. They were obviously the least popular titles so one was never able to get a bargain on the more sought-after comics.

Edited October 11, 2020 by Redshade

[Albert Tatlock]

My uncle had a newsagents in Stockport in the 1960s, and I was a paperboy there in about 1964-67. I was out on my round on the afternoon of 30 July 1966, in fact I did 3 rounds that day, as some of the other lads found something else to do.

He told me that he sent unsold comics back, and I have been there on  more that one occasion when he was bundling up comics and magazines to be collected.

I wish I could consult with him now, but unfortunately he has been pining for the fjords for quite some time.

[Get Marwood & I]

15 minutes ago, Redshade said:

36 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Another is attached.

There are just too many of these around to be the work of one particular newsagent. A wholesaler possibly (the one in these parts was Abel Heywood), but if they turned up nationwide, we can surely assume that they were from the T & P warehouse.

What we need is some input from a (probably retired) newsdealer of the day.

 

Evening Albert. I did my comic foraging in the West Riding in the 60s and do not recall seeing this triangular sale price stamp at all.

I'm sure geography has a lot to do with it. I don't recall ever seeing a Charlton as a kid and I've been reliably informed that that's because they didn't distribute them in my area. I think different things happened in different areas.

[Get Marwood & I]

1 hour ago, Garystar said:

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?

No rhyme nor reason is there Gary. There are periods in Marvel UKPV history where there was a monthly title cap, but not always. The early solicitations made little sense. Some solicitations were clearly mistakes (a few outlined in my UKPV thread where it's clear they picked the wrong issue). And some gaps are due to clashes with locally produced reprint titles. Pricing was an issue for DC - any issue above standard price was always skipped as a UKPV.

Patsy Walker (#89) is a good example of an illogical approach to UKPV solicitation as you say - why only one issue of that, and two of Patsy & Hedy (70 & 71)? Why did T&P let Miller have TGK #54 and WE #29 in the same month - surely they would stand a much better chance of selling than unknown (to the UK audience) funny girl titles? And why not Millie and Kathy? Why select Battle #70 if it is the last issue in the title?

And why was Orville more popular than Cuddles?

We may never know.

[Kevin.J]

18 hours ago, Redshade said:

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.

Wrong, I bought stacks of them as a kid from the local newsagent I Iater worked at as a paperboy. Best though was a book/magazine shop in the market in the city center, I didnt get to go into town very often but when I did they would have bags of 3 comics without the logo for sale and I got to choose 1 pack if I was lucky ( I am from a poor background ) and money was tight, so I didnt get much. I loved that shop, the lady would let me in the back and would sit in the shop reading through the comics while my mother did her shopping elsewhere and then she would come back for me. I still bought my new comics from there until the early 80s.

[Redshade]

37 minutes ago, Kevin.J said:

Wrong, I bought stacks of them as a kid from the local newsagent I Iater worked at as a paperboy. Best though was a book/magazine shop in the market in the city center, I didnt get to go into town very often but when I did they would have bags of 3 comics without the logo for sale and I got to choose 1 pack if I was lucky ( I am from a poor background ) and money was tight, so I didnt get much. I loved that shop, the lady would let me in the back and would sit in the shop reading through the comics while my mother did her shopping elsewhere and then she would come back for me. I still bought my new comics from there until the early 80s.

You're sure that these were US import comics? If so I stand corrected. It certainly was not something that I or my friends came across.

Edited October 11, 2020 by Redshade

[01TheDude]

3 hours ago, Albert Tatlock said:

 

I wish I could consult with him now, but unfortunately he has been pining for the fjords for quite some time.

He was pining, was he?

I once knew a parrot like that. Norwegian Blue-- beautiful plumage.

[Get Marwood & I]

[Garystar]

21 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Some solicitations were clearly mistakes (a few outlined in my UKPV thread where it's clear they picked the wrong issue). And some gaps are due to clashes with locally produced reprint titles.

By then (around August 1971 cover dated comics) World Distributors had taken over from T&P distributing Marvels. By 1973 when I started collecting (I lived in Gloucester) you could find WD UKPV 6p as well as old T&P 5p stamped and UKPV 1/-  but everything was completely random.  

I never once saw the triangle stamp nor any remaindered logo torn off issues. 

[Albert Tatlock]

The numbers on the Thorpe & Porter price stamp were applied in chronological order, not by cover date, but by arrival date.

 I have been through several titles for the years 1959-62, and they follow, more or less, the pattern below:

           1959          1960          1961          1962

JAN                                 1               4/5/6          9

FEB                                 2                6               1

MAR                               3                7               2

APR                                 4                8               3

MAY                              5/ 6              9              4

JUNE                               7                1              4/5

JULY                               8                2              5/6

AUG                                9                3               6

SEPT                                1               4/5            7

OCT         7                      2                6               8

NOV        8                      3                7               9

DEC         9                      4                8               1

 There will always be exceptions, as the cover date for one month may have been split across 2 shipments, and also some issues may have been delayed on the journey from the US retail outlet to the dockside, causing them to be stamped with a higher number, or possibly they had remained undealt with in a corner of the T & P warehouse.

 However, most issues are stamped with a number close to the above, and it is unusual to find a comic with a difference of more than 1 or 2 from that expected.

 The number 5 stamp behaves strangely, though. It is found less often than the others, and always seems to share its slot with 4 or 6. Possibly it was under-used to prevent confusion with a number 6.

[Get Marwood & I]

14 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

The numbers on the Thorpe & Porter price stamp were applied in chronological order, not by cover date, but by arrival date.

I like this Albert. I'm going to revisit my own research and see if it correlates. Maybe I made the mistake of making it individual title based? And besides, nobody likes a mumpsimus do they 

[Albert Tatlock]

 nobody likes a mumpsimus do they 

Certe.

[Get Marwood & I]

13 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

 nobody likes a mumpsimus do they 

Certe.

Only a ninnyhammer would like a mumpsimus.

Now, Albert, bring your table to life for me would you, if you can. Tell me where these date sequential Charlton examples sit on it please:

War at Sea #29 (Feb 1959 cover date) - all three are T&P '2's':

  

Atomic Bunny #15 (Mar 1959 cover date) - one '3' and one '7':

 

Timmy #14 (Mar 1959 cover date) - one '8':

 

I'm off for dinner. Be back later. Mungry. 

[Albert Tatlock]

I reckon that the pre-October 1959 dated items arrived much later than their cover dates, being well out of date unsold US returns. Another example is the Private Strong issues, dated mid 1959 but in all probability not shipped until T & P's operation was up and running.

I would say that the War At Sea arrived at the same time as the Feb 1960 DC shipment, the Timmy with the November 1959 and the Bunny with the Oct 1959 and again with the March 1960.

Have a look at some Charltons (my holdings are very scanty) cover dated AFTER the end of 1959 and see if they conform to the DC pattern. 

[Get Marwood & I]

26 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Have a look at some Charltons (my holdings are very scanty) cover dated AFTER the end of 1959 and see if they conform to the DC pattern. 

Certes, I will.

[Albert Tatlock]

All quiet on the T & P front?

Can I creep out of my shell hole yet?

[Redshade]

7 hours ago, Albert Tatlock said:

All quiet on the T & P front?

Can I creep out of my shell hole yet?

Or T&P font?

Please Albert post more, you seem to be a few years older than me, and so all memories and reminiscences are welcomed.
It's such a shame that your uncle and his contemporaries aren't around anymore. What tales they could tell.

 

[Get Marwood & I]

14 hours ago, Albert Tatlock said:

All quiet on the T & P front?

Can I creep out of my shell hole yet?

My first helicopter review is inconclusive Albert - a large percentage of the images I have saved in the files don't fit your suggested pattern I'm afraid.

Before I go any further, can I just make sure I'm understanding your date vs number chart.

Using the 1960 extract below....

                1960          

JAN              1              

FEB              2               

MAR             3              

APR              4   

etc

.....are your months there arrival dates or cover dates?

Are you saying that for 1960, any book cover dated January will likely have a '1' stamp etc?

If you are saying arrival dates, how do you know those were the dates and indeed that they were even monthly? I've tried to establish how often shipments came over and can find nothing. The books have always been alleged to have come over as ballast and were almost certainly never the sole reason for a ship leaving US shores in the early years. So without knowing how often they came over, it's really difficult to gauge what went on and make your suggested pattern stand up to scrutiny.

 

 

[Get Marwood & I]

@Albert Tatlock

I changed tack Albert and placed every DC example I have in my files dated September 1959 to February 1960 onto a table numbered 1-9 in line with their T&P cover stamps (remember, this was a brief review of the early period and I have yet to go any further than early 1960 so far).

The results fully support your theory I'm pleased to say:

The table shows quite clearly that almost all the examples around these dates are populated in the 8-9-1 sequence - certainly enough to pass the test in my mind that the results inform design. So perhaps the operational sequence for DC comics at least was indeed arrival date based and, perhaps, was something like as follows:

1. US sellers return their unsold copies to a central point - highly unlikely that they would all do so in the exact same way and at the same time hence different copies of the same issue arriving in the UK out of natural cover date sequence
2. The relevant US operational team bundle up the receipts intended for the UK based on what is received from all US outlets by a certain cut off point
3. Those copies go on the next available ship
4. They arrive in the UK
5. T&P intercept and stamp the whole lot with the relevant stamp
6. They then distribute to UK newsagents

If true, this would explain why:

• The majority of copies of the same comic have the same T&P stamp number in the UK
• Some copies have different numbers because they were likely sent back 'late' in the US and, therefore, came over in a later batch
• We see anecdotal evidence / recollections from UK collectors of books appearing at newsagents out of cover date / issue number sequence

So for me, Albert, you may well have cracked that dimension of the process - the numbering reflects the arrival dates in the UK and has no real link to cover dates other than the associated timing link to US sellers returning their unsold copies. Good man you!  

Does this mean I wonder that there were only 9 annual shipments? Why else have that number? 

Over time, I'll add in the examples that I have for the other publishers. I think my previous exercises were single issue focussed so I'm glad you chimed in now Albert and puled me away from the path of mumpsimony. Is that a word? It is now.

All good fun.