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Is Mile High a reference to their prices?
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648 posts in this topic

On 9/6/2019 at 9:49 AM, Jaylam said:

Just bought this "Near Mint" raw book from them, you be the judge.... corner crease, finger smudge, spine ticks+.... oh, and 2 finger smudges on the back cover too (not pictured).452657457_x-men640002_edited.jpg.49cd19af6b364fa800fd98493dc3ef0d.jpg

x-men 640002_edited crease.jpg

x-men 640002_edited smudge.jpg

x-men 640002_edited ticks.jpg

Not exactly what I would call "near mint".  More of a "near miss" on that one.  Regrettably, this is NOT surprising.  

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On 2/23/2019 at 7:21 AM, FineCollector said:

August 1993 ad... whatever happened to this place?  I never heard of a California store before.

20190223_101355.jpg

Yeah one right down the street from Disneyland.  As a kid I would go there before I realized I was getting ripped off. Once I met Chuck there, and he explained his formula.  That was the last time I went to Mile High.

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34 minutes ago, ygogolak said:

For those of us who are professionals, and who try to cover the costs of maintaining immense inventories, this "flipping" strategy is most frustrating because of the fact that it works so well.

https://www.milehighcomics.com/newsletter/011520email.html

 

I read it but I don't have a clue what is point was.  Don't sell your collection until it's at least 30 years old since even X-Men 1 is now valuable?  Did he write a whole newsletter to explain the rule of 25?

Edited by 1Cool
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30 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

I read it but I don't have a clue what is point was.  Don't sell your collection until it's at least 30 years old since even X-Men 1 is now valuable?  Did he write a whole newsletter to explain the rule of 25?

there's a rule of 25?

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1 hour ago, Krismusic said:

there's a rule of 25?

It’s a pattern basically. If you buy something today , expect it to be worth something in 25 years. If you find something that’s over 25 years old and it’s not worth much chances are it’s never going to be sought after. There are exceptions to every rule, outliers, freak happenings, but 25 is a good number to gauge everything as a whole. 
 

Its 2020 and 25 years ago is 1995. Many action figures, vinyl records etc are seeing the spike. Staying ahead of the curb may include shopping for stuff that was brought to market in the late 90s, early 2000s. So your wait time isn’t as long. 
 

edit to add: video games and VHS too.

 

Edited by Junkdrawer
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1 hour ago, Junkdrawer said:

It’s a pattern basically. If you buy something today , expect it to be worth something in 25 years. If you find something that’s over 25 years old and it’s not worth much chances are it’s never going to be sought after. There are exceptions to every rule, outliers, freak happenings, but 25 is a good number to gauge everything as a whole. 
 

Its 2020 and 25 years ago is 1995. Many action figures, vinyl records etc are seeing the spike. Staying ahead of the curb may include shopping for stuff that was brought to market in the late 90s, early 2000s. So your wait time isn’t as long. 
 

edit to add: video games and VHS too.

 

ahh this makes sense as I am seeing a surge in the action figures I had 25 years ago as I can't believe some are going for these high prices... maybe I should wait a few years for it to cool off pic them up for the nostalgia and to pair with my comic collection later on then..hm

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4 hours ago, ygogolak said:

For those of us who are professionals, and who try to cover the costs of maintaining immense inventories, this "flipping" strategy is most frustrating because of the fact that it works so well.

https://www.milehighcomics.com/newsletter/011520email.html

3 hours ago, 1Cool said:

I read it but I don't have a clue what is point was.  Don't sell your collection until it's at least 30 years old since even X-Men 1 is now valuable?  Did he write a whole newsletter to explain the rule of 25?

 

 

Only a "professional" would understand. :insane:

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On 10/7/2019 at 4:44 AM, oakman29 said:
On 2/23/2019 at 3:21 PM, FineCollector said:

20190223_101355.jpg

Yeah one right down the street from Disneyland.  As a kid I would go there before I realized I was getting ripped off. Once I met Chuck there, and he explained his formula.  That was the last time I went to Mile High.

In that picture, Jim Shooter looks like the kind of bloke you'd buy one off. A shooter I mean :eek:

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28 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

Liefeld looks like a missing kid on a milk carton 

Yes. And in recognition of his cover work, no one tried to find him :wishluck:

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On 10/6/2019 at 10:44 PM, oakman29 said:

August 1993 ad... whatever happened to this place?  I never heard of a California store before.

20190223_101355.jpg

lol y'all are funny, I think it fits though.... Leifeld looks "Extreme" :insane: and Shooter definitely looks defiant O.o !

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There have been quite a few threads about Mile High and their pricing and in one of them I can remember posting a reason why they could, under certain circumstances, be value for money

 

That's right, value for money.

Here's an old invoice I found in the filing today from 2003.

Being based in the UK, I made a note based on the conversion rate of the time as to the cost to me in sterling. You can see lots of comics for under a pound:

 

Inkedmh_LI.thumb.jpg.e8d4e24769ce005534f0c88038ac36f5.jpg

 

Add in free UK airmail shipping over (I think) $100 and you can soon see how it could be a worthwhile exercise.

Take 'Silver Sable' for example - I bought four copies which had Spidey references in them and they cost 63p, 94p, 94p and £1.25 from Mile High. The same books from Silver Acre at the time were £1.25 or £1.50 each with postage on top:

sa2.thumb.jpg.3de952b14fb25bba270e40ba3bac2294.jpg sa.thumb.jpg.418036e9b6897c537c8ec754bcda336a.jpg

 

Mile High:

ss1.thumb.PNG.7a4ebc8b6f847afe049a3c5c317fb3cb.PNG

 

Silver Acre:

ss2.PNG.7d8c7bcad8c89cbbbb145d1c3f465a29.PNG

 

I found that you could get a whole lot of books from Mile High cheaper than you could from the main UK dealers when ordering in bulk and, in many cases, Mile High were the only ones that had them in the first instance. And their packaging was always bullet proof.

So while I'm certainly no fan of Chucks more eye watering prices, and to this day I curse his inane 100 x newsstand pricing strategy, examples like the scenario above are one of the reasons why he's likely stayed in business all these years. He has the stock, and a lot of it is cheap. 

If anyone was wondering that is. 

 

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On 1/16/2020 at 2:23 PM, 1Cool said:

Liefeld looks like a missing kid on a milk carton - and Shooter looks like the guy who took him.

Jim Shooter was "voted out" of Valiant by the corporate ownership once they started making money (they bought out his portion of the company BEFORE Valiant got big), so he created VALIANT then others took all the money... so he started DEFIANT (obviously referencing VALIANT's ownership).

Valiant (leadership) used Jim Shooter's image as the basis for Master Darque, the new "big bad" villain, and had Barry Windsor-Smith go crazy with the occult symbols and evil imagery.

OVERSTREET-COMIC-BOOK-MONTHLY-MAGAZINE-No-4-AUGUST-1993-JIM-SHOOTER-DEFIANTeternal06.jpg

...and that's how Valiant 1991-1992 became something completely different than Valiant 1993-onward.

 

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3 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

I found that you could get a whole lot of books from Mile High cheaper than you could from the main UK dealers when ordering in bulk and, in many cases, Mile High were the only ones that had them in the first instance. And their packaging was always bullet proof.

So while I'm certainly no fan of Chucks more eye watering prices, and to this day I curse his inane 100 x newsstand pricing strategy, examples like the scenario above are one of the reasons why he's likely stayed in business all these years. He has the stock, and a lot of it is cheap. 

 

I have to agree.  My experiences in the early 90s with his Specials section comics were all positive.  The NM / M copies were in the 9.0 to 9.8 range, many towards the top end, very nice indeed for $1 to $2 a copy at a time of an excellent sterling exchange rate.   Lots of interesting stuff such as Kirby Kamandi, DC 100 pagers, Dale Keown Dragonforce, All-Star Comics by Wood and Giffen.  Slow surface mail, but excellent packaging.

Edited by Ken Aldred
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On 2/23/2019 at 7:21 AM, FineCollector said:

August 1993 ad... whatever happened to this place?  I never heard of a California store before.

20190223_101355.jpg

Here's the current picture of that store:

image.thumb.png.5dc91221dd560d4943f8fd5384666d85.png

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21 minutes ago, Ken Aldred said:

I have to agree.  My experiences in the early 90s with his Specials section comics were all positive.  The NM / M copies were in the 9.0 to 9.8 range, many towards the top end, very nice indeed for $1 to $2 a copy at a time of an excellent sterling exchange rate.   Lots of interesting stuff such as Kirby Kamandi, DC 100 pagers, Dale Keown Dragonforce, All-Star Comics by Wood and Giffen.  Slow surface mail, but excellent packaging.

Thanks Ken

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