In March 1974 Marvel began printing value stamps on the letters pages of all their titles. Series A of the value stamps consisted of 100 pieces of art taken from old comics and old unused pieces of artwork which were cropped to appear in the form of a postage stamp. Marvel also sold a stamp book (image above ) for 50 cents where collectors could put their stamps. At the time I had no idea what these stamps were for, but seemingly a full book of stamps entitled the owner to discounts on admission to various comic book conventions and merchandise while leaving their comic book collection “mutilated”. Collectors beware when picking up any back issues from the 1974/76 period as you may find (like myself) that the letters page and sometimes a corresponding story page has been snipped to remove the value stamp.
As noted above a total of 100 stamps were produced in series A. Stamp 1 shown above from the letters page of Captain Marvel issue 35, featured Spider-Man. Just before they printed the 100th stamp they printed a mystery stamp to tease readers as to who would actually appear in the last stamp – it was Galactus (below) although personally I would have though Stan Lee would have been a better choice.
Following the success of series A Marvel introduced a new series B in December 1975 which consisted of a set of 100 “puzzle pieces” of artwork again taken from older comics/art. When these were collected and put together they created 10 separate images of Marvel characters; Thor (below) Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Dracula, Silver Surfer, Conan , Dr Strange, Captain America, and Stan (the Man) Lee.
Marvel Stamp "Puzzle piece" from Series B - part of the Thor image below.
As with Series A Marvel also provided a book (above) where these could be collected and traded etc.
Below are some other Marvel Valuse Stamps for Series A:
image from Marvel Wiki
Image form Marvel Wiki
I was probably about seven years old when I walked into my local newsagents in Cambuslang (near Glasgow) with my pocket money firmly he...
Following on from my last post featuring some of my favourite Marvel comic book covers from 1973, I thought I would show some of DC's ...
Nearly a half-century on I still consider 1973 to be the year that cemented my destiny in becoming a lifetime comic book fan. It was a yea...
Because of back issues I've purchased minus the stamps I've mixed feelings on this phenomenon. But they were an attempt to add a bit of fun to an entertainment package and that's something I nearly always support. There is a book coming out early next year which details the Marvel Value Stamp program and I've been eager for it for some time.
ReplyDeleteInteresting news about the book on the value stamps Rip even although I never really took much notice of them at the time other than wondering who appeared on the stamps and trying to figure out where the image may have originally appeared. I wonder how many valuable key issues had the stamp cut out with the owners finding out too late that the value of the comic was no longer what it could have been if intact. :(
ReplyDeleteAh, I think the very idea of cutting out coupons from anything is a relic of a bygone age, with the prevalence of scanners to make decent copies. I see that an original Marvel Value Stamps series 'A' album in good condition is currently for sale on eBay for $479; did you ever have the album McScotty?
ReplyDeleteI saw a similar album on eBay for over £300 , unreal the prices asked for these types of thing. No, I never had an album baggsey I only really remembered the value stamps after all these years when I bought a copy of Captain Marvel issue 35 ( some nice Alfredo Alcala art) a few months ago and saw the first Spider-Man value stamp which jogged my memory. Scary to think that many kids probably cut the stamps out of key issue like Hulk 181 (the Wolverine issue) and lost 100's (1,000?) of dollars in doing that.
ReplyDelete