Chuck explains his Mile High pricing

[Robot Man]

My impression of the Churches when I first read the account years ago, was the heirs resented the comics, possibly because Edgar kept them away from the children. They took up a lot of space and, maybe, Edgar loved his comics more than them. He gave the comics more "quality" time. Just another dysfunctional family with seething resentments.

 

I don't know if he gave the comics any time at all other than buying them. Seems like he stacked them and left them in the stack untouched ever again.

 

Seems more like he just lived in his own world most of his life and had no time for the kids or the family at all. That is just spit balling mind you. But who else devotes that much space in a home to those books? He seems like a really organized hoarder. If he was amassing the collection while in his middle years, wouldn't the kids have been gone by then anyway? It would be interesting to know the real facts behind how he lived above and beyond the comic book side of things.

 

I think he started collecting at 40. Kids were probably still young and at home.

 

I never got the impression that he was a "collector" but more of a compullsive person. It was a habit and he couldn't stop. They weren't organized in a way a collector would have them and he didn't seek out back issues he needed. He mostly just bought them off the stands and piled them up in the closet oretty much un-read.

[RockMyAmadeus]

My impression of the Churches when I first read the account years ago, was the heirs resented the comics, possibly because Edgar kept them away from the children. They took up a lot of space and, maybe, Edgar loved his comics more than them. He gave the comics more "quality" time. Just another dysfunctional family with seething resentments.

 

I don't know if he gave the comics any time at all other than buying them. Seems like he stacked them and left them in the stack untouched ever again.

 

Seems more like he just lived in his own world most of his life and had no time for the kids or the family at all. That is just spit balling mind you. But who else devotes that much space in a home to those books? He seems like a really organized hoarder. If he was amassing the collection while in his middle years, wouldn't the kids have been gone by then anyway? It would be interesting to know the real facts behind how he lived above and beyond the comic book side of things.

 

 

I think he started collecting at 40. Kids were probably still young and at home.

 

I never got the impression that he was a "collector" but more of a compullsive person. It was a habit and he couldn't stop. They weren't organized in a way a collector would have them and he didn't seek out back issues he needed. He mostly just bought them off the stands and piled them up in the closet oretty much un-read.

He did buy several books, including Detective #27, second hand.

[Robot Man]

First, Mr. Mehdy, if I have the right guy, let me say that you are the greatest.

 

It's funny, I have been commenting here for a day or two about Chuck Rozanski's original deal with the Church family. I have declared that I find it distasteful, though I realize that many others see it differently.

 

I have no real problem with his on line pricing, though. The prices are very high but I shrug my shoulders and say, "That's his business plan". From what I have been told he also buys low. I have purchased from him on one occasion. I was trying to complete my collection of EC reprints. I needed 23 comics. He had all but 3. When the sale came around I paid about double to quadruple what I would have paid at local conventions or ebay, which was, on average, about $5 each.

 

However, it might have taken me years to find them at conventions. On ebay I would have had to factor in another $5 per book for postage. So, I felt I could do best with Chuck Rozanski.

 

But for most situations I would advise an individual to look harder before going to Mile High.

.

 

Thanks for the thumbs up. As a 50 year collector I am and always will be for the preservation of comic. Books and art in America. But chucks pricing will hurt comic book collecting in the long term.

 

I am glad I got the right guy. I still remember seeing you in a TV clip, I suppose, some time in the mid-seventies concerning the Action 1. I do a talk on comics for high school kids, and I have done it for an entire school at one time. In that talk I show a picture of you as a teenager and tell them about the Action 1 purchase and how much things have changed since then. I am a fifty year collector too, but never on your level.

 

At one time I heard the Mile High accumulation was 7 million books. I was at the Chicago convention and I did a calculation dividing 7 million comics by 250 books per box, then estimating the number of dealers in Chicago and the number of boxes each had on average. I don't think the whole Chicago convention had 7 million books there. If it is now 20 million, those comics aren't a mile high anymore. They stretch from here to Mars.

 

There was a New York dealer, perhaps a decade ago, who wanted to cash in his chips. I wish I could remember his name. He was in his sixties. He had been in this at least as long as you or I. He kept many of his comics, as well as boxing memorabilia and oddball junk on a farm in New Jersey. He made a film, perhaps 15 minutes long, showcasing his accumulation which he put up on ebay. It was a facinating film. I had the impression that he had sold off the good stuff and was left with some fascinating but ultimately low value pop culture artifacts. I heard that the bidders never reached minimum bid. He may still have the accumulation.

 

Well, I don't think that guy had anywhere near 7 million comics let alone 20 million. I had to wonder if one day Chuck Rozanski or his heirs will decide to sell off his business. Will the new owner have the same business plan? Will it be sold off in chunks to several people? What would happen to the millions of comics which are worth about ten cents as far as I can tell on the open market? Will they come to market and be sold quickly at conventions for say a quarter each. Will it destroy the market for less expensive books which seem to go now between $2 and $5 on the open market. I can imagine it happening.

 

The dealer you are talking about was Phil and Elanor Levine from New Jersey. I don't believe they sold that hord. Had complete collections of TV guides as well. He bought something from me on FleaBay about a year ago.

[Robot Man]

I bet many of us have little stories where we rescued some books from the dump. My own involved finding a grouping of them that were destined for the the boy scout paper drive I was participating in. I can't recall how good those books were or which ones they are but I am fairly certain most are still in my collection. That was a very happy day for me and the only time I remember being so fortunate finding books. Nice bundle tied together with twine.

 

I always looked forward to doing those paper drives after that.

 

I actually did get a collection from the dump! A friend of mine who worked at the San Mateo dump called me one day and said he found a pile of old comics that were thrown away. So I drove up and met him at the dump. Got about 4 long boxes of books that came out of a house in San Francisco. They were from about 1946-1954. Just average shape but a great cross section of books. We worked out a deal and he walked me over to the shredder. They had been shredding them when he rescued the rest. So sad seeing all that neatly shredded paper at the base of the machine...

[ttfitz]

I think he started collecting at 40. Kids were probably still young and at home.

Does anyone know what happened to this project?

 

Edgar Church movie

 

It's surprising to me that an independent, serious, professional, mainstream, and fairly rigorous journalistic inquiry into the collection and its discovery has never been undertaken or produced. Don't any comic book people work in the news biz these days?

 

Seems to me that we should have something more to go on when discussing this, especially after almost 40 years now, other than Chuck's version of events and a handful of scattered rumors and suppositions. For such a remarkable find, the amount of documentation and verifiable factual information is pretty thin...

 

 

Looks like the Kickstarter campaign ended with less than $6000 pledged towards the $68,000 goal, so I'm guessing the guy probably gave up on it.

[Chip Cataldo]

Looks like the Kickstarter campaign ended with less than $6000 pledged towards the $68,000 goal, so I'm guessing the guy probably gave up on it.

That just goes to show that outside of this board not many people give a crapp.

[wombat]

Looks like the Kickstarter campaign ended with less than $6000 pledged towards the $68,000 goal, so I'm guessing the guy probably gave up on it.

That just goes to show that outside of this board not many people give a crapp.

 

Even if they did it doesn't mean they want to pay to have some movie made. But you may also be correct.

[revat]

Looks like the Kickstarter campaign ended with less than $6000 pledged towards the $68,000 goal, so I'm guessing the guy probably gave up on it.

That just goes to show that outside of this board not many people give a crapp.

 

'not many' is a pretty generous estimate.

 

I'd say 'not many' is a good estimate for the boards.

 

Outside the boards....

[Mmehdy]

Certainly an interesting question what happens when Chuck dies. Does he have kids? If so are they involved in the business?

 

Four daughters. Don't know if they are in the business.

 

Dumping his entire collection or stock on the market would have little effect for quality GA/SA comic books especially early marvels. However, MH2 collection could impact some late 60's marvel prices. He has already sold his good stuff...the remaining MH comic book collection including his Red Raven #1.

 

If you look at it Meto they had the same "buy everything approach: but stuck to Action 1's supers 1's etc quality books...they seem to have won a big market share, hit the auction market(which chuck does not really come close to), and dumped the money into OA comic book and illustration and that has really taken off to the point that they are opening a separate gallery this year.

 

Chuck has 10000 she-hulk #1's and CC has one of the best comic art collections......you judge who was right...and you don't see CC asking 10X guide for a 10cent cover comic....

[waahehe94]

The main question I would like to see Chuck answer in his newsletters & various Youtube videos now is why he prices his weekly new issues at $1 over the cover price when he gets them and how he comes up with variant prices for these issues? I have never seen another retailer or dealer do this and some even sell new issues for a discount.

 

I've read just about all of his "Tales From The Database" articles and in many of them he goes into detail about the discounts that he got on new issues starting out as a dealer, how he fought to get additional discounts and become a retailer and even how he talked with lawyers and people in the DOJ when he felt his rights were being violated. There seems to be some irony in the way he talks about DC, Diamond and other people/companies over the years taking away some of the dealers profit margin or hurting the comic business with their delivery schedules, shipping costs and price gouging in one form or another when he basically seems to do the same thing when it serves his best interest to his customers.

 

Another thing that bothers me and is a reason that I don't order from him often is how slow his shipping is. It's been several months since I've ordered anything from Mile High but the last 3 times that I did it took anywhere from seven to ten days to receive my order and on one occassion it took 2 weeks before receiving my order. Maybe I'm just used to dealing with Automotive & Power Sports companies like Summit Racing, Jegs and Dennis Kirk but with them I can order something on a Monday and receive it by Wednesday using regular shipping. If they can do it that fast then why can't the worlds biggest comic supplier who has been in business for over 40 years can't? It's not like he just opened up shop last week and is still working out the bugs with his logistics.

 

I respect Chuck for being in the comics business for as long as he has and being able to make a career out of something that he enjoys doing but I feel that he contradicts himself every other time that he talks about something. When watching his Youtube videos, reading his newsletters and reading his old "Tales From The Database" articles I'm always reminded of something I was told many years ago, there's always three sides to every story, the first persons version, the second persons version and the truth. To me he seems to have a Type A personality, be charasmatic and have the ability to BS on just about any subject which makes him a good salesman.

 

An example of the reason I say that Chuck contradicts himself often is in one of his old articles where he was talking about an event that happened shortly after he bought the Church collection. Many times he talks about how little money he had at that time in his life and gives various examples in his articles to prove this. He then talks about shortly after buying the Church collection how he had to move out of his apartment and into a house with a basement and an alarm system so that he could better store and protect his investment. He doesn't say if he bought or rented the house but anyone that's ever moved knows that it costs money whichever route he went, which he claims many times to have been in short supply of.

 

It seems like everytime he talks about something he's always saying look at poor me or the comics industry is doomed in the future because of something that happened in the industry 20, 25, 30 or 35 years ago. Then he goes on to talk about how much good he has done for the industry, in the industry or how he has influenced the industry and how everyone that didn't take his advice is incompetent.

 

Sorry for such a long first post but after reading 90+ pages about Chuck I needed to vent.

[ttfitz]

The main question I would like to see Chuck answer in his newsletters & various Youtube videos now is why he prices his weekly new issues at $1 over the cover price when he gets them and how he comes up with variant prices for these issues? I have never seen another retailer or dealer do this and some even sell new issues for a discount.

 

I'm wondering where you are seeing this? My understanding is the NICE subscription service for new issues sells them at a discount just like pretty much everyone. At least it did years ago when I used them for a while (with higher discounts the more you bought).

 

Yeah, here - http://www.milehighcomics.com/nice/nice.html - it says, "We offer discounts ranging from 10 to 40% on any comic being published today."

[roach04]

Looks like the Kickstarter campaign ended with less than $6000 pledged towards the $68,000 goal, so I'm guessing the guy probably gave up on it.

That just goes to show that outside of this board not many people give a crapp.

 

If I knew how to insert a "thumbs up" I would put it here! Rich Johnston even did an article on that guys Kickstarter - that's how I found out about it - and that clearly didn't drive a ton of pledges.

[Mmehdy]

How many board members here actually gave money pledge to the project?

[chrisco37]

I did not.

[DavidTheDavid]

Okay, I've gone back about fifteen pages doing page searches for "kick" and can't find anything. What's the kickstarter project being mentioned?

[thunsicker]

Okay, I've gone back about fifteen pages doing page searches for "kick" and can't find anything. What's the kickstarter project being mentioned?

 

Edgar's Comics

[Mmehdy]

The main question I would like to see Chuck answer in his newsletters & various Youtube videos now is why he prices his weekly new issues at $1 over the cover price when he gets them and how he comes up with variant prices for these issues? I have never seen another retailer or dealer do this and some even sell new issues for a discount.

 

I've read just about all of his "Tales From The Database" articles and in many of them he goes into detail about the discounts that he got on new issues starting out as a dealer, how he fought to get additional discounts and become a retailer and even how he talked with lawyers and people in the DOJ when he felt his rights were being violated. There seems to be some irony in the way he talks about DC, Diamond and other people/companies over the years taking away some of the dealers profit margin or hurting the comic business with their delivery schedules, shipping costs and price gouging in one form or another when he basically seems to do the same thing when it serves his best interest to his customers.

 

Another thing that bothers me and is a reason that I don't order from him often is how slow his shipping is. It's been several months since I've ordered anything from Mile High but the last 3 times that I did it took anywhere from seven to ten days to receive my order and on one occassion it took 2 weeks before receiving my order. Maybe I'm just used to dealing with Automotive & Power Sports companies like Summit Racing, Jegs and Dennis Kirk but with them I can order something on a Monday and receive it by Wednesday using regular shipping. If they can do it that fast then why can't the worlds biggest comic supplier who has been in business for over 40 years can't? It's not like he just opened up shop last week and is still working out the bugs with his logistics.

 

I respect Chuck for being in the comics business for as long as he has and being able to make a career out of something that he enjoys doing but I feel that he contradicts himself every other time that he talks about something. When watching his Youtube videos, reading his newsletters and reading his old "Tales From The Database" articles I'm always reminded of something I was told many years ago, there's always three sides to every story, the first persons version, the second persons version and the truth. To me he seems to have a Type A personality, be charasmatic and have the ability to BS on just about any subject which makes him a good salesman.

 

An example of the reason I say that Chuck contradicts himself often is in one of his old articles where he was talking about an event that happened shortly after he bought the Church collection. Many times he talks about how little money he had at that time in his life and gives various examples in his articles to prove this. He then talks about shortly after buying the Church collection how he had to move out of his apartment and into a house with a basement and an alarm system so that he could better store and protect his investment. He doesn't say if he bought or rented the house but anyone that's ever moved knows that it costs money whichever route he went, which he claims many times to have been in short supply of.

 

It seems like everytime he talks about something he's always saying look at poor me or the comics industry is doomed in the future because of something that happened in the industry 20, 25, 30 or 35 years ago. Then he goes on to talk about how much good he has done for the industry, in the industry or how he has influenced the industry and how everyone that didn't take his advice is incompetent.

 

Sorry for such a long first post but after reading 90+ pages about Chuck I needed to vent.

.

 

Great first post

[Mmehdy]

Chuck we need video #7.......I know you are listening ....

[BarryAllen]

[Mmehdy]

Should be released this week?