The mystery of the Spider-Man medallion

I’ve often pondered aloud on this blog about shots (like this one of my pal TJ above) where Spidey appears to be wearing a funky medallion and basically my thoughts were of the “what’s up with that?” nature.

Leave it to regular contributor Lynch to write in and tell me what is indeed up with that:

“When Spider-Man started appearing Stan saw one wearing the 1973 Spider-Man medallion. He thought that was very cool and checked to see if there were any left. There was some left over from sales and upon issuing a Spider-Man suit a coin medallion was too. Turns out that kids would mob Spider-Man and these medallions were damaged and even taken by some frenzied fans. They were no longer issued but the ones that already had them kept wearing it.”

And thanks to Lynch, here are some shots of what the British would call “Spidey’s dangler”

Lynch adds another cool tidbit:
“In the 1980’s they issued a carry bag for the suit.I know this information because I bought a medallion and bag from one of the actors. He kept the suit and would never sell it. He also told me some interesting things. Kids brought all kinds of things for him to sign. He remembers signing a large Marvel Treasury #1, lunchboxes, some original Spider-Man #1 comics and action figure boxes. Whenever a Spider-Man collectible or comic book had “Spider-Man signed on it that is where the signature was from. It doesn’t add value to the item, unfortunately.”

And there you go mystery solved, it’s all Stan Lee’s idea. I know that whole thing probably did cause you all to lose any sleep but such things prey on my subconcious so I’m very thankful to Lynch for the intel.

BTW I got Spidey to sign my treasury edition as a kid, still have it but sadly no photos..