Does anybody think there is a Mile High Church like collection still out there?

[JazzMan]

Don't all of us somehow hope we will become Edgar Church once we die? Whenever I think about my comics collection, I always enjoy the idea that when I will be gone, someone will come and find my treasure (which is, right now, more of a piggybank treasure than a real treasure).

 

 

I am hoping I am Edgar Church BEFORE I die.....like Mark Hamill's character in Amazing Stories.... "Gather Ye Acorns"

 

For the impatient, jump to 22:00 and watch from there....

 

 

Too bad that "Marvel Mystery #1" had the wrong back cover.

[Aweandlorder]

I think that there are PLENTY of gold mines out there and most of them are probably treasured by comic book creators and publishers. I was inspecting a famous creators collection last month, which name I will respectfully not mention, and I was getting dizzy just looking at all the exuberant amount of comic collectibles and art he had. The crown's jewel was his reproduction of Action #1 which was basically the original reprint of Action #1 (Famous First Editions #C-26). The original artwork for Action was burnt in a warehouse fire and he was given the task of recreating it from its printed format, which was then used on every reprint of Action #1. He did many other recreations but Action #1 is obviously the biggest project he did. He also had THOUSANDS of original artwork from golden-silver age DC books, production art, cover proofs (ive seen the ones for Preacher #1 and Dark Knight Returns #1 among hundreds others).. The works!

I left his residence thinking to myself, if that's just his collection, I wonder what big artists like Neal Adams, Steve Ditko and the likes posses in their collection.

[The-Collector]

I don't know about a large high grade GA collection but I would think it is almost a certainty that there are a several high grade SA collections amassed on the secondary market by collectors who began collecting in the late 60s/70s heck even the 80s.

 

And I would guarantee there are large collections of high grade BA books. I would not be surprised if a long box full of IH 181s in NM showed up somewhere.

[Bunky Brian]

Every time I drive by what is obviously an old house, I wonder what might be hidden in the attic or basement.

 

(thumbs u

 

 

never say never,

there could be the next Church collection, in the old house you drove by yesterday,

 

I think there are more out there, some never to see the light of day,

 

B

[tv horror]

i can see it now, some old house and you are asked to clear the attic. "oh look! There's a bunch of old Superman comics in a bunch and what's this? A doll, I can just about make the name out it's Anna-something or other that's it Belle!

[Jeffro.]

Every time I drive by what is obviously an old house, I wonder what might be hidden in the attic or basement.

 

(thumbs u

 

 

never say never,

there could be the next Church collection, in the old house you drove by yesterday,

 

I think there are more out there, some never to see the light of day,

 

B

 

That's a good point. There are still a lot of people out there that would just throw stuff out without giving a second thought (or a first thought) to the idea that it's worth money.

[ComicConnoisseur]

There is hope.

 

$3 Million Worth of Baseball Cards recently found in Ohio Attic.

Man cleaning out aunt`s attic scores a million dollar collection.

 

Man, that is crazy...

I know it wasn`t like he just found a valuable collection. He found the collection that all baseball card collections will now be judged against.

Kind of like he found the Mile High collection of baseball cards.

The amazing part was this was discovered in the internet age.

[Guardian Comics]

Don't all of us somehow hope we will become Edgar Church once we die? Whenever I think about my comics collection, I always enjoy the idea that when I will be gone, someone will come and find my treasure (which is, right now, more of a piggybank treasure than a real treasure).

 

 

I am hoping I am Edgar Church BEFORE I die.....like Mark Hamill's character in Amazing Stories.... "Gather Ye Acorns"

 

For the impatient, jump to 22:00 and watch from there....

 

 

Too bad that "Marvel Mystery #1" had the wrong back cover.

 

I'm still trying to figure out what a Marvel Mystery #1 even is

 

Jim

[jcjames]

I don't think there are any more collections out there that can match both the sheer size and breadth of books the church collection represents. I do however know there are several major original owner collections out there that are amazing collections that are just passing from father to son etc and not being broken up. As others have said, much of the church collection was "drek" that very few people collected. The value of it now is that its part of the church collection. I think to have a collection like that takes very special circumstances

I am in the far minority who really see no value in owning one item from a broken-up collection that no longer exists as a collection anymore.

 

As a SET, a pedigree collection has obvious value IMO, but once the set is dissolved and every piece is sold off individually - the SET no longer exists and so I have no interest whatsoever in paying a premium for a single item that USED TO be part of a collection.

 

But that's just me.

 

YMMV.

[wombat]

Don't all of us somehow hope we will become Edgar Church once we die? Whenever I think about my comics collection, I always enjoy the idea that when I will be gone, someone will come and find my treasure (which is, right now, more of a piggybank treasure than a real treasure).

 

Nope. Now before I die is another story.

[gyro-1]

no--- all the really good stuff from the collectors of the 40s has been dispersed to the collectors of the 60 -70s

[rjpb]

I can see there being another undiscovered OO ( or inherited) collection the size and scope of Church's or another GA collection in the condition, but not both. It still amazes me that one such collection existed 30 years after accumulation.

 

For Silver Age it's another story. I suspect there may well be several extensive super-high grade collections spanning the 1956-1970 era that are currently unknown to the collecting community. Plenty of collectors amassed their collections in relative isolation from fandom, and some of those may not have been looked at for decades, sitting in storage somewhere carefully boxed up.

[Xela]

Speculating about GA OO collections reminds me of those Big Foot shows - they spend 59 1/2 minutes talking about how it could be possible and end the last 30 seconds saying, "the tenacious hunters continue to scour the earth but have not found any."

 

[Meeklo]

My collection of 80 comics has yet to be discovered by the general public….

[tv horror]

One man's junk is another man's treasure. I have often wondered how many priceless treasures have ended up dumped because of disinterest or because it was clutter. In fact members of my family have commented that I should have thrown out my collection years ago because I have now grown older and comics and toys are for children. So on that note I am enjoying my time in collectors Heaven.

[comicstock]

I think there's still great groups of books to be had out there...

I was at an auction yesterday and won a couple hundred books.

After the comics were brought over to me by the auction runner, a man in his eighties walked over and thumbed thru a Rin Tin Tin that was at the top of the pile.

He said to me..."these old comics...are they really worth something?"

He was not putting me on. A good ol' country boy.

Now, how many tens or even hundreds of thousands of old-timers are out there that don't pay much attention to the news or read the paper cover-to-cover and may've enjoyed and kept their comics?

[shadroch]

I know of two very extensive HG SA collections that have never been offered, and are 100% raw. I looked over one of thm last year and was surprised to find many of the books were only Fine or Very fFne, as the owner was very picky. When I mentioned it to the other owner, he pulled out a box with Avengers 1-16, Daredevil 1-6 and TOS 39-47.

With the exception of the #39, the rest were easy 9.0/9.2 with a couple of 9.4s.The TOS 39 was maybe a weak 8.0. Both collections are well over 2000 books, almost entirely Marvel Super-hero books from 61-78.Strangely, both owners are life long bachelors,(one still lives with his mother and the books are kept in his basement). Neither has any plans to sell and is not abreast of current market conditions.

The owner of the second collection is a supervisor of a bar cleaning company, and has worked there his entire life. He doesn't seem to care that he could retire by just selling his Avengers 1-150.His AF 15 is easily a $50,000 book

A third collection I'm aware of consists of a few hundred GA books. Most are solid mid-grade books.

They passed from the original owner to his son, and are targeted to be used for college costs in about ten years. No Action #1 or any huge key, but a couple of early Marvels and three pre-Robin books.

From what I gathered, the boy bought the books from about 1943-1947 and traded for some earlier books. Around 1970, the father got rid of his coverless or ripped up books, bought some comic bags for the rest and put them away.

I'm quite sure most collectors or dealers know a couple similar collections.

[RockMyAmadeus]

The answer to the question posed by the thread is "no."

 

The collection was too large, and too well preserved, to be sitting around still a couple of generations after the fact.

 

However....

 

There are plenty of 2nd and 3rd generation collectors who assembled these collections as back issues (like Bang Zoom), that have about as much scope as the Church collection...but not anywhere near the level of preservation, having been unable to buy the books brand new.

 

There are many, many more such collections out there, assembled by those who are in their 60's, 70's, and 80's, that will eventually come to market.

 

It's important to remember that, for many of these guys, "how much are they worth?" just isn't a consideration. Collectors being collectors, they are happy to own the item, rather than the cash they could trade it for.

 

If someone paid $100 for a decent mid-grade Tec #27 in 1965...an astonishing sum for a comic book, no doubt, but still relatively little in the greater scheme...they probably don't care that it's worth 3/4 of a million dollars now, other than for insurance purposes.

 

And they for damn sure aren't about to share information about what they have, to invite unwanted attention.

 

We shall see.

[comicjack]

Goldenage no! Silverage yes!

[Dale Roberts]

I would say that just based on the odds of how many comics were sold during the time period, I would say there are more than one major significant collections still out there of Golden Age Comics. It would likely be a very old man at this point (or the son or grandson of someone) who truly cherished the books.

 

You are looking at the very end of the greatest generation over the next 10 years. A man who is 84 years old was 10 years old at the beginning of World War 2. Correspondingly, a man who is 89 years old would have been 10 years old when Action #1 came out.

 

It is very possible and even likely that there are several original owner major Golden Age collections still around as of yet unknown (or at least not known to the general public). Now whether those books would be as well preserved as the Mile Highs....., I would highly doubt it.