Which year does the sales figure correspond to? - Statements of Ownership

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Tuesday, July 08, 2008

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Forum Data Corner Statements of O... Which year does the sales figure correspond to?

2/9/2008 8:12 PM

	mgrabois
3 posts

Which year does the sales figure correspond to?

Modified By mgrabois on 2/9/2008 9:17:39 PM)

[Originally posted 3/31/07]

As you have the circulation numbers reported here, does the year represent the year in which the Statement is filed (i.e., the 1969 data is for calendar year 1968) or the year that the data is valid for (i.e., the 1969 page is the 1969 numbers as reported in the 1970 Statement)?

2/9/2008 8:16 PM

	John Jackson Miller
58 posts

Re: Which year does the sales figure correspond to?

Modified By John Jackson Miller on 2/9/2008 9:17:00 PM)

[originally posted 4/1/07]

Excellent question. The 1969 data is for 1969... sort of.

The reason is that publishers filed their reports on Oct. 1 of the year for the twelve months previous. So this nominally means that the "average" figures represent the numbers from the previous October to the current September inclusive — thus, nine months of 1969 and three months of 1968.

However, in figuring out which issues the averages went with in the Standard Catalog of Comic Books, I would backtrack a month or two from that, even, assuming that they didn't have sales data from August or September yet. So we might find that the 1969 report, filed in October 1969, really accounts for the last five months of 1968 and the first seven months of 1969. It's still "mostly" 1969, though, so for simplicity's sake I put them with that year.

It is not until around 2000 that the Postal Service requires the publishers to say what issue their reporting year terminates at.

Best, John Jackson Miller • Curator, The Comics Chronicles

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Which year does the sales figure correspond to?