show us your Mile Highs (Edgar Church copies) 7 7

[Sqeggs]

One of my favorite Raboy covers. 

[Sqeggs]

[Sqeggs]

[Sqeggs]

Possibly my favorite Raboy cover. 

[Math Teacher]

40 minutes ago, Sqeggs said:

Possibly my favorite Raboy cover. 

That black cover looks SO awesome!

[woowoo]

 I don't have any Church copy's would love to have one 

[jimjum12]

6 hours ago, Sqeggs said:

Church copies of Baker St John books are pretty scarce. Opinions differ as to whether there are more out there raw--presumably purchased before Chuck made his catalog. I'm skeptical, though. 

I've never seen this one... I think I've had all but this one at some time or another. I'd be over the moon with that, .... but then. I like Saturday afternoon Western matinees. GOD BLESS...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[tth2]

6 hours ago, woowoo said:

 I don't have any Church copy's would love to have one 

Lots of inexpensive Church books are available.

[woowoo]

3 hours ago, tth2 said:

Lots of inexpensive Church books are available.

I want an expensive one like 1930s DC

 

[Dr. Love]

12 hours ago, Sqeggs said:

Church copies of Baker St John books are pretty scarce. Opinions differ as to whether there are more out there raw--presumably purchased before Chuck made his catalog. I'm skeptical, though. 

According to the catalog, there were 77 St. John romance.  Here's Chuck's breakdown:  FR  2,  G  4,  VG  18,  FN  26,  NM  14,  NM+  13.  Your Wartime Romances is the only graded Mile High Baker romance, at least on HA.  The catch is that Chuck had it as a NM.  Who knows, maybe it was at the time he got it.

You're right that some of the MH's apparently were sold prior to the catalog.  It looks like some of them went to McLaughlin.  Heritage had two raw Baker St. John McLaughlin's back in 2006 that they attributed to Mile High, TAT #2  NM and #3 VF/NM, which were holes in the TAT catalog run.  

Overall, just know that in the romance world the Promise Collection is irrelevant, but there were about 1018 Church romance books and probably less than 10% have made it into the resale market -  at least not as bonafide MH's.  Maybe they have been sold and nobody bothered to make the ped claim, as 2/3 of those were FN or lower - and that's by Chuck's standards.  Looks like Edgar didn't keep those books in the locked closet.  

There is another collection out there that would move the needle in the Baker romance market.  The Sixth Street books.  Besides the ones that sold, jeez has it really been 8 years ago?, there were 21 that were graded, listed on Ebay but didn't sell and were pulled.  6 books were graded but never listed, and 20 that were not graded.  So 47 Baker books that should be kinda nice and will hit somewhere, someday.

 

 

[adamstrange]

12 hours ago, Sqeggs said:

Church copies of Baker St John books are pretty scarce. Opinions differ as to whether there are more out there raw--presumably purchased before Chuck made his catalog. I'm skeptical, though. 

 

The Auth Police Cases did make it into the Catalog.  The nm/nm+ copies cost between $3 and $7.  It is entirely plausible that romance books with Baker covers would have sold for similar amounts and been scooped up early on.

Baker and GGA wasn't promoted in a big way until the #8 Overstreet, 1978-79 edition.

[Robot Man]

I was at the Casual Con in Buena Park, CA when Chuck first brought out the Church books. I was into PCH, Crime and SOTI books at the time. Everyone was hitting the big super hero boxes but I was on the other ones. Lots of books in the $6-15 range. I stacked up as much as I had money for that looked cool. I did grab a few APCs in the mix. When I got home and read them, I discovered the contents weren't really up to par so I sold off or traded most of them. They weren't felt as a pedigree back then so there are a lot of Churches out there un-noted. Here is one of them I believe. I probably have one or two more but unnoted.

[Robot Man]

12 hours ago, Dr. Love said:

According to the catalog, there were 77 St. John romance.  Here's Chuck's breakdown:  FR  2,  G  4,  VG  18,  FN  26,  NM  14,  NM+  13.  Your Wartime Romances is the only graded Mile High Baker romance, at least on HA.  The catch is that Chuck had it as a NM.  Who knows, maybe it was at the time he got it.

You're right that some of the MH's apparently were sold prior to the catalog.  It looks like some of them went to McLaughlin.  Heritage had two raw Baker St. John McLaughlin's back in 2006 that they attributed to Mile High, TAT #2  NM and #3 VF/NM, which were holes in the TAT catalog run.  

Overall, just know that in the romance world the Promise Collection is irrelevant, but there were about 1018 Church romance books and probably less than 10% have made it into the resale market -  at least not as bonafide MH's.  Maybe they have been sold and nobody bothered to make the ped claim, as 2/3 of those were FN or lower - and that's by Chuck's standards.  Looks like Edgar didn't keep those books in the locked closet.  

There is another collection out there that would move the needle in the Baker romance market.  The Sixth Street books.  Besides the ones that sold, jeez has it really been 8 years ago?, there were 21 that were graded, listed on Ebay but didn't sell and were pulled.  6 books were graded but never listed, and 20 that were not graded.  So 47 Baker books that should be kinda nice and will hit somewhere, someday.

 

 

McLaughlin was a big buyer's of the Church books. Back when he first found them, Chuck was informed by his tax person not to sell any more than $10K worth at a time. So he would invite in a buyer with $10K to spend at Chuck's prices once a year. John was one of those guys. He had money to burn and everyone knew it. One of my friends had a store in Orange County and knew John well. He took me over to his house once after one of John's buying trips. There were stacks and stacks of unbagged Church boxes all over the living room. One stack was mostly Chesslers. One of John's many cats had peed on them. If you ever bump into a Chessler with a "water stain" it is most likely cat pee... 

Some of the early $10K buyers were John, Verzyl and Redbeard. They had the foresight to buy as many of the cheaper Church books as possible. These were the ones not stored in the closet but on the floor in the basement. These were the later ones and probably included any of the Baker books in the collection. Many, Edgar had bought used and thusly, slightly lower grade. Here is a Whiz I picked up from Ron many years ago. Note the pencil marking in the cloud and the letter "D" above it.

[vheflin]

17 hours ago, tth2 said:

Lots of inexpensive Church books are available.

I have one

 

Edited June 7, 2021 by vheflin

[Mucheee1]

Posted these awhile back

[Cpt Kirk]

10 hours ago, Robot Man said:

McLaughlin was a big buyer's of the Church books. Back when he first found them, Chuck was informed by his tax person not to sell any more than $10K worth at a time. So he would invite in a buyer with $10K to spend at Chuck's prices once a year. John was one of those guys. He had money to burn and everyone knew it. One of my friends had a store in Orange County and knew John well. He took me over to his house once after one of John's buying trips. There were stacks and stacks of unbagged Church boxes all over the living room. One stack was mostly Chesslers. One of John's many cats had peed on them. If you ever bump into a Chessler with a "water stain" it is most likely cat pee... 

Some of the early $10K buyers were John, Verzyl and Redbeard. They had the foresight to buy as many of the cheaper Church books as possible. These were the ones not stored in the closet but on the floor in the basement. These were the later ones and probably included any of the Baker books in the collection. Many, Edgar had bought used and thusly, slightly lower grade. Here is a Whiz I picked up from Ron many years ago. Note the pencil marking in the cloud and the letter "D" above it.

thanks for sharing that story.... fascinating.

[Sarg]

18 hours ago, Robot Man said:

I was at the Casual Con in Buena Park, CA when Chuck first brought out the Church books. I was into PCH, Crime and SOTI books at the time. Everyone was hitting the big super hero boxes but I was on the other ones. Lots of books in the $6-15 range. 

[Robot Man]

Pays to be one of those “grumpy old guys” sometimes. 

2 regrets though. 1) wish I had more money and 2) wish I had kept all of them. 

I probably spent $125.-150. that day. Nothing by today’s standards but that was a lot of money at the time. It bought a lot of books. Like Chuck, I was a young hippie kid. Just moved out and making $3. An hour and that was probably a months rent. 

 

[jimjum12]

1 hour ago, Robot Man said:

that was probably a months rent.

... easily ... that was a month's rent almost 10 years later. GOD BLESS...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[Adamster]

On 11/30/2019 at 8:50 PM, Timely said:

I used to own the Mile High copies of Action Comics #25, 28, 30, 34-36, 38, 41, 48, 50, 57, 59, 61, 63-66, 68-71, 74, 76-78, 81, 87, 96-99 & 102. Generally speaking over the years most are still the Highest Graded Copies!

So you had the 71 that Cpt Kirk now owns (the comment above  )?

That 71 is scarce, and so rarely being traded.