The basement in Charlie Miller’s Princeton Heights home is stuffed full of Ozzy Osbourne memorabilia — some 1,200 pieces of it.
He has autographed posters, autographed records and three autographed guitars. Two of the guitars were signed by all four members of Osbourne’s first band, Black Sabbath; the third was signed by Osbourne alone.
He has T-shirts and tour books and autographed baseballs. He has a couple of plush stuffed bats (Osbourne, the original bad boy of heavy metal rock, is famously said to have once bitten the head off a bat in concert). He has Missouri license plates reading “Ozzy.â€
Charlie Miller bought two old gumball machines and refurbished them to honor Ozzy Osbourne’s music with Black Sabbath and his solo career.
He has two gumball machines from the 1950s that he refurbished, repainted and refilled with color-appropriate gumballs: black and purple for the Black Sabbath machine, yellow and red for the Ozzy Osbourne machine.
People are also reading…
Osbourne died last week of Parkinson’s disease; the British rocker was 76.
“It’s sad, but it’s not the end of the world. There are more happy memories than sad,†Miller says.
“He did his last concert with his old friends from school back in his old hometown just two weeks before. I kind of think he hung on just for that.â€
Miller mourned his passing by playing a few carefully chosen songs: “See You on the Other Side,†which is about seeing someone again after they have both died, “Goodbye to Romance,†which Miller calls “kind of a sad one,†and “Mama, I’m Coming Home.â€
Osbourne also performed “Mama, I’m Coming Home†in the July 5 concert in his hometown of Birmingham, England. The concert was promoted as Black Sabbath’s final show. Despite Osbourne’s illness, Miller says he was in fine voice during the harder rocking songs.
“But the crowd favorite was when he played ‘Mama, I’m Coming Home,’ which is a slower tune. He struggled on that, but the crowd loved that even more because he was struggling. It was really cool to see,†Miller says.
Miller, 58, was first introduced to Osbourne’s music in 1980, when he was in 8th grade. It was right after Osbourne had been kicked out of Black Sabbath for substance abuse and related behavior.
Charlie Miller met his favorite musician Ozzy Osbourne (right) several times.
“A friend brought a copy of ‘Blizzard of Ozz.’ He brought it to school. I was just blown away by the front cover even before I heard it. I took it home and played it, and I was hooked,†he says.
“After about a month or so of listening to it, my older sister brought home the Black Sabbath ‘Paranoid’ record. That’s when I discovered he had a 10-year career before I discovered him in ‘80.â€
Miller went to his first Osbourne concert the next year, when he was 15 (“the music was so cool to a 15-year-old boy,†he says). It was the “Diary of a Madman†tour, in support of Osbourne’s second solo album. And in some respects, it changed Miller’s life.
“When I got to the merchandise counter, I saw the shirts with his picture on them. I didn’t have much money, but I told the guy I needed two of those shirts,†he says.
“After I got those shirts, I had to get anything with his name on it. I don’t know why — the collector mentality. If he had it or touched it or talked about it, I had to have it. I was just addicted to it from the start.â€
The friend who first introduced him to Osbourne’s music, Andy Amann, was as big a fan as Miller. He later got a job as a stagehand, and whenever Osbourne came to town he would invite Miller backstage.
Amann died last year. Miller inherited part of his equally large collection of Osbourne memorabilia.
Charlie Miller’s collection of Ozzy Osbourne memorabilia includes Missouri vanity license plates.
Miller works in the office of the St. Louis Collector of Revenue; he has known his wife, Beth, since grade school. Because they have known each other so long, she knew all about his Osbourne obsession before they started dating.
“She tolerates the collection. I have to make sure I don’t turn it up above 10 if she’s in the house. If she’s outside the house, I can turn it up to about 100,†he says.
“My wife has a massive, massive Mickey Mouse collection. Her stuff gets to stay upstairs in the house. My stuff has to be in the basement.â€
One photo from their wedding shows little statues of Ozzy Osbourne and Mickey Mouse, with their wedding rings hanging from them.
Miller picked up his very favorite piece of Osbourne memorabilia in 1983. He had purchased a bootleg recording of an Osbourne concert before he knew what bootleg recordings were or why performers hate them. This particular album was produced especially cheaply, with a blank white cover that had no writing on either side. Miller brought it with him to an Osbourne appearance at Peaches Records and Tapes.
“He looked at it, he looked at me, he flipped it over to the back and he just put it down and autographed it big across the back cover. He put his full name all across to the end, and he put a period at the end,†he says.
Other people around the world have Osbourne collections that are much larger than his own, Miller says, but his is the largest that he knows of in the area.
“I know that eventually it is going to have to go, but at this moment I’m not ready yet.â€
Post-Dispatch photographers capture tens of thousands of images every year. See some of their best work that was either taken in June 2025 in this video. Edited by Jenna Jones.
