Chuck explains his Mile High pricing

[VintageComics]

So why is it called the "Church" collection? (I know I can google it, but I know you people like to flaunt your knowledge).

 

 

The original owner of the books was named Edgar Church.

[wombat]

Thanks.

[RockMyAmadeus]

One of the things that's interesting about the Chuch collection is its very "definitiveness" (yeah... I know... probably not a word). How many other collectibles have one collection that is without debate considered to be the best. Is there a best coin collection ever discovered? I don't know.

 

Yes. There is one collection that was both the most complete, and highest quality, ever assembled. It was the collection of Louis E. Eliasberg, and it is the pinnacle of the hobby.

 

Frankly, the comparisons between the Eliasberg collection and the Church collection are interesting.

 

Church was born in 1888. Eliasberg was born in 1896. Both assembled a "one of everything" collection in their respective fields. Eliasberg died in 1976. Church died in 1977.

 

But that's where the similarities end. While Church died in utter obscurity, no one knowing, or caring, about his fabulous collection, Eliasberg was a celebrated personality of the coin world, his famous feat having been completed in 1950, and owning one of every single date and mintmark of every coin issued by the United States then known (there have been 1-2 discovered since his death.)

 

Eliasberg not only managed this feat, he maintained it throughout his life, keeping complete until he died, which Church did not.

 

The Eliasberg is the unquestioned champion of coin collecting, and, indeed, in most collecting fields.

 

And, in coins, pedigrees aren't just given by "original owners", but whoever was the most famous person to assemble them. There are a few that came close to Eliasberg's (Farouk, Pittman, Bass, Garret, etc.) but none that compared.

[RockMyAmadeus]

So why is it called the "Church" collection? (I know I can google it, but I know you people like to flaunt your knowledge).

 

 

It was discovered in the basement of a church.

[RockMyAmadeus]

One positive for me from this thread. I had no idea what the Church Collection was and its history. Always happy to learn.

 

Oh, it's wonderful. I've only had Church slabs in my hands, never actual raw copies...and I could still feel the history.

 

Chuck's story behind it, taken with whatever grains of salt one thinks is appropriate, is quite the thrilling adventure.

 

Can you imagine? He had just about everything. "Finest known" is true for the vast, vast majority of the collection.

 

 

One of my favorite things about his story, and yes, 'grain of salt' and all of that, is that he wasn't the first person contacted about the collection, he was the first person who agreed to get up off his duff and go see it...

One of my favorite things about the collection is that I got to paw through stacks of them at Burrel's house in 1977.

 

Showoff.

 

[sckao]

I collect Pedigreed copies of a certain DC book from the 60's (childhood book) which wouldn't be worth that much to anyone normally... but I'm willing to radically overpay to buy one if one comes up for auction/for sale.

 

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

Here's an interesting question to ponder...

 

People have said that Chuck could have kept the Church collection to himself, and sold it at a later, more advantageous time.

 

The question, though, is this...since nothing operates in a vacuum, would the market be what it is today without the Church collection?

 

The Church Action #1 is worth what it is because it's the CHURCH Action #1.

 

Would Action #1 be worth what it is today, even non-Church copies, if the Church collection hadn't given such a massive boost to the very young hobby in the late 70s....?

 

 

Probably. Maybe. But there are quintillion and more causes and effects that radiated out from this collection and its subsequent sale, so who knows what would have been had Chuck just kept it all for himself...?

 

I suspect, however, that even given its state of preservation, and completeness, if it was discovered today, the market would be substantially different than it became...and we all might be talking about the "Lost Valley" collection, instead.

First off, Chuck couldn't have kept the collection intact. Part of his ability to acquire the collection was obtaining a loan from a collector with the promise that it would be paid back with books from the collection. But I understand where you are going with the line of thought.

 

The Action 1 is not the best book to use to ponder your question though, simply because the last time it sold was over thirty years ago and for only in the low tens of thousands ($20,000???). The sale of that particular book really didn't create much of a new threshold for the hobby. It rare to see a Church copy of any of the major keys change hands so any talk of their value is purely speculative. I would argue that where the collection has had the most profound effect is with the many sales of random non-key issues of Golden Age titles for staggering prices. Every time a Church copy of any book sells for many multiples of guide it establishes a new threshold for all copies of that particular issue in any grade. That doesn't necessarily mean that all other copies are automatically worth more. It just means that the hobby as a whole has a new upper limit with which to gauge those books. And across the entirety of the golden age spectrum the Church collection has had the most effect, and continues to have the most effect with every auction.

 

Holy mess, I inspired Mr. B to make a serious post!

 

 

Granted, as Chuck has said, he had to get a loan(s) to finance the purchase, and he never would have been able to do it if he hadn't sold.

 

But my question was more along the lines of "would those multiples exist, if the Church collection was unknown until, say, 2006?", assuming Chuck did have those resources in the first place.

[Bookery]

But my question was more along the lines of "would those multiples exist, if the Church collection was unknown until, say, 2006?", assuming Chuck did have those resources in the first place.

 

I say no. Overstreet held sway for 3 decades, and it was his policy to show only slow gradual repetitive growth in issues over time. Rozanski was among the first to declare that the OPG was not a law, and that books could be sold for multiples. Even so, it was pretty much ONLY the Church books that could be sold that way for a long time, at least consistently. Remember-- Mehdy made international news just for paying a couple of times guide for Action #1, that's how rare the practice was!

 

CGC would eventually have accelerated the price growth aspect... but probably not to the same degree without the Church collection.

 

Different folks will conclude differently as to whether this has been a good or bad thing for the "hobby". But like it or not MH and their collection influenced a lot... in fact, contrary to earlier posts in this thread... I would argue that MH has had more influence than a number of creators... there are lots of obscure golden-age artists who I don't think it can be said had a lot of influence on comics.... they simply provided workman-like art or scripts that would have been performed by another staffer if they hadn't done it.

 

 

[COI]

Eliasberg was a celebrated personality of the coin world, his famous feat having been completed in 1950, and owning one of every single date and mintmark of every coin issued by the United States then known .

 

Whoa. Some people really go all-in.

 

Cool info. (thumbs u

[botolo]

The mystery of Barney Bear deepens...in the most recent video, Chuck says that the 49 cents copy of Barney Bear he got at the flea market is something unusual, because in their database they had a different version. He also says that the copy is in Good conditions and that he would most likely sell it for a couple of bucks.

 

If you check MHC's website, you'll see that they are selling a VF copy of the Barney Bear 49 cents edition at $96.05, which comes down to $38.42 with the currently enforced 60% discount.

 

Is this the copy that Chuck shows in the video? If so, why is it VF and not GD? If it's not the copy he showed, why did he look surprised given that he already had a VF copy of the same comic book?

[ttfitz]

Also, there is no way Chuck is selling Barney for $2.00. It's not a swipe at chuck but rather a reality of doing business. It needs someone to check it, grade it, inventory it, bag and board it, and price it. Maybe 10 minutes worth of work? Depends on how easy to use their inventory system is. But lets say 10 minutes. Assuming Chuck is paying only minimum wage to his worker, that is $8.23 in CO. So 1/6th of that is $1.37. Add in the acquisition cost, Chuck said his wife paid $0.50 for it, and the bag and board (lets call that $0.05 since I'm sure Chuck gets a great discount on those) and you are at $1.92. So that means if Chuck sold it for $2.00, he makes a grand total of 8 cents on the deal. That 8 cents has to go to pay for the following items Rent (property tax in his case) on the store/Storage location, Electricity for s

 

ame, HVAC for same, and finally the cost of staff. That is a lot to cover for that 8 cents. O and don't forget, Chucks profit. So either 1) That book is going to be priced much higher 2) Chuck paid much less to acquire (maybe a nickel a book sounds more likely to me) 3) Chuck is violating State law and paying his workers less than minimum wage (unlikely and highly doubt it)

 

Several years ago, Chuck stated he paid his workers $10 an hour, and some benefits. That was at least five years ago.

 

Just to be exact (since I just read this myself) - after you have worked at MH a year, he paid that. He didn't say what before that, at least where I was reading it.

That was how many years ago, since you just read it?

 

You are going to make me work for it, huh? I left it vague because I had been searching through my email for his newsletters and reading a few things on his old "Tales from the Database", and I couldn't remember where it was.

 

So, I went back and looked around, and found what I remembered. It was on his Tales of the Database column, which doesn't have a date on it, but that was a number of years ago in the CBG, right? Anyway, here's the relevant statement:

 

Our pay scales for our staff at Mile High Comics are, I believe, the best in the comics retailing world. If you've been with us for a year, $10 per hour is our minimum wage for full-time staff members. Managers make salaries that are comparable, or exceed, what they could make in the "real world." Plus paid vacations and medical benefits. That's one of the primary reasons why our net earnings are only a couple of pennies on the dollar.

 

It should be noted in my search for this, I found a couple recent newsletters where he said:

 

We are looking for both full time help, and also for folks who would like to just drop in during spare moments to help sort comics for $10/hour in trade credit.

 

Folks around here would likely say this amounts to under minimum wage but there it is.

[steveinthecity]

The 49 cent edition is the first Spire printing. The 59 cent edition he displayed on his tablet is the later printing from whoever took over Spire. I think Chuck was just confused.

[ttfitz]

Nobody said word-one about Buddy Sanders "massive ego" in his rather amusing statement about why HE was the biggest comic dealer around.)

 

Well...if it helps, I thought it.

 

And the thing is, they both are probably right with the claim, just depends on how you parse it (like the tv ads that say things like "top new comedy at 8 pm"). From all indications, Chuck has millions of comics that are like the MH2 find, stacked up in a warehouse just waiting for someone to get around to them. And Buddy probably does have more books readily available for sale.

 

[MrBedrock]

But my question was more along the lines of "would those multiples exist, if the Church collection was unknown until, say, 2006?", assuming Chuck did have those resources in the first place.

 

I say no. Overstreet held sway for 3 decades, and it was his policy to show only slow gradual repetitive growth in issues over time. Rozanski was among the first to declare that the OPG was not a law, and that books could be sold for multiples. Even so, it was pretty much ONLY the Church books that could be sold that way for a long time, at least consistently. Remember-- Mehdy made international news just for paying a couple of times guide for Action #1, that's how rare the practice was!

 

CGC would eventually have accelerated the price growth aspect... but probably not to the same degree without the Church collection.

 

I completely agree. Basically every time a Church book has sold it has created a price gap with the guide. This has been true since the day Chuck started selling them.

 

I would say that the practice of pricing over guide was a little more prevalent than you allude to. I was often making decisions on whether to pay 10% or 20% over guide for nice golden age keys or Larsons or other nice stuff. Chuck's multiples on the Church books were 200- 300% of guide from the start though. And the Church collection created wider acceptance of the practice of paying over guide among collectors. Once collectors became comfortable with the idea of paying a premium for a beautiful comic from that collection then it became the norm as other high grade collections were offered - Spokanes, White Mountains etc.

[ttfitz]

One positive for me from this thread. I had no idea what the Church Collection was and its history. Always happy to learn.

 

Oh, it's wonderful. I've only had Church slabs in my hands, never actual raw copies...and I could still feel the history.

 

Chuck's story behind it, taken with whatever grains of salt one thinks is appropriate, is quite the thrilling adventure.

 

Can you imagine? He had just about everything. "Finest known" is true for the vast, vast majority of the collection.

 

 

One of my favorite things about his story, and yes, 'grain of salt' and all of that, is that he wasn't the first person contacted about the collection, he was the first person who agreed to get up off his duff and go see it...

 

Yeah, I like that part, too. When opportunity knocks, many people say, "Go away, I'm busy."

[slym2none]

Is this the new thread?

 

 

 

::

 

 

 

-slym

[slym2none]

The thought occurred to me... Who does chuck think he is talking too... I had to buy the building because they would not rent it to me for any price .. It was the only where house on the planet earth that was available... Oh that's right he is talking to people he is buying from him.....and paying his special wherehouse prices.... That's right

 

It was probably the only location ware Chuck wanted his wherehouse to be.

 

Their's one in Whoville, correct?

 

 

 

-slym

[jaybuck43]

My brother and I always like to make fun of the ridiculous elias sports bureau stats that Fox always trots out in the Playoffs like "The Yankees have never lost a game when leading by more then 3 runs in the top of the 8th inning when the moon is in the 3rd vertical of it's 9th elliptic and there are two runners on base."

 

Here's why I won't deal with Chuck, plain and simple. 90% of what he has, I don't collect. The 10% that he has that I do collect is overpriced and easily found from other sources who are a) cheaper and b) more easy to deal with.

 

 

[Robot Man]

One of the things that's interesting about the Chuch collection is its very "definitiveness" (yeah... I know... probably not a word). How many other collectibles have one collection that is without debate considered to be the best. Is there a best coin collection ever discovered? I don't know. How about a single unqualified best baseball card collection?

 

I can tell you there is no "best book collection" that can be pinned down. So that alone gives the collection a special place beyond even just the comics community.

 

Hate to interupt the Chuck bashing but I have a question.

 

I know you are the pulp guy. I know of the Yakima collection and I have seen Dwight mention the Strasser collection. Can you fill me in on the back stories of these collections? Also, are there any other pulp "pedigree" collections out there?

[Robot Man]

One positive for me from this thread. I had no idea what the Church Collection was and its history. Always happy to learn.

 

Oh, it's wonderful. I've only had Church slabs in my hands, never actual raw copies...and I could still feel the history.

 

Chuck's story behind it, taken with whatever grains of salt one thinks is appropriate, is quite the thrilling adventure.

 

Can you imagine? He had just about everything. "Finest known" is true for the vast, vast majority of the collection.

 

 

One of my favorite things about his story, and yes, 'grain of salt' and all of that, is that he wasn't the first person contacted about the collection, he was the first person who agreed to get up off his duff and go see it...

One of my favorite things about the collection is that I got to paw through stacks of them at Burrel's house in 1977.

 

I remember his MH debeut at the Casual Con in Anahiem. Were the most beautiful books I'd ever seen. Box fulls of them in pristine shape. After the word got out, the whole con was in his booth handing him money happily. He did want double or triple guide for them, but a $3. book for $9 and a Church copy? I only wish I could have bought more...