Cover Price

From GCD
Jump to navigation Jump to search
  • Required
  • This is the price printed plus the currency code for the currency of the country of publication. Common currency symbols (such as $) and abbreviations are not to be used. Additional prices for other countries may be listed separated by a semi-colon. For all books the price is given in the major currency, not divisions of it (for example dollars, not cents).
  • For issues with no cover price, which were given away free, "0.00 FREE" is used. For issues with no cover price where the original price is not known, [none] is used. For issues with no cover price where the original price is known (from promotional material, for instance), the price in square braces is used, with a note in the notes field for the issue as to how the price was determined.
  • The price in the price field can be taken from anywhere printed on the comic or packaging. If the price on the exterior front or back cover differs from the price for the same country somewhere else on the comic, the price on the exterior front or back cover takes precedence while the other price gets listed in the price field in brackets with a note in the Notes field explaining the situation.
  • Comics from countries using pounds, shillings and pence, the price shall be entered in two parts: "price as it appears on the cover subject to the conventions listed below [Pounds-Shillings-Pence XXX]" (where XXX is the country currency code).
    • When recording prices from countries using pounds, shillings and pence, the separator between pounds (if present), shillings and pence should be transcribed as a slash (/) even when it is raised and looks like an apostrophe on the book, unless the country's currency rules say otherwise."
    • If the price is shown using the £sd notation then this shall be recorded using the slash notation, i.e. 3s 6d becomes 3/6 [0-3-6 XXX] and 19s 11d becomes 19/11 [0-19-11 XXX]."
    • A value of 0s and/or 0d is frequently marked as a hyphen and this should be recorded as is, without a space, and as a zero (0) in the square brackets, e.g. 1/- [0-1-0 XXX]."
    • If the price of the comic is displayed in pence only then the price shall be entered with a lower case 'd' suffix and no spaces, e.g. 2d [0-0-2 XXX] and 11d [0-0-11 XXX]"
    • If the price includes a farthing, halfpenny or three farthings then this shall be recorded immediately after the pence value, with or without a 'd' suffix as set out above, e.g. 2¼d and 1/6½."
    • Examples:
      • "2/6 [0-2-6 GBP]"
      • "6½d [0-0-6½ GBP]"
      • "1/- [0-1-0 AUP]"
      • "1/10/- [1-10-0 GBP]"
  • The ISO-style Historical Currency Codes for countries using non decimal Pounds are as follows:
    • Australian Pound - AUP
    • British West Africa Pound - XWAP
    • Irish Pound - IEP
    • New Zealand Pound - NZP
    • Rhodesia Pound - RHP
    • South African Pound - ZAP
  • Several countries changed from non-decimal currency to decimal currency. Dates are listed below: no comic book created after these dates should have the [0-0-6] designation in the price field, except for transition periods of a few months where BOTH non-decimal and decimal prices may have been present.
    • 15 February 1971 in the UK (Great Britain)
    • 15 February 1971 in Ireland
    • 14 February 1966 in Australia
    • 10 July 1967 in New Zealand
    • 14 February 1961 in South Africa
    • 1 April 1957 in India
  • For issues with different prices using the same currency, list the country code after the currency code.
  • Including older currencies for the following countries, the country codes are:
    • Argentina
      • ARC - from 1826-01-09 to 1881-11-04
      • ARM - from 1881-11-05 to 1969-12-31
      • ARL - from 1970-01-01 to 1983-05-31
      • ARP - from 1983-06-01 to 1985-06-14
      • ARA - from 1985-06-15 to 1991-12-31
      • ARS - from 1992-01-01 - present
    • Brazil
      • BRM - from Colonial times to 1942-10-31
      • BRZ - from 1942-11-01 to 1967-02-12
      • BRB - from 1967-02-13 to 1986-02-27
      • BRL - from 1986-02-28 to present
    • Chile
      • XESE - from 1568 to 1851-01-09
      • CLC - from 1851-01-10 to 1959-12-31
      • CLE - from 1960-01-01 to 1975-09-25
      • CLP - from 1975-09-30 to present
    • Mexico
      • MXP - ends 1992-12-31
      • MXN - from 1993-01-01 to present
  • For other older currencies for which no ISO standard code exists we still use ISO-style Historical Currency Codes. [1].

Note that some countries use a "," instead of a "." for decimal notation.

  • Examples:
* 0.10 USD
* 1.50 USD; 1.95 CAD
* 0.00 FREE
* 2/6 [0-2-6 GBP]
* [2.50 CAD] (see notes)
* 2.00 USD [2.50 CAD] (see notes)
* 3,99 EUR DE; 3,50 EUR AT; 1,50 EUR FR


The following table includes some of the most common codes. The full list is linked above.

USD United States of America Dollars CAD Canadian Dollars AUD Australian Dollars
EUR Euro Member Countries, Euro GBP Great Britain (United Kingdom) Pounds AUP Australian Pounds
DKK Danish Kroner NOK Norwegian Kroner SEK Swedish Kronor
NLG Dutch (Netherlands) Guldens DEM German Marks FIM Finnish Markka
ITL Italian Lira FRF French Francs CHF Swiss Francs
ESP Spanish Pesetas MXP Mexican Pesos (pre 1993) MXN Mexican Pesos (post 1993)




(end of definition)



Policy Votes Affecting This Topic


Back to the Formatting Documentation