Mile High For Sale List As Excel File

[telerites]

Oh the agony - so many Nedors on the list.

 

The Cat-Mans are interesting with only a few picked out. I still remember seeing what may have been the what's left on this list for sale at a LSC in Norman,OK around 1983 or so. I bought the #13 and still have it.

 

To have had deep pockets then instead of my shallow, college pockets

[ciorac]

An observation:

 

It makes sense many of the key titles have been picked over, however I found it extremely interesting that Atlas westerns are sparse - especially considering that Church was a fan of westerns and how many western titles there were.

 

I suspect because they were so cheap that someone wiped him out of those at the very beginning.

 

There are thousands of books in the $2-7 dollar range so I can only image lots of people spent a couple hundred bucks and walked away with stacks of books.

 

Furthermore, these books were absorbed into collections before the whole "pedigree" thing was even on anyone's radar so they're still sitting in people's collections without them realizing they're Church copies. They just think they're beautiful copies.

 

Unless you've seen lots of them and are familiar with their very unique aroma you won't know they're Church copies. They're still out there to be found.

 

This is very true. I bought some collections about 15 - 20 years ago that had Mile Highs in them that had been bought when the collection came out. Some had the notation, others didn't. The coding helped identify the ones that weren't notated

[cheetah]

Amazing amount of work. I'll add my thanks for doing this. If only I was where I am now when these were found.

[MarkWoodcock]

Observation: There are almost no Kamen/Baker FOX books - including not a single Phantom lady. I would suspect that one person bought all of those in one fell swoop.

[lotemo]

The Archie keys were already gone. Pep #22 and Archie #1-4 and 6 but for some reason skipping the others. Jackpot #4 was still there as was Laugh #20.

 

Thanks for preparing the list. It's fun to look through it.

[jimjum12]

The slow sell through is certainly understandable....no Photo Journals yet, so no one knew how drop dead cool that books like Suspense 3, A-Man 22, and Starling 49 were....they were just numbers in obscure and esoteric titles. Another thought occured to me.....about logistics and display. I can't remember if long boxes had even been invented yet, if so, the Church collection would have filled over 70 of them. That would have required quite a few tables at a show for material that wasn't selling nearly as well as SA and BA books. There were still many deals to be found at yard sales back then and getting more than 25 bucks for a book back then was not an easy feat. GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

[Ted Knight]

Here's a thought. Which books would have resulted in the greatest increase in market value over the last 34 years? It isn't necessarily the "keys" as they were known at the time but the books that had classic covers:

 

Suspense 11

Startling 49 (mentioned above)

Blue Bolt Weird Tales 111

etc.

 

I think Jimbo is right about the influence of the photo-journals.

 

Going through this list is wicked fun. I'm such a Church-collector wannabe.

 

But it's fun to dream.

[chezhead]

can some of the old fogies enlighten me:

 

was it possible to go to chuck's table as a kid and purchase something that was worth thousands now?

 

I read the story on his website of how the majority was sold off so it makes me wonder how he operated at the Conventions.

 

Just curious if i could have gone up to him and bought some of the montana or single digit archie's as a kid.

 

 

[MarkWoodcock]

Observation: ECs were essentially wiped out and Atlas horror is almost non-existent.

[Mutie Fan]

Only one low grade Planet and many of the first few issues of several Fiction House titles are gone.

[bluechip]

Fingers crossed this works!

 

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BxcDZShyUvzaOTg4YTBmYjAtYTllMC00NTY5LWJlZmEtNzc4ZGVmMTQ2NzFm&hl=en&authkey=COLy1pYN

 

Is this ALL the books from the collection or just the ones that were offered for sale at the time this list was made?

[MarkWoodcock]

Is this ALL the books from the collection or just the ones that were offered for sale at the time this list was made?

 

No.

 

Supposedly there were 18-20,000 books in the collection which means there were 3,000+ sold prior to this list.

[adamstrange]

Is this ALL the books from the collection or just the ones that were offered for sale at the time this list was made?

 

No.

 

Supposedly there were 18-20,000 books in the collection which means there were 3,000+ sold prior to this list.

 

18,000 or so books.

[adamstrange]

Observation: There are almost no Kamen/Baker FOX books - including not a single Phantom lady. I would suspect that one person bought all of those in one fell swoop.

Jon Snyder ended up with those in fairly short order but I don't know he originally purchased them.

[bluechip]

Is this ALL the books from the collection or just the ones that were offered for sale at the time this list was made?

 

No.

 

Supposedly there were 18-20,000 books in the collection which means there were 3,000+ sold prior to this list.

 

 

Thanks

 

 

So, is there a list of all the books that were in the collection?

[jimjum12]

....probably not. Many of the books were dispersed early on to satisfy investors. I will take the NM Menace 1 ($ 6) and the NM+ Venus 19 ($ 45) for starters. GOD BLESS....

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

[RICK STARR]

 

I am one of the ole' fogies who was around when the Mile High collection came out. The first time most of us ever heard or seen about it was through the old Alan Light Comic buyer's guide which was published "weekly" back then. Chuck had the entire catalog published in an issue, I believe in late spring or early summer 1977. You have to understand that he was asking "triple" guide for almost every issue in the catalog. That was unheard of, until then, and there was a resistance or reluctance to pay such outlandish prices. That is until you held a true NM or NM plus particular issue in your hand. That summer (1977), Chuck attended most of the major cons throughout the country to show off the books. I saw him at a Philly Con during the summer and he only had a couple of boxes of books with him. He had a couple dozen spread out on his table. I held his Captain Science #1 in my hands and couldn't believe that this was not some sort of a reprint or something. His asking price of $35.00 made me gulp, but I paid it. Soon after , I called his phone number in Denver and ordered maybe 20-25 books with every cent I could scrape up. Most of the stuff I picked up were books in the 5-20 dollar range. As was previously mentioned, The Gerber giudes had not been published yet and the only references were the Overstreet guides illustrations or just books you may have seen at some cons.

It seems to me the the catalog was published again about a year later in the CBG with deletions of sold books. I sold almost all my MH to Sparkle City comics in 1985. They were offering "triple" 1985 price guide for any Mile High book. It was a handsome profit at the time.

Also, after that collection came out, the term NM and NM plus were redefined. These books were the benchmark for high grading.

[chezhead]

I am one of the ole' fogies who was around when the Mile High collection came out. The first time most of us ever heard or seen about it was through the old Alan Light Comic buyer's guide which was published "weekly" back then. Chuck had the entire catalog published in an issue, I believe in late spring or early summer 1977. You have to understand that he was asking "triple" guide for almost every issue in the catalog. That was unheard of, until then, and there was a resistance or reluctance to pay such outlandish prices. That is until you held a true NM or NM plus particular issue in your hand. That summer (1977), Chuck attended most of the major cons throughout the country to show off the books. I saw him at a Philly Con during the summer and he only had a couple of boxes of books with him. He had a couple dozen spread out on his table. I held his Captain Science #1 in my hands and couldn't believe that this was not some sort of a reprint or something. His asking price of $35.00 made me gulp, but I paid it. Soon after , I called his phone number in Denver and ordered maybe 20-25 books with every cent I could scrape up. Most of the stuff I picked up were books in the 5-20 dollar range. As was previously mentioned, The Gerber giudes had not been published yet and the only references were the Overstreet guides illustrations or just books you may have seen at some cons.

It seems to me the the catalog was published again about a year later in the CBG with deletions of sold books. I sold almost all my MH to Sparkle City comics in 1985. They were offering "triple" 1985 price guide for any Mile High book. It was a handsome profit at the time.

Also, after that collection came out, the term NM and NM plus were redefined. These books were the benchmark for high grading.

 

Good to get a response from someone there at the time. Chuck's prices certainly make sense given the true grading of the MH collection. I still wonder if he refused to sell to kids considering he didn't want a MH comic to get abused at all.

[Ted Knight]

As was previously mentioned, The Gerber giudes had not been published yet and the only references were the Overstreet guides illustrations or just books you may have seen at some cons.

It seems to me the the catalog was published again about a year later in the CBG with deletions of sold books. I sold almost all my MH to Sparkle City comics in 1985. They were offering "triple" 1985 price guide for any Mile High book. It was a handsome profit at the time.

Also, after that collection came out, the term NM and NM plus were redefined. These books were the benchmark for high grading.

 

This is an excellent description of how things were before the Photo-journals. I remember looking at the color section of the price guide over and over in 1978, 1979 to see cool, seemingly unattainable comics. And there were only a few pages or so of 4 books per page. There are so many books I would have bought if I had any clue what they looked like and their relative scarcity.

 

Looking at this excel file, I can't help but note how many books go for maybe 10 times what they are listed at and how many are close to 1000 times or more.

[ciorac]

As was previously mentioned, The Gerber giudes had not been published yet and the only references were the Overstreet guides illustrations or just books you may have seen at some cons.

It seems to me the the catalog was published again about a year later in the CBG with deletions of sold books. I sold almost all my MH to Sparkle City comics in 1985. They were offering "triple" 1985 price guide for any Mile High book. It was a handsome profit at the time.

Also, after that collection came out, the term NM and NM plus were redefined. These books were the benchmark for high grading.

 

This is an excellent description of how things were before the Photo-journals. I remember looking at the color section of the price guide over and over in 1978, 1979 to see cool, seemingly unattainable comics. And there were only a few pages or so of 4 books per page. There are so many books I would have bought if I had any clue what they looked like and their relative scarcity.

 

Looking at this excel file, I can't help but note how many books go for maybe 10 times what they are listed at and how many are close to 1000 times or more.

 

The pictures of comics in the Price Guide were, in some cases, the only time I had ever seen many books through the 1970s. I eagerly awaited the Guide each year for that, and many other reasons.

 

Mail order catalogs and the occasional convention were the only viable option for buying golden age in those days. And I took full advantage of both