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I remember the event well, even after more than 60 years. I was standing in our primary school playground and my older brother came over and handed me TV Century 21 #1 to take home with me at 3 o'clock as he didn't get out until 4. Over the previous couple of days or so, he'd searched around various newsagents looking for a copy but without success (sold out), so I assume he'd obtained his new acquisition from a classmate. This would've been a few days before the second issue hit the shelves, so we were in on the ground floor (by a whisker) when the iconic comic for boys first hit the scene. Curiously, I became a regular buyer of the comic, whereas I don't think my brother ever bought another copy again. (He read mine though.)
Although we now had the actual comic, we never owned (or even saw) the free gift. I assume the original owner had kept it for himself, which meant the coded messages at the end of each story were a mystery to me when I started buying the comic every week. Not that it much bothered me to be honest, and when I think about it now, it seems a needlessly contrived way of telling readers not to miss the next issue as some of these messages seemed quite long. Over the passing decades though, I've often felt it would be rather nice to have an 'Identicode' to insert within one of my two copies of the first issue. And guess what - now I've got one!
A tad expensive (don't ask) but great to finally have, it's probably one of the very finest examples of this free gift in existence - unfolded and unused. (Might even be the finest example.) Anyway, having turned the clock back 60 years for a short time and before I insert it into my #1 (why does that sound suggestive?), I thought I'd post it on the blog for all you Crivvies to see. I'll be living on beans for a few months, but what the hey?! A guy's got to get his priorities right and I just couldn't let this one get away. If any of you have (or had) this gift back in the day, share your memories of it in our captivating comments section.
My next task is to use it to decode a few messages in the comic. Hardly something to get excited over, but a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do.
This is great, I love a good free gift. This was a bit early for me but I would definitely have bought it. Not sure how much I would spend on it now but I did buy a 2000ad Red Alert Survival Wallet for £50 to go with prog 3, when I decided to collect the first 100 progs (which has now extended to the first 500 progs). The wallet was in better condition than the one I'd already got, so it was worth the money. That's what I told myself anyway.
ReplyDeleteThe way I look at it, M, is that loads of people spend more than £50 on a weekend's boozing, so at least you've got something to show for your dosh rather than a hangover. As for what the Identicode cost me, I'd better keep that to myself in case people think I'm bragging or bonkers.
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