The Marvel Value Stamps ProjectOne of the more interesting promotion during the 1970's was the infamous Marvel Value Stamps. Who among us has not bought a few Bronze Age books and later found that dastardly stamp had been clipped out? Whenever I'm buying MVS-era comics through EBay, I always make certain to confirm that the stamps are in fact intact. This is an important question to ask, since stated condition means little and I have been told that VF/NM graded books in fact had their MVS neatly clipped out.For those who do not know what Marvel Value Stamps are, here's a short history. In March of 1974, the marketing geniuses at Marvel thought up a sure-fire way to increase sales, especially to those secondary books that languished on the racks. They'd issue a set of 100 collectable stamps, each of them depicting a Marvel character. In what may have been the biggest rip-off in comic's history (after Marvel promised tons and tons of prizes for months) the only real use of having the 100 stamps was to get discounts at Comic Cons. Boy, I'm sure fans in the more rural areas would have loved to know about that little caveat before they started hacking away. These Marvel Value Stamps were spread out over all the non-reprint Marvel titles, and are usually found on the letterpages. This continued until around May of 1975 (it varies per title), when the promotion came to an end, although they did issue a horrible puzzle-set of series 2 stamps, which were not even close to as successful as the first. If you think it's strange that anyone would go around hacking up their Marvel Comics (like Hulk #181!) you'd be right, in a way. Just remember that back in that day and age, comics were disposable reading material and few kids thought twice of trying to collect the entire set. It was similar to cutting a picture out of the newspaper, since comics were 20-25 cents apiece and readily available through any store. While I came a bit late onto the scene (got most of these issues second-hand) I actually clipped out about 3-4 of them before I started wondering about the sheer lunacy of not only hacking up my prized possessions, but of trying to collect 100 stamps well after the books had gone out of print. Now I'm not a super condition nut or anything, but I really feel that Marvel Value Stamps are an integral part of the books from that era. Before I got seriously interested in the nostalgia aspect, I used to mentally catalogue any new stamps that I would get in comic lots, and be rather disappointed when any arrived "clipped and collected". Because I feel a great affinity for that incredibly innocent time in comic collecting, I am attempting to amass a full collection of all 100 Marvel Value Stamps scans and then post them here at Comic Investor.Com. I am slowly but surely trying to complete a full set, but time, money and the sheer number of Ghost Rider stamps are making it tougher than I thought. I am therefore hoping for a little reader help in getting some of the missing numbers. Here's my Want List of Marvel Value Stamps (with character names where possible), and if you have any of these, I (and I suspect our readers) would really appreciate you sending in a scan. Something full-size at 150-200 DPI should do the trick. If you want to help out, the send your pics to:
I guess the next step is to try and help you out by giving some sort of idea what comics might contain these elusive stamps. The following table has the basic "Mar/74-Apr/75" MVS-runs of the most popular Marvel comics, though some secondary titles may not be present and Marvel was known to skip a month here and there. The Marvel Value Stamp Promotion continued on past April 1975, though not in ever single Marvel Mag. That was because around May-Dec of 1975, Marvel was a bit haphazard on whether a given issue would feature a MVS. I can only surmise that they extended the stamp printing period with a few series to ensure everyone got a shot at finding all 100. Some issues like Amazing Spider-man (or the low-selling horror titles?) had a MVS almost all the way through 1975, while The Defenders didn't include even a single MVS after April. Who knows if we'll ever find the answer to that little puzzler.
Well, these are most of the mainstream titles, along with a few of the more esoteric books. Remember, the ending number doesn't necessarily mean that the Marvel Value Stamps stopped after that, but that this was the standard MVS time frame for all non-reprint Marvel titles. Once again, any help in our Marvel Value Stamp Project would be most appreciated.
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