Now this might be a tough one, but maybe you guys will know the answer!
I collect US Uncle Scrooge comics (quite a hard task in the UK), and I've come across something strange. Uncle Scrooge's were published by these publishing houses:
Dell Comics: 1952-1962 (Four Color Comics issues 386, 456 and 495; issues 4-39) Gold Key Comics: 1962-1984 (issues 40-173 as Gold Key, 174-209 as Whitman) Gladstone Publishing: 1986-1990 (issues 210-242) Disney Comics: 1990-1993 (issues 243-280) Gladstone Publishing: 1993-1998 (issues 281-318) Gemstone Publishing: 2003-2008 (issues 319-383) Boom Kids! (Boom! Studios): 2009-2011 (issues 384-404) IDW Publishing: 2015- (issue 405 on, with additional IDW-specific issue numbers starting from 1)[1]
I have two copies of issue n167, however, one is labelled as a Gold Key and the other one is a Whitman.
How is that possible? First of all, this is still in the GoldKey "era" and how is it possible that the same issue could be published with two different labels?
Both the Gold Key and the Whitman variants are from the same publisher, but they were distributed in different ways. While the Gold Key issues were sold as single issues in regular newsstands, the Whitman variants were sold in plastic bag packs together with other comics. Often in toy stores, at airports and other places that didn’t have the regular newsstand rack of comics. Issues with the Gold Key logo were also sold in plastic bags at first. But while unsold newsstand comics could be returned, the comics sold in bags could not. Some dealers then broke up the bags and returned the comics as if they were newsstand copies, and that’s probably the reason why they started printing the Whitman logo on comics sold in bags, so they could tell them apart.
In my huge spreadsheet that I use for keeping track of variants, I have the following notes regarding the Gold Key/Whitman Uncle Scrooge:
40 to 173 all exist in Gold Key variants
174 to 209 only exist in Whitman variants
The following issues exist in both Gold Key and Whitman variants: 96->101,104,106->117,120->125,128->135,137->170,173
Issue 193 to 197 exist with both a white and a yellow Whitman logo
In addition issue 74, 75, (99), 100, 101, (102), 103, 104, 147, 148, 149 exist in price variants (the once in parenthesis I haven’t been able to confirm)
Issue 109 exist in a variant without the catalog banner