How would you like to buy a copy of Spider-Man #51 for only 20 cents? Or get a 12-issue subscription to The Fantastic Four for only $1.75? No problem! Just make sure that you have your time machine set to take you back to 1968.

Here are two mimeographed fliers sent out by Marvel Comics and received by me forty years ago, one selling back issues and the other hawking subscriptions. The ink is fairly faded, but if you click on the image several times, you’ll be able to view readable copies.

I got these in the mail on April 26, 1968, presumably because I was a member of the Merry Marvel Marching Society. I know the exact date because I scribbled that information on the back of one of the sheets in the clumsy handwriting of a 13-year-old. I guess that seemed important at the time.

Note that on the subscription flier, someone—maybe even Fabulous Flo Steinberg, perhaps?—had manually crossed out the offer for Ghost Rider subs, since the final issue of that character’s run had been cover-dated November 1967. (That would have been for the western hero, as opposed to the not-yet-invented motorcycle-riding one.)

I remember how, in response to this solicitation, I taped nickels, dimes, and quarters to index cards, mailed the whole sticky mess to 625 Madison Avenue, and waited anxiously for the issues I’d somehow missed. I wish I could do that again!

Don’t you?