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The Distribution of US Published Comics in the UK (1959~1982)
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5,820 posts in this topic

3 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Some of them are the best Kevin! Just look at my avatars! <3<3

It's Alberts fault. I had it all under control until he arrived :bigsmile:

I think we've cracked the stamp numbering pattern now Kevin, but we need more examples of the early books to see which 'first use' number came first - 6 or 8.

So if you could look for any T&P stamped DC books cover dated September/October/November 1959, that would be lovely :wishluck:

Its not that I didnt want or buy Romance books, I did, Romance and War books were the same, tough to find, I do have a lot of them, I am just not complete :blush:

Its okay stating DC books but I need a starting point, I have a lot of DCs in order but all bagged/boarded, I dont know what was 1959, I need numbers to start from or I will have to open bags etc

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1 minute ago, Kevin.J said:

Its not that I didnt want or buy Romance books, I did, Romance and War books were the same, tough to find, I do have a lot of them, I am just not complete :blush:

Its okay stating DC books but I need a starting point, I have a lot of DCs in order but all bagged/boarded, I dont know what was 1959, I need numbers to start from or I will have to open bags etc

Can you read these Kevin - click to enlarge - every folder is a title that crosses those dates. 47 of them I think - each has the first issue number that could theoretically have a T&P stamp, e.g. Batman #127 etc:

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6 minutes ago, Kevin.J said:

I need numbers to start from or I will have to open bags etc

...or use this if it's easier - it's set on October 1959, click forward and back etc:

http://www.mikesamazingworld.com/mikes/features/newsstand.php?type=cover&month=10&year=1959&publisher=dc&sort=alpha&checklist=null

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4 minutes ago, Garystar said:

https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Category:1959,_September
 

heres another data base set for September 1959. Can select any month/year. 

They're everywhere!

You got any late 59 DC's Gary?

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I’ve been collating database of all stamped Marvel’s, I’ll summarize shortly and send table when it’s more fully populated. There won’t be any advance on first distribution from what Marwood posted on page 3. when stamping starts seems completely random but need to look further to see if there are patterns across months and later on stamps are virtually all number 3s. 

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3 minutes ago, Garystar said:

I’ve been collating database of all stamped Marvel’s, I’ll summarize shortly and send table when it’s more fully populated. There won’t be any advance on first distribution from what Marwood posted on page 3. when stamping starts seems completely random but need to look further to see if there are patterns across months and later on stamps are virtually all number 3s. 

Excellent. I'm getting excited Gary. You can be our Marvel correspondent:popcorn:

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4 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

You got any late 59 DC's Gary?

No sorry Marvel only. As my Marvel collection has grown (16,000+) and spread into memorabillia other things have had to give - Fanzines (music and comics) and DCs went early doors, then vinyl record collection. I need a bigger house but would have to sell comics to afford it but then I wouldn’t need the bigger house. 

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Just now, Garystar said:

No sorry Marvel only. As my Marvel collection has grown (16,000+) and spread into memorabillia other things have had to give - Fanzines (music and comics) and DCs went early doors, then vinyl record collection. I need a bigger house but would have to sell comics to afford it but then I wouldn’t need the bigger house. 

That's a conundrum isn't it :bigsmile:

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1 hour ago, Garystar said:

No sorry Marvel only. As my Marvel collection has grown (16,000+) and spread into memorabillia other things have had to give - Fanzines (music and comics) and DCs went early doors, then vinyl record collection. I need a bigger house but would have to sell comics to afford it but then I wouldn’t need the bigger house. 

Its all relative anyway, buy a bigger house, then you get a bigger collection and need a bigger house :ohnoez:

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Flaming Nora this is time consuming :p

I've got 11 titles left to add to the tables (the ones below in white). Hopefully I'll get them done by the weekend and then I'll post my findings :wishluck:

22.10.20.PNG

....and a big summary of everything :)

The 'second use' wave of stamps are filling up nicely:

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The '6' stamp wasn't a popular month it seems, although I do have 11 more titles to add so it may fill up a bit. It gives me hope that the first use 6 stamp may indeed be the first ever use though - low numbers in both you see....

 

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22 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

My, you've got a lot of Flashes Albert 

Just another quick Flash if no-one minds.......

Below are the B & W reprint series from T & P that overlapped the first importation of the real thing.

Anyone know when the last published ones of these appeared?

comicflashtp.jpg

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4 hours ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Just another quick Flash if no-one minds.......

Below are the B & W reprint series from T & P that overlapped the first importation of the real thing.

Anyone know when the last published ones of these appeared?

comicflashtp.jpg

You have a mixture of two series there Albert. There was a first series of five issues (the ones with the roundel in the top left) c1960 and a later series of four issues c1962 according to McAlpine's guide.

.

Edited by Redshade
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Thanks, Redshade.

I gathered there must have been at least 2 series, as some of the material is duplicated.

The later series have an ad inside the back cover for Beatles and Kinks records, so I reckon 1964 or 1965.

I was wondering how long T & P carried on with the b& w reprint stuff, in competition with their own imports.

Maybe an attempt to take market share from Alan Class?

Were all these pre-decimal, I cannot recollect any post-decimal.

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44 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:


 

The  Beatles and Kinks ads could certainly put these a year or two later than the guide suggests. Any chance of photos?

I cannot recollect any post decimal issues but the point is moot as far as my memories go. I stopped buying comics in about 1968/9 preferring instead to save up for "prog" albums.:facepalm:

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On the later series of Flash reprints, Number 1 has an ad for a Superman hardbacked annual on the inside back cover, but Number 2 has the ad below, which I hope is legible.

Ticket To Ride is from 1965, so that is the earliest possible date, without checking the other tracks, some of which I know are from 1964 and 1965.

Also, Number 4 reprints the same ad.

comicflashtpad.jpg

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I've finished :)

To recap, over the last week or so I have trawled eBay and various other sites for images of every DC title that crossed the cover dates of September / October / November 1959 and added them to a table which, in theory, covers the first four sequential uses of the T&P 1-9 stamps. There are 47 of them and 40 have at least one T&P stamped copy. The seven that I didn't find one for are shaded in orange in the table below:

(Click to enlarge)

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For the 40 titles that had at least one T&P stamped copy, I have also added the first issue number that I found with a stamp. I'll compare these later to the summary over at the UK CBPG site here...

www.comicpriceguide.co.uk/features - First DC Distribution Article

...to see how closely they match. If any one reading has an earlier stamped copy, do let me know.

Here are the results, with a little commentary under each entry:

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The key observation for the first use table is the fact that we have four 6's, no 7's and then a load of 8's and 9's. Remember, this is a DC exercise only, and I have not added any of the other potential publications and comics from this timeframe (Charlton comics and various magazines). There are three possible scenarios here:

  1. The four books with a 6 stamp are the first ever DC stamped books
  2. The four books with a 6 stamp - given the absence of any 7's - are actually very late second cycle stamped copies, which would make the 8's the first ever books
  3. There may be 7's out there yet to be found

I'm not sure it's possible to be sure which option is true without some credible evidence. People's individual recollections can sometimes be unreliable and I'm also conscious that the same books may not always have been distributed to the same geographical areas so one collectors experience may differ to another.

If the 8 and 9 entries are true, and directly linked to two sequential shipments, then it's clear that each shipment contained a mix of cover dates spanning 2-3 months so, for the period covered at least, we cannot say that a book of a given cover date will always have a certain stamp number. This makes complete sense of course as the returns process in the US would hardly have been so robust as to deliver returned dated copies to an exact sequence.

 

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For the second cycle the books are largely consistent with a spread of 2-3 cover months being the norm. There are a number of examples of books arriving out of issue number sequence which ties in with anecdotal recollections from some of the collectors I've spoken to. There seem to be considerably more titles in the beginning / end of the cycle with the number 6 stamp much less used than others. The 9 stamp group appear to have a high level of out of sequence books (March 1960 vs the prevailing September 1960) which indicates how a rogue late batch could appear and muck everything up.

 

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By the third cycle, things seem to be settling down a bit with much less variance by cover month this time. 

 

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That pattern continues into the fourth cycle.

If we look at the cover dates in each cycle, they broadly match sequential calendar months which indicates that the shipments themselves were likely monthly, in line with most comic titles.

So in summary, we can see clearly what was going on and understand how the numbering system was being used.

The one thing we cannot yet say definitively is the calendar dates for each of the numbers within each cycle. We could probably make an educated guess and be within a month or so either way, but we don't know if the shipments were on the same day each month or, indeed, whether they were every month or crossed months. And we don't know how long the shipping window was - one month or three - and how long T&P sat on any receipts prior to distribution. But the pattern is clearly there, and it holds true.

Depending on the first cycle 6 stamps, this exercise also allows us to pinpoint which DC issues came over first, which is quite cool, 60 years after the event. I'm going to use this table going forward to look for other DC books to see if any more / earlier 10 or 11/59 cover date examples appear.

My next task is to overlay the Charlton books and the magazines that we know exist with stamp numbers that appear to fit the first cycle and, potentially, precede the DC comics.

All good fun :)

 

 

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