Discovery of the Mile High Comics collection
Coop sent this story link to me a while back, describing it as "an excellent first-person account [by Chuck Rozanski] of the discovery of the 'Mile High' collection, the Holy Grail of comics collecting. This is the kind of thing that craphounds have wet dreams about."
I worked at Mile High Comics in Boulder, Colorado from about age 12 to 17. I was working there when Chuck Rozanski bought what is widely regarded as the most valuable cache of Golden Age comics on the planet. I was too young and dumb to realize how monumental this find was. I just remember Chuck fretting about how he was going to come up with the tiny amount of money he'd need to pay for the collection that was worth millions.
It's an amazing story.
LinkBelieve it or not, what was going through my mind as I was looking at the closet was fear. Not just a fear that the deal would get screwed up somehow, but also a realization that my life was about to radically change. It's one thing to have slowly built up a small business over a period of many years, and quite another to suddenly win the lottery. I could see very clearly that discovering this collection was going to completely change my life, and that nothing would ever again be the same. I was excited at that prospect, but also very trepidatious. Radical change can be good, but it can also destroy much of that which you hold most dear.
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He must have felt like Howard Carter when he discovered King Tut's tomb. Great story
Spellbinding.
"That next week passed ever so slooowly."
yes, much like this goddamn story
read this a couple years ago, pretty amazing
yes, much like this goddamn story
And yet, you kept reading.
Wow, 17 pages of story! Yet I read it all and was sorry it was over.
A great story which illustrated many of the unforeseen complications of 'hitting the motherlode' as well as problems any collector in any field will recognize.
Isn't this also the story about how the Church family got completely ripped off by someone who didn't have the decency to let them know what they had?
Ivymike, yup, it sure is. And it's not the only time that he's bought a lage and important collection for a fraction of a percent of its actual value. Rozanski is scum, plain and simple, the worst kind of opportunistic collectibles dealer. With all of his grand claims of doing good for the 'community', and his assertions that the heirs to the estate were in a hurry, he's a rip-off artist.
He claims that the heirs demanded a cash payment and wouldn't have been willing to take payment over time, but that's bull. If he'd been upfront about the collection's value, he still could have gotten a more than fair margin. He paid $1,800 for a collection of 20,000 comics that was then worth more than $300K and would now be worth almost $50M. He made more than $2M selling just a portion of those books by 1985. That's unthinkably callous.
Just one of the books in the collection -- just one -- recently sold for more than $250,000. The copies of Action #1 through #10 in the collection sold for $30K in the early 80s. That #1 alone is now worth something like $2M.
The Church family did sue him, and lost. That doesn't mean that he was morally in the right.
He overcharges for recent, low-value issues (missed a copy of a book last year? It'll cost you double retail), too. He's scum of the lowest order, and has harmed the industry in unspeakable ways.
RTFS, Ivymike, y drt bg.
#8 posted by jim.cowling - "He overcharges for recent, low-value issues (missed a copy of a book last year? It'll cost you double retail), too." - Ya know, the place is called Mile High Comics, not because it is in Denver, but because of the prices he charges! - On a related note, I have 18500 comics up for sale. Anyone want them? Please, help me pay off my student loans!
@#8-Jim.Cowling - I only read the linked article and haven't touched a comic book since the seventies. IOW, I don't know what the whole story may be. BUT, this does bring to the front an interesting (to me) issue. What is the responsibility of a collector versus that of a seller? At what point does a collector (who has spent x number of hours becoming informed as to the value of item z) become responsible for disclosing the estimated value of an item to the seller?
And please, I'm not talking about misrepresentation or used cars salesperson tactics, just about person A offering to sell person B item C. Why should person B refuse person A's offer until it is more beneficial to person A? By that reasoning, wouldn't the majority of transactions on eBay (in collector circles) be unfair?
Here's my take:
If person A offers person B an item at Price X, and person B knows he's getting a deal, person B has no moral obligation to pay more.
If, however, person B is making the offer, there's a moral obligation to make a fair offer, not merely an acceptable offer. Even an offer of ten cents on the dollar would have been acceptable at the time, IMHO, but what is fair depends on what's being sold. Those same books if found today? IMHO, a fair offer would be a mere agency fee. A fair offer for your Beanie Babies might be a view of the door. Y'know?
And to answer your EBay question: no. That's a competitive market; listed items will tend to sell for their real market value because of that competition, the sizes of the markets, and the availability of information on values (both real value and retail values). At one time, one could make a decent profit by buying collectibles via one online venue and reselling it on another. Not nearly as reliable anymore. If people didn't want to compete for the item, then maybe the minimum bid is the fair price.
I agree with Jim.
"Trepidatious" is not a word. Believe it or not, it's just plain "trepid".
Like you guys wouldn't have done the same thing in his position. :p
Regardless, it's a remarkable story and well told.
I just spent several hours reading this story and some of the other columns. I was a customer of the Boulder store in the mid-80s. Mostly I bought 1950s era pulps like Astounding and Galaxy, for 10 cents each.
He had every moral right to buy those comics from Church's heirs at that price. That's how collecting works....if you sell something without bothering to find out how much it's worth, well, that's your fault.
Not only that, but the margin of profit for dealers is usually very, very thin most of the time....if they started operating in that manner, the entire market would collapse.
You're complaining at him selling an issue at two or three times the market value? Why should he NOT do so? If you're stupid enough to pay that amount for 30-or-so pages of colored paper, that's your fault. It's not like he's selling an AIDS vaccine...he's selling comic books.
The debate over the fairness of pricing is ridiculous. I’ve bought tons of things from flea markets and thrift stores that then sold for tons more. The assumption that the collectors market value rules over all misses the point.
The reality is that Edgar Church’s family could care less about the comics. They were obsessed with flipping the property and getting AS MUCH VALUE AS THEY COULD of that property. Is anyone jumping on Chuck Rozanski] actually thinking about other ephemeral values such as property values and their real motivation to get this stuff chucked in the trash so the house would be clean for a quick sale?
Also comic guide values need to be seriously questioned in todays Internet age. The “Comics Buyers Guide” is a fairly worthless entity nowadays since ALL the prices are inflated and based on a very narrow scope of who is willing to pay how much for what. Say what you will but eBay is ultimately the best benchmark of value nowadays. CBG is just a tool that collectors use to bully and negotiate a higher value than there is for an item.
Anyone hating Chuck Rozanski is just a hater. You wish you came across boxes of the same stuff for free to nothing tossed on the street.
It is a quandary, though. I have in the past told someone they were charging too little for something that I was interested in. But then, I also have paid far too little for things I knew I could resell for thousands. I do believe you have a moral responsibility to treat people fairly when buying stuff from them, whether they know the value or not, but I'm also aware of the difficulty and risks in doing so..
I hope that those condemning him also watch Antiques Roadshow and whenever someone says, "I bought this at a garage sale for a quarter" also get mad at that person.
Totally agree with #18 and would add this: I've been collecting comics for years (attended my first Con in 1966!) and I can't even begin to count the thousands of hours I've spent hitting the fleas, yard sales, thrifts etc etc. So much leg-work and very little pay-off, except for the thrill of the hunt. If I were to hit the jackpot, I'd have to say "About frickin time"! Then I'd probably pass out and blow the deal anyway.
Chuck Rozanski's a prick. I used to work in the Mile-High Comics warehouse and one day he called everyone there into a meeting to yell at us and call us idiots (yes, his exact word, directed at all employees present, was "idiots"). He obviously thought that when you're paying $5/hour to people who work at a place simply because they love comics, you can treat them however you like and expect the world of them.
What was he mad about?
Trepidatious is not a word.
But trepidacious is.
trepidivorous?
trepidivorous?
The US government currently survives by eating the fear of its citizens, so why not. I have no qualms about coining words.
ah, a lexiprolfigagtor! (any minute now she'll swat us)
Whatever Chuck Rozanski was, or became, this story rings true to me. Someone who was making up a story to camouflage an episode of sharp dealing wouldn't throw in the part about the fear that hit him when he realized what kind of collection he had, or the slow discovery of who the previous owner was and what he'd done for a living, or the heirs and their benighted attitudes, or the odd details about his van's transmission. These are real events that happened to a real person.
"What was he mad about?"
I don't remember. But keep in mind we were paid $5/hour to do nothing more than bag and file comics. It's kind of hard to mess that up. My manager was an asshole too. I got fired from that job for talking to a coworker while we were bagging comics. Chuck and his cronies are the worst people I've ever had to work for.
I prefer verbifacient.
Mr. Colbert has a slot for you on his team
Uttering a coinage.
#18: I worked full-time managing a comic shop for seven years while also working on my degree part-time, and never once lowballed someone. You don't need to be a prick to make a very respectable living in collectibles; I know this from personal experience. I'm not even remotely jealous of anyone who has to live inside a mind that would consider such shady dealing to be acceptable.
I would sooner see someone with the resources pay a fair price for a valuable collection than to steal it myself for pennies, because I'm not an unethical pig.
"You're complaining at him selling an issue at two or three times the market value? Why should he NOT do so?"
By selling items with no real collectible value for significantly more than market value, he gives the illusion of increased value, and like he's done for decades, takes advantage of the uninformed.
Maybe you live in a world where the foolish and stupid should be exploited rather than educated. I'm glad that isn't my world.
#20 There's a big difference in this case between coming across something for 25 cents at a garage sale and being a dealer sent in to do a private appraisal.
Having lived and worked with antique dealers my whole life, I know there's a kind of ethics about this. It's one thing if someone wants to sell something and stickers it themselves -- whatever, they made their decision on it's worth, it's done. It's quite another thing if someone requests you come to look at a collection and asks you to make them an offer. A part of what they're requesting is not only that you'll take this stuff away, but also that your expertise will get them a price that's reasonable.
However, from Chuck's account it doesn't sound like it was all that unfair. I mean, he could be protecting himself, but saying that the cheaper comics were what he saw when he made the offer, that he showed them price guides and they refused to do consignment, and moreover that everything had to be paid cash in hand, I mean, bluntly put the deal would never have been able to go through had he offered them a lot more money. Also with all the comments that they seemed uninterested in the items and were trying to throw them out, etc. Well, you know.
Also I think, I mean, he paid them SOMETHING. And he paid them for paper products in the office and whatnot. To put this into some perspective, I have known dealers who would waltz into a house like that, see the utter disinterest of the family and tell them the whole lot was worthless and they'd best throw it out, only to come back on trash day and take the lot for free.
I think there are probably plenty of valid criticisms about how he's chosen to do business...BUT. Keep in mind: If he hadn't bought them, they would have gone in the trash. End of story. The reason why comics/baseball cards/stamps even HAVE collectible value is because the majority of people throw them in the trash.
The options were either: the family gets Chuck's $1800, or the family throws it out and gets $0. If he was really unscrupulous, he could have done what Emily says: told them the stuff was worthless and taken it off the curb on trash day.
Speaking for myself, I'm always pleased to pick up a bargain, even when I'm buying stuff from the family of a dead guy.
I managed Chuck's second store (and the first one to have its own location) for something less than a year, until he fired me. For years I've been wondering if he bought the Church collection while I was in his employ, and if I'd just missed it.
Perhaps he might have offered more and still made a profit. In 1977, he was still probably on the sort of footing he was in when a $40 day was something to celebrate. I saw his temper on a couple of occasions, and that's out of more than a year (counting time before and after I was managing the place) of seeing quite a lot of him, so my memories of him are mostly positive.
Also, he told me one of my favorite comic collecting stories. A slightly shady dealer apparently bought a copy of Action #1 in "fair" condition, and later advertised one in "very good" condition. The guy who bought it paid whatever a reasonable amount was at the time (in 1975, that was three grand), but something about it bugged him. He looked at it and looked at it, and finally put it up next to another copy of the same issue. The one he had just bought was about a quarter inch smaller than the comparison copy. The dealer had apparently put it in a paper cutter and chopped off three sides, so those ragged edges would look straight and clean.
I can't imagine having that much nerve. Then again, I got out of retail once and for all on Good Friday, 1976 -- thanks, Chuck!
#33 POSTED BY JIM.COWLING , MARCH 13, 2008 12:22 PM:
I'm not a heavy duty collector of things, but I do have a few hobbies that include diving into the collectors market. And guess what? You're making a mountain out of a molehill.
Or rather, if this story were different and Edgar Church were dealing directly with Chuck Rozanski then I would agree with you that Edgar Church was screwed.
But that isn’t the case.
The reality is you have a family who could care less about this ’s comics and even HIS OWN ART and simply treated it like trash... And this was HIS OWN FAMILY.
Also the concept of fair market value in collectibles is odder when you factor in all the time and energy spent hunting stuff down. As #21 (Marble River) said “So much leg-work and very little pay-off, except for the thrill of the hunt.” Even if you sell a collectible for thousands of dollars, it just doesn’t factor in the personal time/energy people put into things. We all gasp and are delighted when we hear that something we paid $1 for sells for hundreds. But calculate the amount of money you make an hour versus the time and energy you spent and that $1 ends up being worth tons more.
The point is simple as #35 (BookyLoo) mentions. The reason these things are valuable is there is high demand and little stock. You pay a lot because tons of people took this stuff for granted at one point, few items of that type exist and many collectors want them. Nobody was screwed here in any way. What was the alternative? Have all of these comics tossed in the dump thus increasing the value of an already small pool of comics to begin with?
Also, here’s another idea. You can truly bring the market to fair levels if comic publishers just did one thing: Provide true/quality reprints of old-school/high-demand comics. Most people don’t want an original. Most just want to see the comic and read it. And many pay inflated prices because the companies that print these pieces of paper refuse to reprint these pieces of paper. It’s that simple.
Having read the first dozen installments of the saga, I'll say that Chuck was more than fair to the family, who were aggressively tossing out every shred of paper connected with their artist father's life's work even as he was dying in a home. It's an amazing chronicle of grasping callousness on their part -- Chuck cared far more about their dad's life work than they did. It also explains how close to bankruptcy the Mile High operation was at this time.
For examples of Church's work, see
www.milehighcomics.com/edgarchurch/main.html
#34 (Emily): "It's quite another thing if someone requests you come to look at a collection and asks you to make them an offer. A part of what they're requesting is not only that you'll take this stuff away, but also that your expertise will get them a price that's reasonable."
I think that's when you should hire a professional appraiser. I didn't get that from the original article, but if Mr. Rozanski was hired and paid a fee to appraise the collection, then he certainly is in the wrong, and I retract my previous comments as they apply to him. I'll have to re-read the article.
The key point as to whether or not he's a douchebag seems to be whether you believe his account on page 2. He offered to sell the comics for them and split the profits and showed them a few sample choices of what they were worth, but the sellers weren't interested at all and simply wanted to get rid of everything as quickly as possible for immediate cash.
So he agreed to buy the whole lot by the boxfull and that's how they paid him.
Although once he saw the closet, he probably could have made a better effort to explain to them exactly what they had there.
Still, I agree with AnotherAaron -- the buyer has no moral obligation to make sure you get a good deal. It's capitalism, baby! Seller beware, in this case. Enough people dream about buying a dusty flower pot at a garage sale that turns out to be a Ming Dynasty vase that there's at least two television shows dedicated to the concept.
Knowledgeable purchasers are supposed to quote reasonable prices. "You tell me what you think is a fair price" isn't just a bargaining gambit. In the case of Chuck Rozanski and the Church family, it sounds to me like he initially tried to give them a fair price. Did the Church family understand? I think not -- but it doesn't sound like they were listening, either.
Rozanski may not be a saint, but I'd rather be marooned on a desert island with him than with the Church heirs. As Kip observes (37), these people were throwing out their father's original art because they wanted to sell the house before "Mexicans moving into the neighborhood" could lower its value. They're hardly the first set of heirs to an artistic or literary estate who've been that greedy, stupid, and shortsighted. At least Rozanski preserved what he could.
Artists and authors don't tend to accumulate a lot of money, but they do own the work they've created during their lifetimes. They need to make a will that takes that into account. Collectors also need to make provision for their collections. At minimum, they need to tell their heirs that it's worth something, to reduce the chances that they'll throw it out as rubbish.
Jack (38):
True. I somehow managed to miss that fact about comics publishing, even when I started working in comics. When I found out they don't reprint titles for which there's a demand, I was incredulous. That's a system for producing collectible artifacts, not popular, mass-distributed literature.What makes it especially stupid is that the publishers don't reap the benefits of high collector prices -- and since they aren't making that money, they can't pass on a portion of it to the creators.
Klokwerk (40), technically that has nothing to do with capitalism. Chuck Rozanski could have had that same transaction under just about any economic system.
My buddy Paul and I used to take the bus from Lakewood to the old Mile High on Broadway back in the early 80's. Back Issues! Longboxes! Mylar bags! It was serious nerd heaven.
The best was the time both of us spent all every last dime in the store, not remembering to allot for the bus ride home. I think we ended up calling a friend's mom collect. Good times.
sniff... I miss the days when your collection was ankle deep, spattered, tattered and read in a technicolor pool on your bedroom floor.....
This makes me think of my Uncle's collection. Not only was his house filled with stacks and stacks of comics, but also a full semi-truck trailer on his property. I remember Brave And The Bold#28, Tales of Suspense#39, Early Hawkmans, Golden Age Batmans, EC comics, full runs of Mad and on and on. He had every kind of paper related collectibles, org art and even TV guides. When I was a kid I would stay during the summers and camp out between stacks of all that junk. Oh, and also hundreds of long boxes stuffed with vintage adult magazines. Let me just say this, at age 14 I nearly made myself turn blind while staying over. Anyhow this is old news but it all burned down a few years ago, still stings. You can read the story of the fire here:http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=36&t=002798
I worked for Mile High for about 5 years too (met Mark Frauenfelder there, actually). And the stories about how Chuck ripped off the Churches would make you weep. He ripped off a widow who didn't know what she had. If Edgar had been alive he would have spit in Chucks face and kicked him in the nuts. Ever heard the one about how he went through her trash the next night to take all of the ones he didn't buy? Those comics are cursed, if you ask me.