Well, to be honest, it's not really much of a mystery - except to those responsible for the reprint editions of the TALES OF SUSPENSE/IRON MAN adventures from the early years of MARVEL.
If you're the proud possessor of the softcover printing of MARVEL MASTERWORKS, the first OMNIBUS volume, or even the ESSENTIALS edition of ol' Shellhead's early adventures, you'll have seen the b&w production stat of TOS #42, misnumbered as #41 and toting the previous issue's cover blurb.
The books ponder how this 'mistake' occurred and consider various possible explanations - including what I consider to be the most simple and obvious one, making me wonder why anyone would think it was such a mystery. Let me elaborate.
Back in the days when I freelanced for IPC/FLEETWAY, I regularly visited the offices of KING's REACH TOWER and often saw old pages of artwork with missing logos - sometimes removed cleanly, sometimes just cut or ripped straight off the page. The logos were photo-mechanical-transfers (referred to as PMTs - oh, behave missus) and were sharp, high-quality images which reproduced well in the printed comics.
Occasionally, however, there might be none available when required, with no time to wait while new ones were printed. So, as I said, a logo from an old page of artwork was re-used on a new page - problem solved.
What obviously happened in Marvel's case was something not too dissimilar. They were fresh out of logos, so stuck a copy from a b&w stat of the previous issue onto the cover art for the next issue. Duplicate stats of the cover would then have been made - one for the files and one to be sent for lettering. (Once that had been done, a copy of the finished result would be made for colouring.) As Marvel has quite a few file stats of covers which differ from the printed versions, I'm surprised as to why anyone was puzzled by the matter.
Too easy - Columbo, eat your heart out!
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