Edgar Church Mile high penciled dates on cover. 1 1

[Robot Man]

On 8/22/2024 at 8:03 AM, buttock said:

That also doesn't jive with the books that were showed to Mr. Bedrock.  Did you pick only that one out Bob, do you remember if the others were available?  I've always heard that one of the stipulations for Rowe fronting Chuck the money for the collection was that he got to keep all the FH books.  By the 50s there were rarely codes on the books, so it would be hard to identify without a chain of custody like you have.  

You seem to be getting and believing info from people who were not present at the actual transactions. I tend to believe Bedrock’s statement. He knew Burrell very well. I tend to believe that he got many of the Church FH books. Most likely the earlier ones stored in the closet not the later ones stored on the basement floor. These had no markings.

There were quite a few later ones at Casual Con in the boxes. I only bought the one I got because it was a censorship book which I was heavily in to at the time.

I may be old, but I’ve got a very sharp memory. Especially of that day. It was certainly a real standout memory in my collecting journey.

 

[buttock]

On 8/22/2024 at 9:22 AM, Robot Man said:

You seem to be getting and believing info from people who were not present at the actual transactions. I tend to believe Bedrock’s statement. He knew Burrell very well. I tend to believe that he got many of the Church FH books. Most likely the earlier ones stored in the closet not the later ones stored on the basement floor. These had no markings.

There were quite a few later ones at Casual Con in the boxes. I only bought the one I got because it was a censorship book which I was heavily in to at the time.

I may be old, but I’ve got a very sharp memory. Especially of that day. It was certainly a real standout memory in my collecting journey.

 

Who am I believing that wasn't there?  I've said no such thing.  You must be misreading what I said.  I'm believing you that you got a Church book directly from Chuck.  I worded it intentionally to point that out. I believe Mr. B, nobody has a closer line to Burrell Rowe than he does.  What I'm pointing out is that there are discrepancies there and I'm simply trying to reconcile that.  How could those two things both be true?  There has to be some explanation.  I'm going out of my way here NOT to speculate, I don't think that does any good.  I'm trying to record the facts.  Go back and read what I've said, I think you're misunderstanding me. 

[Robot Man]

There is a lot of “folklore” in this hobby. Especially concerning events that happened MANY years ago.

We both seem to agree that nobody knew Burrell better than Bedrock. He worked for him in his store. Ritchie and I have had conversations concerning the Church books Burrell bought from Chuck. They were in the store and Ritchie got to see them. Exactly what books, we didn’t discuss. He would be the person to ask.

Chuck has stated that Burrell got the FH books. Apparently not ALL of them. There were a number of later ones in his boxes at Casual Con. Exactly which ones I don’t recall. I bought most of the SOTI and other censhorship books he had as well as some Avons, PCH and other odd publisher books I liked.

So, with that, I’m out of this discussion…

[sfcityduck]

I am most interested in who bought the Planets from Rowell, if he had them, and what happened to them next.

Why? Because I've heard that Jerry Buss once owned them. Buss sold part of his collection at Sotheby's in 1997, but the Sotheby catalog's I own are from 1991 to 1994. So I don't know if Buss owned the Planets. I do know Buss was buying comics from Verzyl back when he was still collecting. 

A decent amount of MH Planets trickled out on Heritage between 2019 and 2023. 

If anyone knows the answer, which I ask just out of curiousity, whether Jerry Buss owned the Planets (and whether they got auctioned in 1997) I'd appreciate it. 

[buttock]

On 8/22/2024 at 1:49 PM, sfcityduck said:

I am most interested in who bought the Planets from Rowell, if he had them, and what happened to them next.

Why? Because I've heard that Jerry Buss once owned them. Buss sold part of his collection at Sotheby's in 1997, but the Sotheby catalog's I own are from 1991 to 1994. So I don't know if Buss owned the Planets. I do know Buss was buying comics from Verzyl back when he was still collecting. 

A decent amount of MH Planets trickled out on Heritage between 2019 and 2023. 

If anyone knows the answer, which I ask just out of curiousity, whether Jerry Buss owned the Planets (and whether they got auctioned in 1997) I'd appreciate it. 

Steve Fishler reportedly had almost the whole run for quite a while.  The ones you saw on HA came from the Comicconnect auction where he sold all of them in Dec 2018.  He would be the one to ask.  

[Silver Surfer]

Great thread, lots to catch up on. 

[batman_fan]

I admit it, I was the person who peed on the Church books 

[skybolt]

This one from 1944 has the penciled in date, but the other one from 1945 doesn't:

 

[skybolt]

A couple more Church books with pencil markings.

 

[jimbo_7071]

On 8/22/2024 at 10:56 AM, Robot Man said:

Either one is mis-attributed or there were more than one copy of some in the collection. See my post a few back on my Jumbo. I can attest I bought it myself from Chuck at Casual Con. No idea why there is another copy with a Church designation on the census. 

You guys are putting too much faith in CGC's pedigree designations. I saw a slabbed book from the late 40s with a San Franciso designation a while back even though it's well known that that pedigree stopped in '45.

I think they often just take the submitter's word for a pedigree designation, especially if if the submitter is a major customer.

Edited August 24 by jimbo_7071

[buttock]

On 8/24/2024 at 6:20 AM, jimbo_7071 said:

You guys are putting too much faith in CGC's pedigree designations. I saw a slabbed book from the late 40s with a San Franciso designation a while back even though it's well known that that pedigree stopped in '45.

I think they often just take the submitter's word for a pedigree designation, especially if if the submitter is a major customer.

This seems to be a growing problem.  I've posted here about the fake Bethlehems which are so easy to tell because the word "Bethlehem" is spelled wrong.  Here are a couple of the more egregious examples I've seen recently.  I mean... come on. 

[skybolt]

On 8/24/2024 at 7:20 AM, jimbo_7071 said:

You guys are putting too much faith in CGC's pedigree designations. I saw a slabbed book from the late 40s with a San Franciso designation a while back even though it's well known that that pedigree stopped in '45.

I think they often just take the submitter's word for a pedigree designation, especially if if the submitter is a major customer.

Not sure how good CGC is today, but back in 2007 or 2008 I purchased a raw Rangers Comics Church pedigree from Metro for $2k. I sent it in to CGC and it came back without the Edgar Church designation. I called CGC to complain and Mark Haspel told me he looked at the book personally and it didn't smell like a Church copy. I then called Metro and even though Vince made his case to Mark, CGC wouldn't budge. Vince was then nice enough to take the book back and give me store credit. I had no problems with that since I bought a lot of stuff from Metro back then.

On a side note, I was dumb enough to send a couple of Jungle Comics Ohio pedigrees to PGX and of course they didn't label them as such, so that designation was lost.

[Robot Man]

On 8/24/2024 at 6:57 AM, buttock said:

This seems to be a growing problem.  I've posted here about the fake Bethlehems which are so easy to tell because the word "Bethlehem" is spelled wrong.  Here are a couple of the more egregious examples I've seen recently.  I mean... come on. 

[Robot Man]

On 8/24/2024 at 8:03 AM, skybolt said:

Not sure how good CGC is today, but back in 2007 or 2008 I purchased a raw Rangers Comics Church pedigree from Metro for $2k. I sent it in to CGC and it came back without the Edgar Church designation. I called CGC to complain and Mark Haspel told me he looked at the book personally and it didn't smell like a Church copy. I then called Metro and even though Vince made his case to Mark, CGC wouldn't budge. Vince was then nice enough to take the book back and give me store credit. I had no problems with that since I bought a lot of stuff from Metro back then.

On a side note, I was dumb enough to send a couple of Jungle Comics Ohio pedigrees to PGX and of course they didn't label them as such, so that designation was lost.

Back in the day, I would have really trusted Mark. He was one of those people who really knew pedigrees. Lord knows who is their “pedigree expert” now. Determining a Church by smell now is probably real tough. Once those books were separated and left the closet, the “smell” would eventually be gone due to time and different storage conditions. I know the ones I own have very little “smell” left. Even though they sure had it when I first bought them.

Your Ohio Jungles should have no problem being certified by CGC providing they have their distinct markings. 

[skybolt]

On 8/24/2024 at 10:24 AM, Robot Man said:

Back in the day, I would have really trusted Mark. He was one of those people who really knew pedigrees. Lord knows who is their “pedigree expert” now. Determining a Church by smell now is probably real tough. Once those books were separated and left the closet, the “smell” would eventually be gone due to time and different storage conditions. I know the ones I own have very little “smell” left. Even though they sure had it when I first bought them.

Your Ohio Jungles should have no problem being certified by CGC providing they have their distinct markings. 

That's very interesting regarding the smell. My 8 Church books have been sitting in a CGC case for the past 15 to 20 years, so I wouldn't know about the smell now.

Unfortunately, I sold those Ohio books a long time ago. I did tell the buyer they were pedigrees, so hopefully they were able to get the Ohio designation from CGC.

[walclark]

This is quite the interesting discussion about pedigrees that are either fake, missed, or mislabeled.

I bought this from Heritage. It is labeled as the Church copy by CGC. I saw the "real" Church copy (complete with coding) in Verzyl's booth in Chicago the next year. Unfortunately, I paid up for my copy, and while it is possible that there were two copies of this book in the collection, I think it is more likely that my copy is mislabeled. Thankfully, paying the premium for a Church copy of a random Don Winslow doesn't cost too much. Not a well-loved title.

[walclark]

Then there are the swings and misses. Salida pedigrees that I submitted and were not labeled correctly. Admittedly, graded before the Salida pedigree was well known.

Probably downgraded for the store stamp because they sure look nicer than the assigned grades. Not really worth resubmitting and having to pay for grading a second time.

[jpepx78]

I think some of you could spritz your books with this cologne to get that Mile High smell. 

[RareHighGrade]

On 8/24/2024 at 6:57 AM, buttock said:

This seems to be a growing problem.  I've posted here about the fake Bethlehems which are so easy to tell because the word "Bethlehem" is spelled wrong.  Here are a couple of the more egregious examples I've seen recently.  I mean... come on. 

These are not just mistakes; they constitute grading malpractice!

[Jayman]

This thread now makes me wonder about my copy…