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John E.

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Everything posted by John E.

  1. When I lived in California I was attending about 7-10 cons a year. Usually you see the same artists con after con with the same art in the portfolio. If that’s the case, I would offer about 80% of the sticker price. Remember, they aren’t eBay, so don’t lo-ball an artist. I remember an artist who i had built rapport with in the past by buying his comics off his table, paying him for sketches, chatting, had brought some fresh vintage art with him. I found a piece of art that I liked (unpublished, single figure, no background) that wasn’t priced, and I asked him how much he wanted. He closed his eyes, raised an eyebrow, did the uhhhhhh, and gave me a price of $225, a price that I balked at. I made a counter offer for $175 in cash, which may have still been too much, but he accepted it. The point is that I felt comfortable making a counteroffer because of previous rapport. He knew I was a fan and not a flipper. There are artists who will voluntarily offer you discounts. I remember Bob Layton had a two sketch covers left over from a previous con that he offered my friend and me a 50% discount or something (this was also past the peak of the current con so all his buyers came and went already). Then there are those artists that just won’t budge. The important thing is that you need the ability to read a person. One last thing, if you’re the first to show up at an artist’s table and he or she has fresh pages from this month’s book and you see something you want for a few hundred dollars (it’s not a $5k cover) don’t haggle, don’t hem and haw, and just buy it. If you want it that bad, chances are someone else does too and willing to pay full price. Regret in this hobby is a B.
  2. It depends on how bad the bend is. Did it crease the paper? Because that’s something else. Otherwise, putting a lot of weight as Panelfan suggests should do the trick. Just make sure you sandwich the art between two pieces of cardboard or similar that’s larger than the art. If you lay books directly on the art then you risk leaving the book spine’s impression on your art, which is harder problem to solve on your own. Also, after doing the whole putting weight on the thing, if you are left with a slight curl, you can stick it in the back of your portfolio and the weight from the other pages will eventually flatten it out.
  3. I’ve noticed that Albert prices his art very strong, ridiculously strong, and then history sides with him. As a relatively recent collector, I can remember recoiling at the strong prices on second-tier Darwyn Cooke art when Darwyn was still with us. One example is a nice Catwoman ‘66 unpublished pinup for $1500. That money could’ve bought you a nice cover or many nice modern pages. I believe the trigger on that one wasn’t pulled until the day Darwyn’s passing was announced.
  4. Thanks for replying. There are about 95 pages in Grand Design and yet I’ve not seen one original page. Is it fair to ask you what Ed’s asking prices were on the stuff he did have?
  5. Can I ask you why Piskor didn’t have any pages from X-men? Hanging on to them? Sold them all? All digital? I haven’t seen anything but those corner boxes and patches on CAF.
  6. I just saw the Jusko Hulk auction end in a flash. I couldn’t tell if was won by an actual bidder. Anyone?
  7. Sorry it happened to you too. Same thing happened to me last year. Money sent, money refunded...after a whole lot of art was sold to fund it. It stings even more to see the art in another collector’s CAF (not the seller’s either) displayed next to his gazillion examples from the same artist and titles. Nevertheless, good luck with the sale.
  8. Isn’t Richard Rae a known forger or scammer?
  9. I’d love to collect the stuff, if only the paintings from the original series popped up often at affordable prices. Two showed up on HA about a year ago and they finished between $15k-$20k. Clearly they are not for the casual collector. There are the more affordable prelims by John Pound and Tom Bunk that exist although I’ve not seen them come up in the secondary market. Considering their rarity in the open market and their cost, and I can’t speak about who has what in private collections, I just can’t imagine it an easy thing to have a large collection of GPK original paintings. What are collections like in your group?
  10. It seems to have worked for the other guy!
  11. Hard to estimate with that small size but it’s a nice piece that would do well in auction. To me the floor on that would be $6k. To reach the five figure mark I think a bidder has to get over the psychological barrier of its size and that it’s a headshot of Supes—no torso, no “S” emblem. Otherwise it’s a really nice piece to own. Love it when these things pop up. Here’s a recent comp:
  12. I recall that the price of membership in 2016 was $50, then it jumped to $75. Am I remembering wrong? Yeah, for budget collectors who spend $100-$250 on art $75 for CAF premium membership can mean the difference between buying a page or not. If my membership expires during a time that I’m saving up for a piece, I don’t renew until that piece is acquired. To @timguerrero : for what it’s worth, when you rip the band-aid of paying the $75, it stings for a day or two then you forget all about it. That $75 goes a long way throughout the year. It’s definitely worth it if you have a lot of art to move around in galleries.
  13. Not too long ago there was a thread on Comic Connect where Boardies vented their frustrations toward CC’s dated website which reflected my experience. My main frustration is fruitlessly trying to search for specific art. I don’t know if the site has improved since then because I don’t check it anymore.
  14. I mostly sell on eBay and I’ve never had a problem with it or with a buyer. I think what helps is having lots of good photos and honest descriptions with full disclosures about any major damage or loose and missing stats, etc. Drawback to eBay is that you pay more in fees between eBay and PayPal and technically shipping When Heritage is set up at comic conventions, I’ve approached them about selling but they won’t taking anything from me unless I have at least $5k in art to hand over. I’ve not sold through Comic Link but would like to in the future. Only issue I see though is that some pieces go for much less than they would have on eBay. These are the smaller pieces not the high ticket ones. Most collectors tend to stay away from Comic Connect.
  15. Yeah, portfolio sleeves are the natural predator of the paste-up word balloon. I’m not sure if this qualifies as ruined, but in my early collecting days I had two sketches by two different artists on which their pencils really made their presence known (overwhelmed/obstructed) as much as the inks. I erased the pencils and really regretted it soon after. I still have one of them and the other I sold with disclosure. It didn’t affect the market value as much I thought but I’ll never know for sure. Just don’t erase the pencils!
  16. Just curious, Bronty, when you say “elsewhere,” do you mean venues other than HA or hobbies other than original COMIC art?
  17. Protect from creases and bumps? Perhaps. But are they acid free? Acid free wins over hard plastic any day. A common storage solution is acid-free portfolios like Itoya. If you do a search in this forum you will find that this question has been raised before with lots of input to be taken in.
  18. That is a cool piece. Pages from this series are always in demand. Since there's no Wolverine present, it does negatively affect the value though. I'd be surprised if this pages sold for less than $3k in auction. My guesstimate is $3,000-$4500, certainly not anywhere near $10,000. ComicLink would be happy to take this off your hands and place it in their auction. Heritage won't take your stuff unless it's valued at least $5,000, so sending this by itself may not get you through the doors unless you have more art to put up on auction. Also, as a disclaimer, it's hard to predict the value of individual pieces, even for the seasoned collector. Often times we're way off. So this thing could end at $2900 or $6,432.10. Thus, take these ballpark figures with a grain of salt.
  19. Dear collectors, I've put up on eBay a pen and ink drawing of Ferdinand the Bull by a former Hyperion Studio (Disney) artist, Marge Hudson. I'm starting this auction off at $59.99 with calculated shipping. Full description here! Auction ends on Sunday, August 5 at 7:00PM PST. Thanks for bidding! John July 28 update: I've added international shipping to Canada, U.K., France and Germany. If you are outside of these countries, please contact me.
  20. Very interesting to see that. I remember reading in Bruce Timm’s Modern Masters book that he would draw special event flyers for comic shops. I think one or two examples were printed in the book. His art then wasn’t nearly as good as it is now but it’s interesting to see his beginnings. It seems like this early stuff is out there.
  21. Do you have examples on your CAF page of what the CamScanner can do?
  22. Isn’t Esad Ribic’s rep Anthony Snyder? If so, Anthony is in the middle of a cross country “comic art” road trip and I believe he’s not due back to New Jersey until at least the end of the month. Depending on when you contacted him, the road trip might be a reason why you haven’t heard back. Furthermore, I also get the impression that Ribic works with large paper; your project seems diminutive compared to what he’s used to, so that may be factor in whether or not he’ll accept the project to begin with (assuming this isn’t for publication). It may be in your best interest to contact Anthony before New York Comic Con in October to see if Esad could squeeze you in for a quickie sketch at the con. Just a suggestion. Best of luck with your pursuit.