Question for Heritage and comiclink reps wrt Burkey admission 2 2

[MrBedrock]

6 hours ago, Rick2you2 said:

Honestly, I think that the prices listed on generic Kirby pieces are “organically” high

That sounds cool, but what exactly does "organically" high mean? Are you saying that we, both collectors and dealers, just assume Kirby stuff should be priced high? Because if that's the case and stuff is not selling then prices should probably start being "organically" lowered.

Now back to this shilling mess...

[Rick2you2]

 

10 hours ago, vodou said:

"Organically" high? I dunno.

When in doubt, I always go back to the huckster's Bible: Perception is reality. And what we have, in my example above, is textbook perception management:

1. Public Result #1 (HA hammer, 2009)
2. Public re-offer by prominent dealer at expected "pir" dealer mark-up of round double (2009-2015 @romitaman.com)
3. Public Result #2, sadly a "fail" to find an "organic" buyer over the protection level (HA hammer, 2015)
4. Round-trip back to #2 above: Public re-offer by prominent dealer but only at previously offered level (showing weakness), just barely "above" last Public Result (2015-present @romitaman.com)

On the one hand this was a set-up to accomplish at least one of two things:

• Clear stale (dead?) inventory (Kirby FF #41 page 11) at/abvoe $14,000, or as 'heads Mike wins, tails Mike wins' fallback:
• Create a fresh public "comp" that would be supportive of the recycled back to Romitaman.com website price of $14,000.

On the other hand, in either case (sale to non-ring or ring) a nice solid five figure "comp" is created to support the rest of that Jack Kirby segment, the rest of Marvel twice-up superhero segment, even the rest of DC/other companies Silver Age/twice-up superhero/market segment. Twice-Up Jack Kirby Fantastic Four is sort of the "gold standard" of the entire post-Golden Age/EC hobby, except for UG and other non-mainstream "stuff" which moves to a different beat (and is so offbeat any of that material rarely is discussed/shared on this Board). Arguably the only Jack Kirby (and maybe all superhero art?!) held in higher esteem would be: Sinnott inked FF! "Gold Standard" rises = the market is bullish. The opposite, well then maybe a pause in the bull? (but not, never, a bear indication!)

Anyway, this sad POS FF #41 page 11 (ruined not due to artist or artistry but by "the market" ) can't even generate a double in over ten years time, wow, not even for 'never loses' Mike Burkey? Did the 2009 winner overpay or should we question how "organic" even that hammer was too?

What is "organic" about any of the above Rick? Shouldn't we question how "organic" the overall Jack Kirby market is then?

What I can tell you is in twenty years I've seen "weak" Jack (roughly all post-4th world material) climb from low 3 figures to mid four figures and higher in a rather stair-step fashion. This would be understandable if the demand grew in roughly the same fashion. I'm not sure it has though. There are a number of us that just scratch our heads at this, that any old "Jack" is now four figures, even oddball material like Losers, 80s "stuff" etc - art that is not attractive in it's own right and is not going to be (very) nostalgic either. So why? A rising tide lifts all boats? Maybe...that would be an oft-made statement supporting perception management and begs the question, which came first the chicken (rising prices "organically") or the egg (rising tide lifts all boats)?

We are on the same page here, just using different terms. You have created a good argument that it is not "organic" but driven by perception created from shilling. That is a rigged market, instead of one driven by a lot of buyers who are chasing the same piece for their own collections, and the price goes up due to high actual demand. The junky stuff then gets carried upwards because the good stuff isn't worth spending that much money on. And yes, we should question the whole of the Jack Kirby market if there is a lot of this behavior.

[Rick2you2]

8 hours ago, MrBedrock said:

That sounds cool, but what exactly does "organically" high mean? Are you saying that we, both collectors and dealers, just assume Kirby stuff should be priced high? Because if that's the case and stuff is not selling then prices should probably start being "organically" lowered.

Now back to this shilling mess...

They would logically drop, organically,--unless there is even more of that behavior going on in order to artifically prop up prices. How many times have you been to conventions and seen the same piece, sometimes for years, carrying the same price but not moving down? Same with general CAF listings. 

[MrBedrock]

Just now, Rick2you2 said:

They would logically drop, organically,--unless there is even more of that behavior going on in order to artifically prop up prices. How many times have you been to conventions and seen the same piece, sometimes for years, carrying the same price but not moving down? Same with general CAF listings. 

It happens with art to a ridiculous degree. I gave up talking to art dealers a long time ago because of the high preponderance of unreasonableness (a side effect of being organically high?).

[Bronty]

1 hour ago, Rick2you2 said:

 

We are on the same page here, just using different terms. You have created a good argument that it is not "organic" but driven by perception created from shilling. That is a rigged market, instead of one driven by a lot of buyers who are chasing the same piece for their own collections, and the price goes up due to high actual demand. The junky stuff then gets carried upwards because the good stuff isn't worth spending that much money on. And yes, we should question the whole of the Jack Kirby market if there is a lot of this behavior.

I can think of no comic artists’ market to question *less*.    He was extremely prolific and is widely held, widely collected, widely desired.    The narrower the market the easier to manipulate.    

[vodou]

57 minutes ago, Bronty said:

I can think of no comic artists’ market to question *less*.

Disagree. There's many other comic artist markets I'd question *less*, Kirby price trend and momentum perception is *very* important to the entire edifice. If we ever see widespread Kirby market softness set in, the questioning of everything will become widespread too. It's happened before (Tony Christopher liquidation).

My example above, FF #41 page 11, is only one example but why hasn't anybody, any dealer taken down that FF page from Mike: cash, trade, cash/trade, whatever? What's the stain on it? 11 years and counting...

[Bronty]

Okay, fair point.    And I guess what I said isn’t accurate because the artists whom I question the market for the least are those that have no market.    (No manipulation on a $50 page, you know?) .

That being said, Kirby will be fine.   It isn’t always Going to grow by leaps and bounds (in fact I can see it being stale) but he’s the most important artist in comics.   I don’t see the values tanking but you’re right that it would cause fear if it did.

Edited February 19, 2020 by Bronty

[Matches_Malone]

9 hours ago, Rick2you2 said:

They would logically drop, organically,--unless there is even more of that behavior going on in order to artifically prop up prices. How many times have you been to conventions and seen the same piece, sometimes for years, carrying the same price but not moving down? Same with general CAF listings. 

Sometimes the price goes up. 🤔

[Rick2you2]

7 hours ago, Matches_Malone said:

Sometimes the price goes up. 🤔

One of the things I still find amazing is how Will Eisner's Spirit pages, while not cheap, are relatively low-priced compared to modern masters. If there is a Mt. Rushmore for true Golden Age Masters and Pioneers, he would be on it. One big difference may relate to their fairly high level of availability after he died, leading me to suspect that part of the high pricing involves hoards of art being sat on in order to establish a high book value.

[vodou]

33 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

leading me to suspect that part of the high pricing involves hoards of art being sat on in order to establish a high book value.

This is at least partly true. Denis Kitchen is still sitting on a small mountain of 'em, of the Spirit material he published mostly though. With large concentration, controlling distribution and perception of scarcity is very important (to achieving highest price realized not sell-through: goals that are always in opposition to each other). It's never been a secret that Denis has a lot of Eisner Spirit available; I don't think either Will (while alive) or Denis was trying to extract the highest possible price by the piece, so keeping the concentration quiet wasn't important. No different than those of us (all of us) that know of Walt Simonson's concentration of his own lifetime body of work...it's not for sale and most likely will not be in his lifetime and maybe for a long time after too; prices realized is immaterial, thus keeping quiet is immaterial.

9 hours ago, Bronty said:

Okay, fair point.    And I guess what I said isn’t accurate because the artists whom I question the market for the least are those that have no market.    (No manipulation on a $50 page, you know?) .

That being said, Kirby will be fine.   It isn’t always Going to grow by leaps and bounds (in fact I can see it being stale) but he’s the most important artist in comics.   I don’t see the values tanking but you’re right that it would cause fear if it did.

Non-ring (aka "organic") demand (even the thinnest sliver of) must precede manipulation, otherwise...there is no one to manipulate

A complete monopoly of all the stamps Eritrea issued last month is worthless because there is no one to distribute it to at a value greater than face, which is already artificially set at the maximum potential (at issue) over intrinsic due to seigniorage. Secondary demand (and price increase over "face") only comes through arbitrage (asymmetric access/information by "insiders") or actual supply limitation.

Anyway, that was fun, but getting back to the prime Jack Kirby material...twice up notable Marvel superhero...we see that market freeze up, not drop precipitously but just no longer sell through at advancing hammer on a regular basis, we'll see all the confidence walk right out the door too. Until the hobby (not a ring) nominates a successor artist/era/genre body of work. That's going to be for the 90s kids to figure out and promote. Could be Jim Lee or Todd McFarlane or...I don't know, I'm an old geezer

This is exactly what happened in the fine art market over the last several centuries: Old Masters came and went, Impressionist came and went, Social Realism came and went, Abstract Expressionism came and went, Pop Art came and...probably on it's way out, Street Art came and is doing very well presently but how much higher can 35 year old Basquiats and twenty year old KAWS climb before nobody but Mike and Donald can buy? All those previous 'movement' iterations....they just fell out of favor (partly due to being run up/manipulated (?) so much by geezers that newer collectors couldn't get in and sought something they could collect instead) and stagnated over time. The explosive growth in price (due to ex-gr in demand) also exacerbated The Boom as the chasers came in. We'll see what comes but Ring-action does move things faster toward the end. Another reason newer collectors don't adopt what their older brethren collect is because they just don't trust it, just as many are now questioning that FF #41 page 11 example if not the larger chunk of the elder market it may be representative of. A newer collector, exactly as one or two have made their voices known on the Board recently might just say "pass" and buy fresh art of a table in artist alley or go the commission/sketch route instead. Wouldn't you? That's exactly what I did when I entered the market so many years ago, I saw what the old guys had run up and it didn't seem to compare favorably, on a cost:benefit analysis, to the next two decades following of similar material they hadn't run up...so being that I wanted the most and best art I could get, I went whole hog on those decades instead and left the geezers to their (then) four figure price tags that just yellowed over time but never seemed to revise downward to meet the actual "demand" market  

[RBerman]

31 minutes ago, vodou said:

Anyway, that was fun, but getting back to the prime Jack Kirby material...twice up notable Marvel superhero...we see that market freeze up, not drop precipitously but just no longer sell through at advancing hammer on a regular basis, we'll see all the confidence walk right out the door too. Until the hobby (not a ring) nominates a successor artist/era/genre body of work. That's going to be for the 90s kids to figure out and promote. Could be Jim Lee or Todd McFarlane or...I don't know, I'm an old geezer

This is exactly what happened in the fine art market over the last several centuries: Old Masters came and went, Impressionist came and went, Social Realism came and went, Abstract Expressionism came and went, Pop Art came and...probably on it's way out, Street Art came and is doing very well presently but how much higher can 35 year old Basquiats and twenty year old KAWS climb before nobody but Mike and Donald can buy? All those previous 'movement' iterations....they just fell out of favor (partly due to being run up/manipulated (?) so much by geezers that newer collectors couldn't get in and sought something they could collect instead) and stagnated over time. The explosive growth in price (due to ex-gr in demand) also exacerbated The Boom as the chasers came in. We'll see what comes but Ring-action does move things faster toward the end. Another reason newer collectors don't adopt what their older brethren collect is because they just don't trust it, just as many are now questioning that FF #41 page 11 example if not the larger chunk of the elder market it may be representative of. A newer collector, exactly as one or two have made their voices known on the Board recently might just say "pass" and buy fresh art of a table in artist alley or go the commission/sketch route instead. Wouldn't you? That's exactly what I did when I entered the market so many years ago, I saw what the old guys had run up and it didn't seem to compare favorably, on a cost:benefit analysis, to the next two decades following of similar material they hadn't run up...so being that I wanted the most and best art I could get, I went whole hog on those decades instead and left the geezers to their (then) four figure price tags that just yellowed over time but never seemed to revise downward to meet the actual "demand" market  

You are describing me. My newbie take is that the high prices on important-but-prolific artists like Kirby are due for a correction and are currently being maintained (and/or advanced) by shenanigans. I do not trust the system that generated current valuations.

I grew up reading two segments: the early 80s comics I bought myself (mostly Marvel), and a box of 1970-1972 comics purchased by my older cousin (almost all DC). I've read very little of Kirby's Silver Age work, and none of his Golden Age. I did finally read Fourth World last year. But sure, I know Kirby and appreciate his role in the industry, so when I had the opportunity to get the Professor Kublak pin-up, I got it. Hopefully it's authentic.

We don't have a local comics store in my small town, but we do have a gaming store that has some longboxes too. I took my original art collection there last weekend to show the thirty-somehing guy working the counter, who is not the owner. Turns out he is an aspiring comics artist himself. "You made my day," he said, flipping through the likes of Kitson, Rapmund, Case, Van Sciver. He was especially excited by a Greg Land Iron Man page I showed him. "Look at the fine detail on Tony's beard!" he exclaimed, getting out a magnifying glass to look more closely. He flipped to the Kirby, gave it a brief glance, and flipped on without comment. Not interesting. Not interested.

It seems inevitable that those of his generation will think of Kirby as I think of Raymond and Foster (and, yes, Kirby). A representative sample would be nice to have to satisfy a completist urge. Nice, but not essential. Not buying every page that crosses my path at $5,000 a pop, or even at $1,000 a pop. And I would guess I'm in the upper echelon of potential Gen X collectors in terms of interest and buying power. Whom are all the Boomer and Buster collectors going to unload their treasures upon? How is Simonson going to realize top dollar for his oeuvre, if he doesn't start gradually unloading it now?

Edited February 19, 2020 by RBerman

[PhilipB2k17]

I’d argue that the market for ~some~ artists is artificially high (Herb Trimpe, anyone? John Romita Sr and especially Jr.) But not for Jack Kirby. 
 

 

[PhilipB2k17]

15 minutes ago, RBerman said:

You are describing me. My newbie take is that the high prices on important-but-prolific artists like Kirby are due for a correction and are currently being maintained (and/or advanced) by shenanigans. I do not trust the system that generated current valuations.

I grew up reading two segments: the early 80s comics I bought myself (mostly Marvel), and a box of 1970-1972 comics purchased by my older cousin (almost all DC). I've read very little of Kirby's Silver Age work, and none of his Golden Age. I did finally read Fourth World last year. But sure, I know Kirby and appreciate his role in the industry, so when I had the opportunity to get the Professor Kublak pin-up, I got it. Hopefully it's authentic.

OK. First, if you can...read Kirby’s classic early to mid 60’s Marvel stuff. He reinvented comic book visual storytelling during that period. There were a few precursors and influences, like Will Eisner. But he made comics more cinematic and even expanded the dynamic range of what this medium could do. His technical lines, and figures are not classical. But the visual storytelling is dynamic and highly inventive when you get to his cosmic stuff, and machinery. “Kirby Krackle” is called that for a reason. 

I never read or collected Little Nemo, but I appreciate the hell out of the artistry of one of Winsor McCay’s masterpieces. If I could afford a page, Id buy one. 
 

I think Kirby is in a different category than most of the pros who did work for Marvel or DC in those days. 

[Bronty]

3 minutes ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

OK. First, if you can...read Kirby’s classic early to mid 60’s Marvel stuff. He reinvented comic book visual storytelling during that period. There were a few precursors and influences, like Will Eisner. But he made comics more cinematic and even expanded the dynamic range of what this medium could do. His technical lines, and figures are not classical. But the visual storytelling is dynamic and highly inventive when you get to his cosmic stuff, and machinery. “Kirby Krackle” is called that for a reason. 

I never read or collected Little Nemo, but I appreciate the hell out of the artistry of one of Winsor McCay’s masterpieces. If I could afford a page, Id buy one. 
 

I think Kirby is in a different category than most of the pros who did work for Marvel or DC in those days. 

I can appreciate both POVs.  All you're really saying there is that he is an important artist.   That doesn't necessarily speak to price.

[RBerman]

4 minutes ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

OK. First, if you can...read Kirby’s classic early to mid 60’s Marvel stuff. He reinvented comic book visual storytelling during that period. There were a few precursors and influences, like Will Eisner. But he made comics more cinematic and even expanded the dynamic range of what this medium could do. His technical lines, and figures are not classical. But the visual storytelling is dynamic and highly inventive when you get to his cosmic stuff, and machinery. “Kirby Krackle” is called that for a reason. 

I never read or collected Little Nemo, but I appreciate the hell out of the artistry of one of Winsor McCay’s masterpieces. If I could afford a page, Id buy one. 
 

I think Kirby is in a different category than most of the pros who did work for Marvel or DC in those days. 

I reviewed Fourth World issue-by-issue over here last year. More Kirby is certainly on my to-do list. I have a stack of trade hardcovers and softcovers I'm working on, everything from Silver Age Daredevil to Moore's Promethea to Vol 5 of Elfquest, etc.

I am well convinced of Kirby's excellence and stature in the field; you don't have to sell me on that. My kids may watch Star Wars or The Matrix, but it won't feel to them like it felt to me. Kirby will never feel innovative to me, because his innovations were so thoroughly adopted by his followers that I read first. I wouldn't mind having a published page from him. But if I had $5,000 or $6,000 to burn (which I am sure my wife would say I don't), I would get a Sienkiewicz or Ross first, because they mean more to me.

I'd be happy to get a Little Nemo, but the $33,000 it's currently commanding at Heritage Auctions is at least an order of magnitude more than I can contemplate.

[vodou]

17 minutes ago, Bronty said:

All you're really saying there is that he is an important artist.   That doesn't necessarily speak to price.

Exactly. Point to any well-represented institutionally (museums) Old Master (or heck Picasso!) and I'll show you three Warhols that could have been bought in the 1990s that can now be swapped for that Old Master (or Picasso). But at the time the 'ink' was still drying in Andy's screens (early-mid 1960s)...you could barely trade ONE of his pieces for a new car , OLD MASTERS and even 'new' Picassos (he was still -barely- alive then, still producing) were not in the equation. In just the lifetimes of us reading this the trajectory of two markets has flattened greatly while the other has skyrocketed. Old Masters is so flat we just group them all together that way, except for Rembradt, Da Vinci and a few others....most don't even know the names of 'the rest'. How far are we away from that in Silver Age Artists (Kirby, Ditko, Kane and 'the rest')?

Kirby is King but...not at $14,000

Edited February 19, 2020 by vodou
clarity

[glendgold]

1 hour ago, RBerman said:

My kids may watch Star Wars or The Matrix, but it won't feel to them like it felt to me. Kirby will never feel innovative to me, because his innovations were so thoroughly adopted by his followers that I read first.

This is a really interesting point.  Of course. 

[glendgold]

33 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

The second derivative of most Kirby art prices has already inflected (the rate of price appreciation has slowed considerably over what we saw post-Tony Christopher sale through the mid-2010s).  No one should be surprised by this - the big Kirby collectors in their 50s and 60s now were all bidding this material up to the moon when they were in their 30s and 40s; it's only natural that the rate of price appreciation has moderated over the past five years (obvious exceptions apply for certain fresh-to-market and very high quality pieces, of course) for much of his oeuvre. 

Kirby is such an important figure that I'm sure his work will continue to command top dollar or close to it for as long as there is a comic art hobby.  But, one would have to be blind not to see the greater interest these days in Miller, Byrne, McFarlane, Lee, Mignola, etc. There's been a clear demographic-based shift in interest in recent years; maybe nothing to worry about until we see a first derivative inflection in Kirby prices (i.e., prices actually going down), but, the second derivative inflection should be a warning sign that ours is a hobby that is not immune to changing demographics. 

I think another thing for collectors in their 50s and 60s is market fatigue. Even the stuff coming to market now that we "haven't seen" we mostly have seen, just on guys' walls at conventions year after year.  If you've been in the hobby long enough, there's truly little new material out there.  I rarely bid on stuff in part because I've seen most of it 10 or 20 years before.  I'm thinking of what seem to be genuinely high results -- the Dr Doom origin book did pretty well, but it's not like even that one came out of nowhere.  It was around, but just not officially for sale.  If something people aren't tracking, like Hulk 1 or FF 4, pops up and breaks up, maybe we'll have a better idea of how excited the market is for his stuff.

[MrBedrock]

12 hours ago, Bronty said:

Okay, fair point.    And I guess what I said isn’t accurate because the artists whom I question the market for the least are those that have no market.    (No manipulation on a $50 page, you know?) .

That being said, Kirby will be fine.   It isn’t always Going to grow by leaps and bounds (in fact I can see it being stale) but he’s the most important artist in comics.   I don’t see the values tanking but you’re right that it would cause fear if it did.

To me an analogous category is golden age DC comics. For years they were the backbone of the vintage comic hobby. Now, other than early Actions, pre-Robin Detectives and a few specific Batman issues, and a few specific Wonder Woman issues, golden age DC is flat or trending downward. That includes former top tier titles like All Star, Adventure and More Fun. Even those issues with Jack Kirby artwork do not find a spark. Completely unthinkable ten to twenty years ago.

I think it is very possible that the bulk of Jack Kirby original artwork (other than the most significant pieces) could experience a similar change in popularity.

Edited February 19, 2020 by MrBedrock

[Rick2you2]

2 hours ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

I’d argue that the market for ~some~ artists is artificially high (Herb Trimpe, anyone? John Romita Sr and especially Jr.) But not for Jack Kirby. 
 

 

Seeing this raised a particular artist in my mind: Neal Adams. Excellent artist, huge production levels, high prices, but seemingly a result of natural demand (which he does partly control by keeping some things).  He still churns out so many sketches, however. Is that affecting his OA pricing for typical Adams? (Not special pieces like the Batman/Joker cover, or GL/GA).

Then, we have Aparo. Again, excellent artist, but until about a year and a half ago, not commonly sold given the huge volume of his work. My understanding is that two large collections were sold around then, and more good pieces came on the market. But are they generally holding up, price wise (I will exclude his Spectre run in Adventure which was special)? I know some of his lesser pieces don’t seem to move too quickly.