Steve Geppi and the Church Collection 0

[shadroch]

I was reading an old Gemstone reprint of an EC comic from the mid-1990s and there is an ad in it that says Steve is trying to reassemble Mr Church's collection and was willing to pay premium prices for them.

Does anyone know how successful he was in getting them and does he still large a large segment of them?

[ChillMan]

Reassemble the Golden Age Church comic books??

[Badger]

Seems like I read somewhere he got to about 25 or 30% of them and gave up. Prices started getting out of even his reach. I think he dumped most around 2008/2009 but I do not recall where I heard or read that.

[Cat-Man_America]

Logically, reassembling the entire collection was an impossible goal even before the advent of third party grading.  Soon after the collection was sold through Chuck Rozanski's tabloid section (included with Alan L. Light's Buyer's Guide) there would've been some collectors who'd refuse to sell or demand an astronomical sum to part with them. 

[Timely]

The only guy to even come close was current NY art dealer Alex Acevedo. In the early 80’s he amassed a very large quantity of the MH collection, hundreds of Timelys  and thousands of DC, Fox, Centaur etc.  After a while and years of “price gauging” and increasing multiples of guide being demanded, Alex dumped the entire collection to John Verzyl. The collection almost went to Geppi, but Geppi was advised to ask Alex for his financials and Alex told him to go to hell. 

[Tri-Color Brian]

I remember those ads...they said something like "We'd like the Mile High collection to come home and be together again"...

I'm sure the Dentist would have been a major stumbling block to that endeavor...

[adamstrange]

38 minutes ago, Tri-ColorBrian said:

I remember those ads...they said something like "We'd like the Mile High collection to come home and be together again"...

I'm sure the Dentist would have been a major stumbling block to that endeavor...

The ad specifically referenced comics that Geppi knew were owned by The Dentist.  It was never a serious endeavor.

[Robot Man]

John McLaughlin out here on the West  Coast took a solid stab at it. John was a VERY wealthy trust fund baby and big collector of comics, pulps and rare books. 

When Chuck first brought the initial batch to the Casual Con in Buena Park, CA, John was the biggest buyer of the day. Chuck was selling most at double guide. Word got around the room that John was offering triple guide for them. He kept it up for a year or so then got bored. He amassed several thousand of them. Most of them were lower priced issues but Mile Highs!  Stacked unbagged on tables and the floor of his house. Was an amazing sight. 

I believe he eventually sold most of them to John Verzyl. 

 

Edited March 5, 2021 by Robot Man

[tth2]

13 hours ago, Badger said:

Seems like I read somewhere he got to about 25 or 30% of them and gave up. Prices started getting out of even his reach. I think he dumped most around 2008/2009 but I do not recall where I heard or read that.

The rumor was that he was heavily invested in real estate when prices collapsed during the Financial Crisis in 2008/09.

[adamstrange]

21 minutes ago, tth2 said:

The rumor was that he was heavily invested in real estate when prices collapsed during the Financial Crisis in 2008/09.

Geppi gave 5000 comics to Heritage in 2003-4 time frame, 3000 of them pedigrees.  As I understand it, this was done to fund his investment in a Maine real estate deal that later went south in the Financial Crisis.  That resulted in another round of sales of comics, along with other assets. 

[Timely]

3 hours ago, adamstrange said:

Geppi gave 5000 comics to Heritage in 2003-4 time frame, 3000 of them pedigrees.  As I understand it, this was done to fund his investment in a Maine real estate deal that later went south in the Financial Crisis.  That resulted in another round of sales of comics, along with other assets. 

He also gave Heritage about 1,000,000 or so Dell File copies.  I saw them, filled up an entire warehouse!!!  It was fun picking out 9.8 copies of HR Pufnstuf #3 with several long boxes of them!

[adamstrange]

30 minutes ago, Timely said:

He also gave Heritage about 1,000,000 or so Dell File copies.  I saw them, filled up an entire warehouse!!!  It was fun picking out 9.8 copies of HR Pufnstuf #3 with several long boxes of them!

And leftovers of the Harvey File copies.

Geppi was a huge influence on the premium back issue comics market, though his role was little understood because he tended to operate more as a wholesaler than retailer.

 

Edited March 5, 2021 by adamstrange

[Robot Man]

I keep wondering when those Harvey file copies will dry up. Seems a lot of Romance still. And Adam seems to put up another round of the giveaways every week on the bay. My favorite is the two Flash Gordon’s. Great Raymond art in them. 

[Badger]

17 hours ago, Timely said:

The only guy to even come close was current NY art dealer Alex Acevedo. In the early 80’s he amassed a very large quantity of the MH collection, hundreds of Timelys  and thousands of DC, Fox, Centaur etc.  After a while and years of “price gauging” and increasing multiples of guide being demanded, Alex dumped the entire collection to John Verzyl. The collection almost went to Geppi, but Geppi was advised to ask Alex for his financials and Alex told him to go to hell. 

That was some amazingly stupid advice. "Hey, I want to buy your million dollar comic collection; but before I do, can I see your bank statement?" What the hell kind of logic is that?

[Straw-Man]

i’ve amassed about 20%.   

 

i mean about 20 books...

Edited March 5, 2021 by Straw-Man

[Cat-Man_America]

Purely from a collecting standpoint, acquiring at least one book from each historic pedigree is a more practical and achievable goal given the state of play today.  There are pedigrees of high quality with books that rival ...in some cases, pass... those from Edgar Church's legacy. 

Edited March 6, 2021 by Cat-Man_America

[woowoo]

13 minutes ago, Cat-Man_America said:

Purely from a collecting standpoint, acquiring at least one book from each historic pedigree is a more practical and achievable goal given the state of play today.  There are pedigrees of high quality with books that rival ...in some cases, . 

 Don't know if that's advice i would take from an 38 year old comic guy 

[cheetah]

46 minutes ago, Cat-Man_America said:

Purely from a collecting standpoint, acquiring at least one book from each historic pedigree is a more practical and achievable goal given the state of play today.  There are pedigrees of high quality with books that rival ...in some cases, pass... those from Edgar Church's legacy. 

There are some exquisite pedigrees out there that have books that are of the quality of the Church copies.  Problem is they are only a fraction of the size of the Church Pedigree and too often don't have the key issues or even titles that are most collected.  Most times, if you want the best copy of a book, it's going to be the Church copy.

[adamstrange]

10 hours ago, adamstrange said:

Geppi gave 5000 comics to Heritage in 2003-4 time frame, 3000 of them pedigrees.  As I understand it, this was done to fund his investment in a Maine real estate deal that later went south in the Financial Crisis.  That resulted in another round of sales of comics, along with other assets. 

Just to be clear, these were 5000 GA comics, 3000 of them pedigrees.  It was crucial to establishing Heritage's position as the premier auction house for comics, as well as providing a boost to the overall market.

[Cat-Man_America]

4 hours ago, cheetah said:

There are some exquisite pedigrees out there that have books that are of the quality of the Church copies.  Problem is they are only a fraction of the size of the Church Pedigree and too often don't have the key issues or even titles that are most collected.  Most times, if you want the best copy of a book, it's going to be the Church copy.

This is quite true, especially when comparing collection size and overall grade quality.  Church copies will always have strong appeal regardless of grade comparisons with other pedigreed books.