Value Stamps

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History

Beginning in March 1974, Marvel began printing a Value Stamp on the letters page of every title. The campaign culminated with the appearance of the hundredth stamp with a secret character in a secret issue, eventually revealed to be Galactus in Sub-Mariner #72. They also sold a stamp book for 50 cents, to cover postage and "manhandling," in which collectors could put their stamps. A full book entitled the owner to discounts on admission to comic-book conventions, merchandise, and other goodies. These books were also numbered, for reasons that never become clear.

None of the artwork in the vintage stamps is original. All of the artwork for them was recycled from earlier Marvel artists' work, either published or unpublished. For example, the Captain America image shown above is from the cover of Avengers #58. All original artists' work and credits are listed at The Marvel Value Stamp Site.

Marie Severin did a great deal of work on this project. Severin showed a propensity to reprint a number of classic images from the Silver Age of Marvel, including a large number of Jack Kirby and John Romita, Sr. work, while mixing in new "horror" characters being promoted by Marvel at the time, such as Werewolf by Night. Images were sometimes "flipped" by being displayed on a photostat projector and re-printed at a reverse angle, such as the Human Torch image shown above has been.

The first set would become known as Series A; meanwhile, Series B ran from December 1975 to August 1976 and included parts of ten "miniposters," with ten stamps making up each picture. Collectors could get another stamp book for Series B, for another 50 cents.

A new series began in 2006, exclusively in Marvel Spotlight Vol 3, running from issues #2-12.

Series C began in October 2017 as a way to promote the regular covers of Marvel Legacy issues. This set contained 53 stamps, which could not be found in issues with variant covers, and collectors could pick up a stamp book for Series C for free at their local comic shops that also contained artwork for seven additional unproduced stamps featuring Katie Power, Alex Power, Dazzler, Darkhawk, Shang-Chi, Jack Power, and Julie Power.