Milhous Collection

[Carfreak]

Holy Cannoli Batman, check out the sale prices!!!!!     

1912 Olds Limited   $3,300,000


http://www.sportscardigest.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Milhous-Collection-Official-Results.pdf

http://www.rmauctions.com/milhous-collection.cfm

[Geoff]

Where the money came from ----

Treasure Chest Advertising, 1967--93

The company was founded in 1967 as Treasure Chest Advertising by Paul and Robert Milhous, brothers who bought a used printing press in order to publish a weekly shopping newspaper called the Treasure Chest of Values. Within five years the company had six plants in order to print advertising circulars for a variety of clients. They expanded their operation with the purchase of a new printing press in 1974 and had sales of $20 million that year. Sales reached the $100-million level in 1980. Treasure Chest Advertising began printing color comics and TV-program listings in 1982.

Treasure Chest had 14 percent of the nation's $3.5-billion printing business in 1988. Retailers using its services included Kmart, Sears Roebuck, and Circuit City. The following year the firm, based in Glendora, California, was the largest printing company based in Los Angeles County. Total sales came to $550.2 million. While national in scope, with 25 sales offices and 3,400 employees, the western United States was Treasure Chest's main focus, with a market share in excess of 20 percent. In 1988 the company formed a joint venture with Dutch partners to remanufacture and market used graphic-arts equipment worldwide.

Advertising circulars, flyers, inserts, and other preprints for newspapers accounted for 85 percent of Treasure Chest's sales in 1990, with publications and periodicals making up the remainder. Its Sunday supplements included Sunday comics and television magazines for publications like the Los Angeles Times and Baltimore Sun. The company had 15 printing facilities and was the largest printer of retail advertising circulars in the United States. It was consuming 500,000 tons of paper a day.

Treasure Chest executives pointed to the use of electronics, automated printing presses, and computer-controlled inking systems as a major factor in the company's success. Interviewed for a 1990 issue of the Los Angeles Business Journal, president and chief executive officer Sanford Scheller said, "In the early days of the advertising circular, newsprint was the dominant material used and with not a lot of color. Now it has evolved into an emphasis on shiny paper with the four-color process.... We have been good at anticipating changing markets."

Big Flower Press, 1993--95

In the early 1990s the Milhouses decided to sell out and asked Scheller to find a buyer. Treasure Chest's annual sales had grown to $555 million and its net income to $4.7 million in fiscal 1993 (the year ended June 30, 1993). It was acquired later in the year by BFP Holdings Corp., a firm based in New York City. BFP Holdings was created specifically to become a power in the printing industry by its founder and chairman, Theodore Ammon, who gave up a partnership in the investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. to strike out on his own. Ammon previously had overseen the acquisition of World Color Press, which subsequently became the nation's second-largest printer. BFP paid $235 million for the firm and financed most of it with junk bonds.

Soon after acquiring Treasure Chest, BFP signed agreements to acquire Dallas-based Retail Graphics Holding Co., paying $39.9 million, and KTB Associates, Inc. of Saugerties, New York, for which it paid $34.6 million. The name of the former was changed to Treasure Chest Advertising Holding Co. of Texas, Inc., and the name of the latter to Treasure Chest Advertising Co. of New York, Inc.

[Gary]

"In the early 1990s the Milhouses decided to sell out..."
Talk about good timing! Perhaps they saw the coming crash in newspaper sales, or they were just lucky. In any case, they sure bought nice stuff with all that money.

Gary

[Fins]

I haven't looked at the links yet, but that Olds is just over the top, STUNNING.