Chuck Got Hacked and He's Not Happy 2 2

[RockMyAmadeus]

On 11/2/2018 at 9:49 AM, N e r V said:

 

 

The sellers of the Edgar Church collection should have been set up pretty nicely by 1970’s standards in selling that valuable collection even back then. Were they? Or was it Chuck and others the ones that actually were set up? 

 

Not defending Chuckles...God forbid...but, historical context always has to be considered. In 1977, people generally had no clue that there were comic books that were "worth money." The new DC and Marvels were 30 cents; virtually everything else published after 1955 was worth less than that, and that which was published before, very few people ever saw, since 95-99% of it was destroyed.

Should the Church family have been set? Eh. Even throwing Chuck's story out top to bottom, the truth is, these people probably had no idea what they had, and just wanted to get rid of it. There would have been virtually no one, relative to the general population, that even knew what these people had. There was no internet, there were, perhaps, 100 comic stores nationwide...maybe....so it's not as if they had access to any information. 

Did Chuck get the steal of a lifetime, even relative to 1977? Sure. But were there options for the Church family besides Chuck...? Probably not. 

And believe it or not, knowledge DOES have value. A lot.

I love....LOVE...the ridiculous "comic investment websites" that say "if you'd only bought X copies of this book, you'd be rich!" The fact is, it wouldn't have mattered how much you paid, because those books simply weren't available. There's a funny one, about a doofus who runs an "investment" blog, where he talks about buying "multiple copies of Star Wars #1 35 cent variant!!"...but you couldn't have. They weren't available, regardless of how much you wanted to pay. And, if you tried throwing money around such a small market, and buying any and all available copies, you'll get walloped by people with much bigger pockets than you. You'd have ended up paying a LOT more for them, which would have made the "investment" aspect a wash.

"If only you bought 20 copies of Action #1 in 1966!" 

That was almost certainly an impossibility, no matter how much money you offered, no matter how hard you looked. One, two, maybe three...? Sure. Multiples? Dream on.

So, while the Church family didn't get anywhere near what they could have...by orders of magnitude...they still didn't get nothing, and if Chuckles paid them $2,000, that was a considerable chunk of change in 1977...for what were, essentially, old magazines.

Edited November 4, 2018 by RockMyAmadeus

[BlowUpTheMoon]

7 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Did Chuck get the steal of a lifetime, even relative to 1977? Sure. But were there options for the Church family besides Chuck...? Probably not. 

The Church realtor first called a comic store who said he would not go to see the collection, the collection had to come to him. 

The Church realtor then called a used bookstore that Nanette Rozanski had worked at. 

[RockMyAmadeus]

19 minutes ago, BlowUpTheMoon said:

The Church realtor first called a comic store who said he would not go to see the collection, the collection had to come to him. 

The Church realtor then called a used bookstore that Nanette Rozanski had worked at. 

Right...and I was setting aside what we knew from Chuck entirely. I don't think anyone ever got the Church family side of the story, did they?

[BlowUpTheMoon]

12 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

32 minutes ago, BlowUpTheMoon said:

The Church realtor first called a comic store who said he would not go to see the collection, the collection had to come to him. 

The Church realtor then called a used bookstore that Nanette Rozanski had worked at. 

Right...and I was setting aside what we knew from Chuck entirely. I don't think anyone ever got the Church family side of the story, did they?

You know the answer to that.

 

[N e r V]

9 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Not defending Chuckles...God forbid...but, historical context always has to be considered. In 1977, people generally had no clue that there were comic books that were "worth money." The new DC and Marvels were 30 cents; virtually everything else published after 1955 was worth less than that, and that which was published before, very few people ever saw, since 95-99% of it was destroyed.

Should the Church family have been set? Eh. Even throwing Chuck's story out top to bottom, the truth is, these people probably had no idea what they had, and just wanted to get rid of it. There would have been virtually no one, relative to the general population, that even knew what these people had. There was no internet, there were, perhaps, 100 comic stores nationwide...maybe....so it's not as if they had access to any information. 

Did Chuck get the steal of a lifetime, even relative to 1977? Sure. But were there options for the Church family besides Chuck...? Probably not. 

And believe it or not, knowledge DOES have value. A lot.

I love....LOVE...the ridiculous "comic investment websites" that say "if you'd only bought X copies of this book, you'd be rich!" The fact is, it wouldn't have mattered how much you paid, because those books simply weren't available. There's a funny one, about a doofus who runs an "investment" blog, where he talks about buying "multiple copies of Star Wars #1 35 cent variant!!"...but you couldn't have. They weren't available, regardless of how much you wanted to pay. And, if you tried throwing money around such a small market, and buying any and all available copies, you'll get walloped by people with much bigger pockets than you. You'd have ended up paying a LOT more for them, which would have made the "investment" aspect a wash.

"If only you bought 20 copies of Action #1 in 1966!" 

That was almost certainly an impossibility, no matter how much money you offered, no matter how hard you looked. One, two, maybe three...? Sure. Multiples? Dream on.

So, while the Church family didn't get anywhere near what they could have...by orders of magnitude...they still didn't get nothing, and if Chuckles paid them $2,000, that was a considerable chunk of change in 1977...for what were, essentially, old magazines.

Maybe the word “set” was not a good choice by me but what I was trying to say was that those comics did have a high value at the time of their discovery. Value enough to pad someone’s pockets pretty nicely. Comics had nothing like their value today but neither did they only 20 years ago. People were making a living selling comics since the 1960’s so yeah, old comics like that had pretty good value when selling even in the 1970’s.

My point is this and it’s something only each person reading this can decide if it’s right or wrong in a business transaction. Did they inform the sellers of the true value of the comics before making a offer on them or did they knowingly withhold that information?

I’ll use this as an example. Bedrock or Gator or whoever your favorite dealer is has someone offer him 100 9.0 condition copies of Amazing Fantasy #15 and they have no knowledge of comics at all. Zero. They received the comics through a death of an uncle and have no use for them but just need to get rid of them along with his other belongings. Do you feel the dealer has the right to withhold all information of their value and offer them something extremely low? $1000.00 dollar a copy? $100.00? $10.00? $1.00?

Is that just a big score the dealer has a right to and it’s the sellers fault for not being a comic collector and knowing the value?

Chuck was a dealer and not just another guy buying comics who had no clue what they are worth. He was going to get a good deal on them regardless.

So I’m not going to chase and demonize anyone because I know of dealers that would have done the same thing as Chuck did. I said in my earlier post you can use your own views on if it’s ok or not but I was a dealer too for a number of years and I reserve the right to make my own judgements on how others conduct business good or bad. I can say that because I also had people come to me with books or items not knowing what they were worth and I have my own views on responsibility in conducting business transactions. I don’t believe anything I posted so far was inaccurate so draw your own conclusions.

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

The world was a vastly different place in 1977. No one could have foreseen that these comics would have been worth what they became worth.

Look at stamps. Stamps were still a very big deal in 1977. Now, all but the most spectacular rarities are nearly worthless. No one collects stamps anymore. If you paid $2.000 for the finest stamps in 1977, and saved them, you almost certainly would have lost it all by now.

Could comics have gone the way of stamps in 1977?

You better believe they could. In 1977, the comics market was dying, and Chuck knew this. New comics weren't selling, and despite the flashy reports of the era, conventions were still attended in the hundreds....maybe SDCC had 1,000+ attendees in 1977? 

It took the Direct market to save comics. Jim Shooter often talks about the fact that Star Wars saved Marvel. Now, he may be exaggerating, or he may be understating, but the situation for comics was quite dire in 1977. 

I looked at someone's collection of records a couple years ago. I had no idea what I was looking at. They had hundreds and hundreds of records. Big names, like the Beatles and the like. All from the 50s and 60s. I spent a week....a very long week...researching prices, on the hopes that at least ONE of those records had value. And not a single one of them did. And I had the resources of the internet and eBay at my fingertips.

That's what people going through comics who know nothing about them feel. And that would have been greatly magnified in 1977. And, frankly...there has been more than one instance where someone looked at me, after I had given them my knowledge and expertise free of charge about their VG 70s Marvels, and acted as if I didn't know what I was talking about, or was trying to rip them off (when I wasn't even interested in buying their books.)

That knowledge has VALUE. It was gained over time. Should I freely hand over that knowledge? Should you? We do it all the time here, and how often is it met with scorn from people who think of themselves as comic collectors...?

Should sellers lie about value? No. That's a pretty clear line to draw. If someone asks "how much do you think these are worth?", you should at the very least point them in the right direction ("I'd look on eBay or the internet to get an idea of how much they're worth." Remember: they're not paying me for an appraisal, and my knowledge has VALUE.) It would be crossing a very clear moral line to say "oh, those comics aren't worth anything" or to pull out an OPG from 1987. 

But if someone I encounter has comics worth $10,000, and I say "how much?" and they say "$10"....I'm going to hand them over my $10, say "thank you very much", and walk away. If they say "how much are you willing to pay?", I give an amount I'm willing to spend, and if they like that, also fine. I'm happy, they're satisfied. I am under ZERO obligation to "educate" them about the "true value" of those books...and neither is anyone else. And people have far more resources at their fingertips today than they did 40 years ago.

My knowledge and experience has VALUE. So does yours. If you're willing to give away your knowledge and experience, that's your choice: but recognize that it is an act of charity, to which you are not obligated, and neither is anyone else. 

AND...circling back to Chuck...if what he says is true...and, admittedly, that's a large grain of salt to swallow...the family was in the process of throwing them away. The fact that they got ANYTHING for things they were about to throw away should be enough evidence to demonstrate that they didn't get "ripped off" by anyone...again, assuming Chuck's version is an accurate portrayal of events.

Edited November 4, 2018 by RockMyAmadeus

[RockMyAmadeus]

2 hours ago, BlowUpTheMoon said:

You know the answer to that.

 

Well...that thread IS over 8 years old. Maybe new events had occurred. I suppose not, though.

[fastballspecial]

Poor Chuck

Edited November 4, 2018 by fastballspecial

[kav]

Has Chuck ever said how much he paid for the collection?  I know he had to borrow significant amount of money to purchase it and was forced to sell a lot of stuff to dealers in bulk to pay back those loans.

http://www.milehighcomics.com/tales/cbg12.html

[1950's war comics]

i heard some of the comics were already thrown away before Chuck bought the rest of them, so there is a chance that even more would have been tossed before Chuck got there

[kav]

1 minute ago, 1950's war comics said:

i heard some of the comics were already thrown away before Chuck bought the rest of them, so there is a chance that even more would have been tossed before Chuck got there

yep all the disney type books.

[1950's war comics]

1 minute ago, kav said:

yep all the disney type books.

maybe even all would have been tossed?? even though a value was known , it was likely an imposition to family,.. easier for them to just pitch them in a dumpster

lord knows how many million dollar baseball card collections were tossed because they took up space ,.. many a near mint 1952 Topps Mantle card was pitched back in the day

[kav]

2 minutes ago, 1950's war comics said:

maybe even all would have been tossed?? even though a value was known , it was likely an imposition to family,.. easier for them to just pitch them in a dumpster

lord knows how many million dollar baseball card collections were tossed because they took up space ,.. many a near mint 1952 Topps Mantle card was pitched back in the day

they wanted someone to haul em to the trash but it cost too much

Edited November 4, 2018 by kav

[Larryw7]

There's a very unbiased article about Chuck's acquisition of the Mile High collection in Steve Duin's  book Comics: Between the Panels. It gives the perspective of other people involved besides Chuck. Unfortunately, the Church family isn't among them.

Edited November 4, 2018 by Larryw7

[Buzzetta]

On a side note, I can only imagine what the online code will be to celebrate his prostrate exam. 

[kav]

If only I had asked Chuck how much he paid when I met him I am sure he would have told me.

[RockMyAmadeus]

1 hour ago, Buzzetta said:

On a side note, I can only imagine what the online code will be to celebrate his prostrate exam. 

I can tell you that I won't take that lying down...

[RockMyAmadeus]

46 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

1 hour ago, Buzzetta said:

On a side note, I can only imagine what the online code will be to celebrate his prostrate exam. 

I can tell you that I won't take that lying down...

I imagine Chuck won't, either. 

[aszumilo]

2 hours ago, Buzzetta said:

On a side note, I can only imagine what the online code will be to celebrate his prostrate exam. 

"Self Exam"?  But, then again, his head is usually so far up there he doesn't need an exam.  He can see it himself.

Edited November 5, 2018 by aszumilo

[Jeffro.]

14 hours ago, Buzzetta said:

On a side note, I can only imagine what the online code will be to celebrate his prostrate exam. 

BENDOVERANDTAKEIT