Hudson

Well, I recieved an email from Chuck today announcing his BIG "Black Friday" sale. Of course his BIG sale does NOT include ANY comic books.

They say there are no friends in auctions. Everyone gets over not winning or over paying. Next... You're missing the boat drawer. Rick was kind enough after beating me out of a boards book, to offer to sell it to me for just what he paid even though I said I'd pay more. There are still a few gentlemen left in the comic biz... +1 Rick is awesome. He offered to sell me a book at cost, that he knew I wanted. I think Rick is one of the few good guys who is more interested in enjoying the hobby with other collectors, than he is in making an extra dollar. I am often frustrated that I am not online when he has his great sales threads and thus I miss out on a lot of nice books at fair prices.

Mike, Thank you for the kind words regarding the sig line. That means a lot to me, coming from a board legend like yourself. Also thank you for your well wishes that I one day find an AC1. I hope it happens, however, I have come to accept the fact that it may not be in the cards for me. When it comes to the AC1, I would not hesitate at all, due to restoration. Just to have any copy would be awesome.

I understand where you are coming from, Mike, and I appreciate you taking the time to vote. i think I have only knowingly purchased 3 restored books and they were all duplicates of books i already own unrestored copies of. For example, i recently purchased an Action in restored CGC 9.2 (highest restored copy), even though i already own the CGC 9.0 (single highest universal copy). Since, I already have an unrestored copy, it did not bother me to buy the restored. This is probably not logical, but a collector's rational is not always logical. Mike,I will say that given the scope of the Action collection you once had, it is impressive that you stayed away from restored so well.

Just wanted to give this a Veteran's Day bump and see if we can get a few more votes.

Game over! Hudsons sigline kills me ever time I see it. Thank you, Dave. I really do appreciate you saying that. You have plenty of goodness in your own sig line.

First off, I would like to see a photo or scan of that Alice in Wonderland book. Please! As for AC4, great book. Congrats to OP on that one. I think my "rarest" book is a 1950 B&W If The Devil Would Talk. I think the OSPG lists only 4 known copies of that one. As for my favorite book. I don't know, but the first thing that comes to mind is Action Comics 2. Just love that cover.

You have some beautifully restored books there, Peter. Although I don't make a habit of buying restoed, I wouldn't turn down any of those in your sig line.. I'm actually working towards upgrading all of them to universal. It'll take time and a whole lot of spending money. Especially if you are trying to keep the same grade.

Red84, that is a nice sig line. . Great flags.

You have some beautifully restored books there, Peter. Although I don't make a habit of buying restoed, I wouldn't turn down any of those in your sig line..

Although the responses are few, as of now, I find the results surprising.

This is the first I have heard of the Whipples Rarity Scale. Interesting. Have "Whipple Rarity" values actually been assigned to books? If so, where would I find this data? As for how many copies of a book exist, there are many problems with that. 1) If we look at CGC books, there is no telling how many books have been cracked out and resubmitted (thus increasing the perceived number in existence). 2) There are collectors out there (like me) who prefer our books raw (regardless of how valuable it is). Those collectors do not submit their books to CGC and thus lowering the perceived number. As for how many AC1s are out there. The best person to ask is Wayne-Tec. He keeps a pretty good record of every copy he becomes aware of. I seem to recall him putting the number (in a thread some months back) somewhere around 100, but I could be mistaken.

Exactly what 500 books do you think that Chuck would have remaining that would devastate the entire comic book collecting market if he decides to sell them? Especially after he took the last 150 items from his original Church find and auctioned them off through Heritage back in 2011. Let's just say that the Red Raven, Spirit books, Feature books, etc. had a rather underwhelming and negligible impact on the collecting marketplace. Now that he has already disposed of all of his best books, how are 500 books which are most likely devoid of any keys or anything of any significance going to devastate the collecting marketplace. I believe you may have been drinking way too much of Chuck's Mile High juice. I could be mistaken, however, I believe HHwolfman was being sarcastic.

I hear you on that, Dave. When it comes to an AC1, I would take whatever I could get my hands on as well. BTW, great new avatar you have there.

I have heard many people say they don't buy restored books and others seem to think a certain level of restoration is ok. To many, it seems that restored books may be the only way they can afford some of the "big boys" they are looking for. So, I thought I would ask the question as to what is the most restoration you would accept on a book for your personal collection. I know this is not a perfect poll as it is hard to judge which is a higher level of restoration between say "expert moderate" as opposed to "amateur slight". Maybe how professional it is matters. Also, some other things (like trimming) are sometimes a deal breaker even if simple restoration is not. This question is specifically for GA collectors as I believe they have a far greater chance of running into restored books. This quesiton is specifically for books in your own personal collection. It is not saying what kind of book you would buy if you only intended to flip it anyway. Thanks in advance for your time.

I think a handshake is a deal regardless of how much money I lose. If I put something up for sale for $X and someone agrees to pay $X, then I should honor that deal OR if I put something up in a "no reserve: auction and it sells for $X, then I should honor that as well, as I choose to use the "no reserve" auction format. What if the final hammer price was twice FMV, would I (assuming I am the seller) say, "No, I can't take that much, just give me 1/2 what you bid"? This is of course just my opinion, and I am not forcing this belief on anyone else. In your post you say that it is also ok, if the buyer is only paying a small fraction of the FMV. So at what point does it make it ok for a seller to break his word and walk? Is it ok if he finds out the buyer is only paying him !0% of FMV, 25% of FMV, 50% of FMV, or maybe 90% of FMV? What is the "small fraction"? Is it a fraction or a $ amount? If the seller is only going to lose $1 he should stick to the deal, but if he loses $100 he should walk? I guess what I am asking is what price does a person place on their word and their honor. I am in no way insinuating that you OR anyone else is not an ethical person, or that you would not honor your word. I am just asking at what point people believe that it is ok to walk (for those who do hold that belief).

This. Is Chuck sitting on 100 copies of Incredible Hulk #181 or does he have a short box full of New Mutants #98? Even if he did, that is pittance in comparison to the number of copies floating around. How deep is his Silver Age stock? Is he sitting on 10+ copies of key books like FF #1, AF #15, etc.? And even if he has depth on these books, are they in a high enough grade that it would matter if they were released on the market? It just seems unlikely that MH has gathered enough books of significant value to harm the market if he started blowing out his stock for pennies. Why does anyone believe Chuck has numerous copies of ANY of the books you mentioned? His web site does not show a single copy of IH181, AF15, or FF1, let alone multiples of any of them. I did notice a FF2 in VG for over $1,400, but no #1. I would think that if Chuck had numerous copies of say AF15, that at least one of them would be on his website. It might be a poor 0.5 copy with a cool $1,000,000 price tag, but it would still be there. I am NOT staying Chuck might not have a personal collection with some nice key books, but I don't think he has a short box full of AF15s or FF1s sitting around collecting dust. Just my opinion.

It's all scanner dependent of course, but I accidentally left a slab inside its mylite bag once and was shocked by how much it cut down on glare. Repeated the trick successfully since, and it works. Try putting a sheet of mylar or something down on the scanner bed when you scan, if you don't put your slabs in bags. Worth a shot before looking at other scanner options. Thank you. I am always amazed at how clear other people's scans are.

I tried scanning some books and they came out horrible (glare, etc). This is especially true when trying to scan slabbed books as opposed to raw. I know I saw a thread on here once about what scanners are good. I need to look for that thread at some point and see if I can wade through it. As I recall there were a number of opinions and so I might end up back where I started. Unfortunately, I am not much of a computer (or tech) guy. Heck, I didn't even know how to post a photo until Gotham Kid (Peter) was kind enough to point me in the right direction. Even my photography skills are poor, although I think the sig line photo came out ok. I have thought about changing it out, but that would require me taking more photos and who knows how those would come out. Hopefully the sig line and the few photos I post here and there are acceptable until I become more versed in scanners and such. Thank you, woowoo, for noticing my books and thinking them worthy of extra attention. I sincerely appreciate that. There is a long legal-sized scanner thread in Comics General. The bottom line, as I understand it, is that most current scanners do a very poor job with slabs -- the scans are muddy. The culprit is apparently a change in scanning technology that manufacturers implemented a few years ago. (I do have a recollection of someone posting that there are high-end scanners on the market that use a different technology and do a good job with slabs.) So, most people have bought older scanners that use the previous technology. The HP 8300 that I use can be picked up pretty cheap second hand. It does an excellent job on SA and later slabs, but does usually leave some glare on scans of GA slabs. If you use a Mac, you would also need to download VueScan, an easy to use, third-party software program. Thank you. This is good info. Not sure I will go out and buy an OLD scanner, just to scan slabs, but I appreciate knowing that it isn't just me (when my scans come out horrible). I thought maybe if there was a new scanner, I would upgrade my older one, as my wife would like one of the new wireless ones (like I purchased for my sister). Since the new ones are not going to do any better than what I have, I suppose I would just be wasting my money. Sorry, woowoo, looks like no scans for now. Is there something special you want to see?

I tried scanning some books and they came out horrible (glare, etc). This is especially true when trying to scan slabbed books as opposed to raw. I know I saw a thread on here once about what scanners are good. I need to look for that thread at some point and see if I can wade through it. As I recall there were a number of opinions and so I might end up back where I started. Unfortunately, I am not much of a computer (or tech) guy. Heck, I didn't even know how to post a photo until Gotham Kid (Peter) was kind enough to point me in the right direction. Even my photography skills are poor, although I think the sig line photo came out ok. I have thought about changing it out, but that would require me taking more photos and who knows how those would come out. Hopefully the sig line and the few photos I post here and there are acceptable until I become more versed in scanners and such. Thank you, woowoo, for noticing my books and thinking them worthy of extra attention. I sincerely appreciate that.

Not sure what grade or price point you are looking for, however, Jamie (Southern California Comics) has all three of the books on your want list.

n2wdw - Just want you to know I really like your sig line.

MCS will never let this happen. If you had to guessamate how many books do think MCS has in stock??? 3 mil 5mil...how many or is Chuck up on the market by Double his nearest competitor ? I think you cannot reasonably compare the two. MCS probably has less books than MH, however, the books they have seem (IMO) to cover more of the GA and probably more of the SA.. You need to factor in a "quality" component. If I have 11 million copies of a book nobody wants then I really cannot hurt the market. If, however, I have 11 million books that people are actively looking for, then that is another story. For me, Chuck's website contains very little that interests me. I will not call what he has "junk", as that may be what others collect and I respect that. Due to my lack of interest, however, in what he sells, I am forced to rely on other people's postings to know whether the books he has would have any significant market impact if they were all to be sold at once (at a fire sale price).

Being the OP of this thread I believe it is important to address this. I want to state publicly that I hold no bad feelings toward Chuck as either a person or Mile High as a business. Although it has been a number of years since I have purchased anything from Mile High, I will say Chuck has never personally cheated me or treated me unfairly. This thread was NOT started because I don't like Chuck, or because I don't believe he has a right to charge whatever he wants for the comics he owns. This was started because I was amazed that in today's world of easy internet access, where prices on easily accessible books can be quickly compared, that Chuck could even stay in business. When a person's price on an easy to find item is not a fraction higher than the competition, but multiples of it, I was baffled as to how Chuck could continue to sell books. Who is buying these books and why do they choose Mile High? I am NOT a big buyer of modern books or variants, so I cannot comment on that market. Perhaps that is his niche and perhaps those prices are acceptable. I really don't know. My original post compared several of Chuck's rather common low grade SA books to some competitors. In this arena it seemed like buying from Chuck would be equivalent to throwing your money into a huge bonfire. My main area of interest, however, is GA and Chuck's selection in that arena seems rather sparse for someone who own 10 or 11 million books. Let me repeat, however, for the record, I have no bad feelings or ill will toward Chuck or Mile High. As a seller, Chuck has the absolute right to charge what he wants. Thankfully, as a buyer, I have the right to take my business elsewhere. That is the free market system we live in.

Great set of books Judge. Good luck with getting the 3, 6, and 12. They are definitely out there. I remember getting my first 3. I was so excited to finally find a copy. Congrats on the awesome set you have put together thus far!!!!