Diamond shorted my local comic shop it's copy of Prog 2006, now no one on the internet has a copy. I NEED Prog 2006, so if anyone can find me a copy, I'll wire you the money through Paypal for it and shipping. (preferable, I'll also mail a money order in a pinch)
If anyone can help, that would be fantastic.
Pretty sure Forbidden Planet in Glasgow has some - I'll have a look tomorrow and let you know. Unless of course someone has a pile already? I'll post a message before I buy in case you've secured one elsewhere.
cheers
SW
Just noticed the 'live in the US' bit. I don't but eBay experience says it'll be there in a week, albeit at a heftier post cost. Happy to be your fall back if need be.
I'm not really looking forward to paying UK import shipping rates, so I want to check with US shops first. But if all else fails, I'll shell out the pounds if I have too. Thanks.
Adventurer, have you thought about Isotope? The owner's a big fan and I know they stock it. Brian Hibbs' shop carries it, too, but I'm not sure where he is.
--Grant
Link: Isotope Comics
You can now buy it from Tharg's Future Shop.
Cheers,
Wake
Link: Back issues - PROG 200X
I know not this 'UK import shipping fees' of which you speak.
When I've sent periodicals to the United States before I just marked the evelope 'printed material only'. The postage cost was very economical.
I's advise marking the item as a 'gift'. You don't pay import on it then.
If you're only sending comics or magazines anywhere in the world always tell the person that its 'printed papers' as its cheaper than regular postage costs.
E.G
100g
Letter
Europe ?1.14 World Zone 1 ?2.16n World Zone 2 ?2.44
Printed papers
Europe ?0.89 World Zone 1 & 2 ?1.35
Huh...I got seriously burned on shipping fees on several EbayUK auctions previously. When ?15 suddenly turns into $26, that hurts (granted that was for 62 issues of 2000AD, which got split into two seperate shipments, so ?15 twice! Fun times!).
And I've trying getting ordering information through the Future shop several times and never got a return Email. Maybe I'll try again.
Thanks for all the help though, I'm still looking through my options.
?15 = $26 just sounds like an exchange rate to me.
?15 x 2 sounds like 'ouch'.
Yeah, exchange rates are what I was talking about when I said "UK import shipping fees" AKA the shipping fees to get them here suck.
It must be said that the Royal Mail is the most labyrinthine and bizarrely-priced organization on the planet. It's not helped, however, by a good third of eBay sellers from any country being breathtakingly criminal about how much they want to bilk you for postage.
A couple of weeks ago, I found a UK-based seller with a few old kids' annuals I'd like to have and asked for a postal quote. He wouldn't give me one unless I told him exactly which of his annuals I planned to bid on. So I said I was interested in two Valiant annuals, a Saint and a Mr. Pastry. (I don't know what the heck Mr. Pastry is, but I like kids' annuals.)
Quote for shipping: ?28.84 !!!
No, I did not bid on those, thank you. I got two seventies Doctor Who annuals from an American seller for about 9 bucks total...
Fortunately, there are plenty of really good British-based sellers who do a good job selling British comics and are incredibly fair with postage. Keep an eye out for a seller called mafmania, because he is awesome, and did me a giant order of fill-in progs last November. You can't give feedback high enough for champs like him!
--Grant
:: Yeah, exchange rates are what I was talking about when
:: I said "UK import shipping fees"
Does the US have actual import fees, though? When I was living in Iceland, EVERY commercial item was taxable, so a five quid DVD (including postage) would actually end up costing you about ?10.35 once the fees were taken into account (24.5 per cent VAT, plus 10 per cent "you got it from overseas, you bastard" charge, but a five quid handling fee). In the UK, you have this to a lesser degree?VAT on items and postage are chargeable on any commercial item that costs ?18 or over and any gift that's worth ?36 or over.
As for eBay fees, I've found people in the US to be terribly greedy, too, largely due to their insistence on using Fed-Ex rather than standard postal services. It's not unheard of for US sellers to charge $12 to ship a CD to the UK, for example.
The main "rip off" charge from my point of view, when sending stuff overseas, is the signed-for rate, which jumps from 66p inside the UK to a wallet-busting ?3.30 overseas. Unsurprisingly, most people aren't willing to pay it, but then if the package gets lost, it suddenly becomes their problem, not mine.
...hence my qualification "sellers from *any* country." It chaps my hide no end to come across somebody who's making me pay for his listings fee with a grotesque "handling" charge.
One of the rare times I gave someone negative feedback was when I won a James Bond DVD (why the hell are those out of print?) from someone in the US without double-checking the postage price, like an idiot. The guy demanded something like $9 for priority shipping. So I paid up, feeling like a chump... and then he shipped it media mail for $1.35.
--Grant
Mr Pastry was offered the role of Doctor Who pretty much every time the lead actor left in the 60's and 70's. Towards the end of his life the actor who played him got a bit confused and kept telling the producer that 'Mr Pastry' wouldn't be suitable for the part.
Basically he was a One Man Chuckle Brother with better quality co-stars. For instance Buster Keaton did at least one show with him.
The only (black and white) Mr Pastry clip I ever saw featured an elderly man (like Clive Dunn, but scowling) doing physical comedy (in a circus - acrobatics on horseback, etc.) with a voice-over narration.
Link: How Mr Pastry Joined the Circus
Oh, that's right. I'm forgetting my Who nerdology. The reason they introduced Harry Sullivan to Doctor Who in 1974 was because they were considering Richard Hearne to replace Jon Pertwee, and needed a younger man to handle the action scenes.
Mr. Pastry looks oddly charming in its quaint way, sort of like our Soupy Sales Show. Thanks for the links, guys!
--Grant
Yeah, some eBay sellers are utter morons. I once won a magazine on eBay, which I needed to complete a collection of something I wanted to sell (something like Toxic). The mag cost a quid, and shipping was about the same. I told the person to clearly mark it as a gift, otherwise I'd get stung for import taxes (I was living in Iceland at the time, and didn't feel very guilty about depriving its postal service of a quid or so to import a 15-year-old magazine that had never been sold in that country).
Sure enough, idiot-face marks it up as 'merchandise' with a value of ?10. This, he explained when I sent him a furious email, was because it would have meant the package would have been worth more had it been lost. The fact that he'd not insured the sodding thing didn't dawn on him, apparently. The only thing his actions did was ensure that it cost me a whopping eight quid or so to import a magazine that was worth a fraction of that. Gnh!