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The Distribution of US Published Comics in the UK (1959~1982)
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5,832 posts in this topic

1 hour ago, Mr Thorpe said:

if it was theft

I am pretty sure that the fellow who brought them to my attention had no legitimate claim to them. It looked to me like they had been dumped, and if I had not heard about them, they would have gone for salvage.

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9 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

T & P stamped had done the rounds, no joy, maybe the unstamped never went out for distribution and just lay orphaned in T & P's vaults until someone decided to take a chance.

 

 

T&P surely wouldn't sort returned unsolds into title and issue no? What would be the point? Also the T&P stamped unsold returns would be pretty ragged, having been on spinner racks for at least a month.

Another theory (no thieving involved this time!) -it's possible T&P had too many of a particular issue, they stamped up most of them. Most of the stamped ones went to the shops. The rest of the stamped ones and the remaining unstamped stayed in the warehouse until disposal.

This is a 'Cold Case' demanding resolution!

 

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8 hours ago, Albert Tatlock said:

From CGC census:

FF # 1             cents 2456, pence 20

FF # 6             cents 1120, pence 20

FF # 7            cents 798, pence 2

TTA # 62        cents 332, pence NIL

Why Marvel did not send over adequate supplies of FF # 7, I do not know. The result, though, is that FF # 7 as a pence is rocking horse.

I never found a #6 pence, #7 I did

570034005_FantasticFour7.thumb.jpg.d2b5097e382feb5538826427ed6495c9.jpg

 

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6 hours ago, Garystar said:

Pretty rough but reads exactly the same as mint. 
BFD574B7-0D10-46A9-BF52-001D866E2901.thumb.jpeg.189861b61b895e75ce39fa953b730069.jpeg
As in x-men#6 subby is wearing his away kit red trunks. 

 

I dont have a pence but I have a cents copy, funny I didnt really discriminate before, either cents or pence was good enough for me, or both if I could, now I am a bit disappointed when I look and I only have cents :( 

 

2091154774_FantasticFour6.thumb.jpg.4918e2c8b39f200316556c8f2eaf35f2.jpg

 

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Triangle stamp on Rawhide Kid # 34.

OP 1/- stamp on Thor # 134, one of the delayed shipment of late 1966. Who were OP?

PB (again, who are they?) 9d stamp on Unusual Tales # 32. I have 3 of these, all with identical stamps, so presumably applied by the wholesaler, not the retailer.

Star sticker to obscure Miller price on Gorgo # 2, but no other price showing anywhere.

comicrahide34.jpg

comicthor134.jpg

comicunusual.jpg

comicgorgo2.jpg

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Albert, that looks like a diamond version of a T&P stamp. It's even got a number. I'd love to have one of those!

I'm beginning to suspect that these mysterious diamond stamps in shillings are actually old T&P stamps. They've also got numbers!

272 Feb 1974 2 shilling diamond!.jpg

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The star stickers on Charltons turn up a lot. I've written about them and posted examples in my Charlton thread. The other stamps are all new to me. The Wonder Woman #154 stamp bears all the characteristics of a T&P stamp and, perhaps tellingly, bears the same cycle number as its circular peers if the examples on ebay are anything to go by:

474397575_2020-11-0109_00_30.jpg.27553295560655bcfcb5ab5f8157b60d.jpg49676572_2020-11-0108_59_54.jpg.a4d46aacb45dea8b5228d9599fdc6a2b.jpg

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Thanks for posting those books guys - I've added them in where applicable. I've been updating the tables that I put together somewhat, and here are the updated first two pages (hope you can zoom in to read them):

Capture.thumb.PNG.1febae0626acc1c71b69981f7d233ac1.PNG

Capture2.thumb.PNG.fcffc38ddc4e1bad47df340654b254be.PNG

You'll see I've added a 'review purpose' which indicates what I'm trying to achieve here. When the exercise is complete, I'll update the journal page I created with the final document version.

There are some other related avenues that have opened up to me and I will be exploring them at length over the coming weeks. Hopefully I'll be able to post a fairly definitive summary of everything this thread has explored, with it all tied in to form one hopefully indicative whole. I'll keep you posted.

On related matters, I found some more examples of early magazines that T&P distributed in the UK which could account for the 'missing' 1-9 stamp numbers of the first cycle (our DC comics starting at either 6 or 8 depending on your assessment). Here's one of them:

2126720239_s-l1600(3).thumb.jpg.fb4f02496886cf867d97bdb8085e5474.jpg

More on that later.

And I found this intriguing magazine - the only other example of an 'RV' stamp that I have seen other than those on the 1964 Charlton comics and the Charlton horror magazines (RV Series) that I have posted about here and in my Charlton thread:

1130370325_GunsHuntingRVSeriesStamp.thumb.jpg.d78c08fb69c6b733da18ddb6a713cc56.jpg

I spent some time Googling and could find absolutely no record of RV, RV Series or even much about the magazine above (a 'CDC' publication as you'll see with your magnifying glass). So RV clearly had some relationship with or to Charlton. At the time of writing, I still have no idea what it was and who they were. I'll keep looking though, of course.

I wish the virus would hop it so I could get back to box diving at fairs and such. I feel there are so many books hiding out there, waiting to be found...

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Here's Action Comics #258 at last, with the 'right' stamp number on it (an 8):

1505911620_1959.11ActionComics258Stamp8(1).thumb.jpg.7ccca01ee4e65d76bcb121cfcf2649bf.jpg

One additional benefit of this capture exercise is that you start to get a feel for which issues arrived in small numbers in the UK, and which were abundant:

Capture.thumb.PNG.ec9fa237b7b819ef883f002d1ff8e9c1.PNG

Understandably, I've only captured one stamped example each of the first four issues so far for Action Comics, but there are other later examples in some of the titles for which I have no stamped examples of one issue and then 7 of the next. Obviously it's not an exact science, and is dependent on what is online at present, but it gives a flavour of which books might have been more or less successful in the US and how that likely impacted the extant UK copies. 

I haven't forgotten the other publishers by the way, while we've been focussing on DC. I still intend to try to populate a meaningful table to include the other early birds, Charlton, Archie etc, to see whether we can create a meaningful illustration of the early UK shipment arrivals. Here are two 1959 Archie's, both stamped a '2', which likely places them in the 2 of the second cycle if we believe the first cycle started with an 8:

860223399_1959.06(Spring)ArchiesPals8Stamp2(1).thumb.jpg.8fd71f67c05701122c5d4d7249572661.jpg984816856_1959.07(Summer)ArchiesPalsNGals9Stamp2(1).jpg.28213f04228c0e5b2aeb0c4d91677088.jpg

Spring and Summer 1959, both seemingly arriving in the UK at the same time in 1960 in the second cycle '2' shipment.

All good fun.

 

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These have nothing to do with the thread, but occasionally you see the stamps used by other countries crop up on eBay UK.

Here are two examples from - if my geography is right - Kenya:

Kenya.jpg.a7b2e33ae61d717089b2c3f397cba74a.jpgKenya2.jpg.0fafc387c5d9883d5f768507c82a2ba1.jpg

Wonder how they got over here.

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Morning :)

Using Mike's Comic Newsstand, I plotted the books that we currently have confirmed T&P stamped copies for, for the 'first UK arrival cover month' of October 1959:

1.thumb.PNG.9d54a42546bd6446383e4258ea3f7537.PNG

2.thumb.PNG.c99b96680310ff13b641506e67670dee.PNG

Pat Boone #1 is the only stamped copy that I have seen that predates them, i.e. sits on the September page on Mike's site,but we know that that copy likely exists as a second cycle / late arrival book. 

Seven examples so far.

Here is the updated table showing the first stamped copy I have an example of for all the 47 titles which cross the October 1959 cover month:

3.thumb.PNG.279ea5981e752baf0207cab7b7c1d783.PNG

Have I missed any guys?

Comparing the exercise to the data on the CPGUK...

4.thumb.PNG.0f8c5bc2dd138e65910aed43ed0e8e2d.PNG

...there's quite a few missing.

Regarding the assertion from Duncan that 'market testers' / 'make-weight' comics may exist for Action #257, Detective #272 and Adventures #109, I've never seen any evidence of this as we know. If stamped copies were to materialise however, it would be interesting now to see what stamp number they had as this, now we can plot the sequencing, could indicate whether they indeed were genuine first cycle arrivals or, as would perhaps be more likely, late second cycle books. Maybe Duncan can recall seeing them, but in the fog of time, he was remembering late arrivals? I've been looking periodically for evidence of those 'market testers' for as long as I've been interested in researching pence books. If one does finally turn up, I think I'll pass out.

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40 minutes ago, Mr Thorpe said:

Another one to 'tick off'!

Sugar & Spike 25 Oct-Nov 1959 1.jpgSugar & Spike 26 Dec-Jan 1959-1960 9.jpgSugar & Spike 27 Feb-Mar 1960 3.jpg

Jayzus you've got some comics Mr T :whatthe:

Brilliant.

The number sequencing is odd there isn't it - the 9 (26) and 3 (27) are spot on, but the 1 (25) is out of place somewhat.

Got any more then Mr T?

Flippin DC gold mine you are :bigsmile:

1.thumb.PNG.28481a7bb6eef2e0151273c48819347a.PNG

2.thumb.PNG.9f2df5e41b8f3b4835c721c9a08484b6.PNG

 

3.thumb.PNG.928f2d98534462ba3139ca4d77830581.PNG

 

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2 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Regarding the assertion from Duncan that 'market testers' / 'make-weight' comics may exist for Action #257, Detective #272 and Adventures #109, I've never seen any evidence of this as we know. If stamped copies were to materialise however, it would be interesting now to see what stamp number they had as this, now we can plot the sequencing, could indicate whether they indeed were genuine first cycle arrivals or, as would perhaps be more likely, late second cycle books. Maybe Duncan can recall seeing them, but in the fog of time, he was remembering late arrivals? I've been looking periodically for evidence of those 'market testers' for as long as I've been interested in researching pence books. If one does finally turn up, I think I'll pass out.

Something fairly obvious has only just dawned on me which makes me feel ever so slightly thick. The three 'market tester / make-weight' books that Duncan refers to have the same October cover month as the eight stamped examples we have found. So if they did come over to the UK, it's much more likely that they would have done so as first cycle 8's and 9's, not anything earlier. Why didn't I see that until now? hm

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I found another 'RV Series' Charlton Horror magazine example during my searches yesterday - the 'shield' version of Horror Monsters #10 (a non-shield logo version also exists). It's the first new example I've found in a long while since I plotted them last year over in my now defunct Charlton thread.

Here's how they currently plot:

hm.PNG.8d5c29506dd7aa944621738507912e8b.PNG

mm.PNG.5c8495e9630efa2395f012f3bbc911c3.PNG

There are UK / RV examples for 'Black Zoo' and 'Werewolf and Vampires' too by the way.

838634295_WerewolvesandVampires1(26).thumb.png.2a68e9c9b0b510b3ec4541d52cec8a07.png 1286031780_HorrorMonsters1RVStamp.jpg.0f03d92e7f0c0ca35856c7ef7761ed21.jpg

And the UK versions have different types of stamps / overprinted price versions - some with the RV shield logo, some without and some with numbered 'new series' versions for which the numbers do not correlate with the original US issue numbers. Confusing, eh?

The 'New Series' versions, which are numbered, and have a mix of shield / non-shield logo versions, plot out as follows:

  • RV New Series #1 - Horror Monsters #7
  • RV New Series #2 - Horror Monsters Presents Black Zoo #1
  • RV New Series #3 - Mad Monsters #6 and Mad Monsters #10 
  • RV New Series #4 - Horror Monsters #8
  • RV New Series #5 - Mad Monsters #7
  • RV New Series #6
  • RV New Series #7 - Horror Monsters #9
  • RV New Series #8
  • RV New Series #9 - Horror Monsters #10
  • RV New Series #10
  • RV New Series #11 - Horror Monsters #2

Not sure why #3 was used twice - maybe it was an error or maybe the shield / non-shield make up has a bearing (Mad Monsters #6 and 10 below, both No.3): 

1880853226_MadMonsters6Fall1963(RVSeries326)crop.jpg.712f4ecc530cfa77527e293e27804e99.jpg446364455_MadMonsters10(NewSeries326)crop.jpg.7adafb745d833a6cf5976ccfa28b89df.jpg

I haven't seen examples of the missing numbers (6, 8, 10) or indeed whether later numbers exist. It could be that the unnumbered UK examples may fill the gaps, and were not numbered for some reason, but there are more of them than there are gaps so that feels unlikely. A few examples of unnumbered non-shield versions:

257943841_HorrorMonsters4(26)crop.jpg.9132d7eb1c84becfbe9d43ca219839e0.jpg 1620194253_MadMonsters4(26)crop.jpg.b1effce21761cedeb277fd9c39cf44b9.jpg

I've spent a good amount of time trying to find out anything about these books and, as I've mentioned a few times, who 'RV' were. As with the 1964/1965 Charlton comics, I can't find one single reference to them online having searched every possible word combination, even on UK based horror magazine websites and forums. Odd isn't it?

Anyway, I seem to be talking to myself again on this. Back to plotting the first four DC titles now....

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