Why is it harder to collect art from the 90s than it should be? 2 2

[Nexus]

For McFarlane fans, here's a page that's been buried for 25+ years. Given to a young fan by his parents for his 13th birthday:

 

 

He's now a pro himself and, at last report, the page is still hanging in his office.

 

[rotembk]

Nice bar-mitzvah gift.

[eewwnuk]

great insightful post RabidFerret. Well done!

[alxjhnsn]

As someone who collects mostly early 90s art I love this topic, and having gotten into the hobby in 1998 I'll chime in on my experiences collecting early 90s art since then. It likely overlaps with many other eras and the same experiences as others, but is at least a little more specific to the early 90s guys...

 

When I started collecting I wanted examples of the Marvel work by the Image founders and their ilk - McFarlane, Liefeld, Portacio, Lee, Larsen, Kieth, Keown, etc. This was around 1998-2000 and even then it was shockingly difficult to find some of it. Back then an average page was probably $200 or less for most guys not named McFarlane.

 

McFarlane surfaced here and there, but the great stuff seemed to jump by leaps and bounds constantly. A piece I saw for $500 in 1999 would sell for $2k a year later and then $3.5k a year after that. If you waited for the perfect piece or tried to be picky the market left you behind. That's continued to this day, with the best art leaping again and again at ever higher prices. When I first started collecting I recall seeing two McFarlane full page Spidey splashes sell for $1k/each on ebay.

 

I found only one decent Liefeld X-Force page in the first few years for ~$200. I'd been told that dealers had sold it all in the 90s at higher prices and the market tanked, so most people were underwater on that art and holding it hoping for a rebound. The NM98 cover popped up on eBay and sold for like $7k. I heard the NM87 cover popped up and sold for $10k. The XF4 cover I remember finding only after an ebay auction ended for $500.

 

Jim Lee UXM art was always tough to find and never seemed to appear. For years I was after a solid UXM page and didn't even see them for sale. A handful of the same pages seemed to keep recycling. Nobody wanted a DPS of Deathbird it seemed. If a handful of pieces emerged in a year it was amazing, and it seemed that more XM appeared than UXM.

 

Some artists like Kieth held onto almost all their art, but guys like Keown sold off all their Hulk art long ago. When Keown pages appeared, one guy always outbid everyone.

 

On the flip side, Whilce Portacio art was readily available and consistently less than $200/page. XF and UXM covers were listed for $600-800. I remember the UXM282 cover selling on eBay twice for $1k. So it was around, just nobody was really buying it and pushing prices. Whilce had complete Punisher issues 8-9 that he broke up in the early 2000s. Scott had the complete #10 interiors still, that I believe are still owned complete by the buyer. Whilce still had lots of his art on hand.

 

So it depended on each artist where their art was and how tough it was to find. What I also soon started to learn though was that a lot of these artists had big volume collectors that hoarded like mad. A lot of those 90s guys did not produce that much work in the first place, so someone could stockpile pages of art by an artist and in effect own 25%+ of an artist's entire run very easily.

 

There was one guy who bought every Keown page that came out. There was someone who bought all of Mark Bright's Iron Man art. There was someone that got all the best Liefeld art. There were a couple of guys who loaded up on McFarlane art. And generally, these weren't huge pocket collectors with thousands of pieces, just a serious focus on one artist. I suspect a dozen guys ended up owning the majority of memorable and iconic 90s pieces broken nicely into 1 artist collections. Some of those collections are still on CAF to this day and never updated. Who hasn't run across Scott Wingo's 2005-updated McFarlane pile and not drooled a bit? http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryDetail.asp?GCat=4548

 

So that was a serious part of the problem - guys that loaded up and had no incentive to sell. People that almost seemed to view collecting art the same as collecting comics - you want a complete run.

 

Some of those guys still have it all. Others though slowly started selling and moving on in life. A few of those collectors went from buying everything to buying nothing to selling. A huge Liefeld collector unloaded everything he had over a few years and the market was suddenly flooded with Liefeld around 2005-2010. There was a point you could look on Burkey's site and see 20 vintage Liefelds from NM and XF to choose from at $500/page.

 

In the case of McFarlane and Lee things really changed when huge sales happened and the market shifted up. The Shamus Collection had a huge impact on McFarlane and Liefeld art at the time, and Jim Lee selling off a lot of his art the last few years has pushed his market up as well, and in both cases freeing a lot of hidden art from people that now found it worth selling. There seems to be a McFarlane ASM page in every major auction now, albeit not always top tier ones.

 

Some guys, like Kieth, continued to hold onto everything, but what little they had parted with - Maxx 1/2 - filtered out through the Shamus Collection on Heritage. In that case, it was a few auctions into the process, meaning many people were tapped out and may not have even noticed it since there wasn't a Maxx market to look to for comparisons.

 

Over those 15 years I kept finding pieces a few at a time, through all different ways, on all different cycles. There was a time where Portacio was easy to find, and another when Liefeld was, and another when McFarlane was. Some artists have never had one of those surges. Others have had multiples.

 

Patience was certainly the biggest part of the puzzle, as well as the luck of being at the right place and/or paying attention to auctions and dealers to spot the rare art, and most importantly knowing when to drop serious money on something special and either take on some debt or sell off some lesser pieces to fund it.

 

The biggest thing I often stress to 90s collectors is that they need to understand how little of this art there really was. This isn't like Kirby or Romita or Byrne where there are long runs and thousands of pages of art. For many, they did a small number of issues, 10-30, of which there were a lot of talking head pages and strange inkers or any number of reasons why there isn't a constant stream of A-list pages filtering out - they simply don't exist.

 

 

Great post.

[Garf]

As someone who collects mostly early 90s art I love this topic, and having gotten into the hobby in 1998 I'll chime in on my experiences collecting early 90s art since then. It likely overlaps with many other eras and the same experiences as others, but is at least a little more specific to the early 90s guys...

 

When I started collecting I wanted examples of the Marvel work by the Image founders and their ilk - McFarlane, Liefeld, Portacio, Lee, Larsen, Kieth, Keown, etc. This was around 1998-2000 and even then it was shockingly difficult to find some of it. Back then an average page was probably $200 or less for most guys not named McFarlane.

 

McFarlane surfaced here and there, but the great stuff seemed to jump by leaps and bounds constantly. A piece I saw for $500 in 1999 would sell for $2k a year later and then $3.5k a year after that. If you waited for the perfect piece or tried to be picky the market left you behind. That's continued to this day, with the best art leaping again and again at ever higher prices. When I first started collecting I recall seeing two McFarlane full page Spidey splashes sell for $1k/each on ebay.

 

I found only one decent Liefeld X-Force page in the first few years for ~$200. I'd been told that dealers had sold it all in the 90s at higher prices and the market tanked, so most people were underwater on that art and holding it hoping for a rebound. The NM98 cover popped up on eBay and sold for like $7k. I heard the NM87 cover popped up and sold for $10k. The XF4 cover I remember finding only after an ebay auction ended for $500.

 

Jim Lee UXM art was always tough to find and never seemed to appear. For years I was after a solid UXM page and didn't even see them for sale. A handful of the same pages seemed to keep recycling. Nobody wanted a DPS of Deathbird it seemed. If a handful of pieces emerged in a year it was amazing, and it seemed that more XM appeared than UXM.

 

Some artists like Kieth held onto almost all their art, but guys like Keown sold off all their Hulk art long ago. When Keown pages appeared, one guy always outbid everyone.

 

On the flip side, Whilce Portacio art was readily available and consistently less than $200/page. XF and UXM covers were listed for $600-800. I remember the UXM282 cover selling on eBay twice for $1k. So it was around, just nobody was really buying it and pushing prices. Whilce had complete Punisher issues 8-9 that he broke up in the early 2000s. Scott had the complete #10 interiors still, that I believe are still owned complete by the buyer. Whilce still had lots of his art on hand.

 

So it depended on each artist where their art was and how tough it was to find. What I also soon started to learn though was that a lot of these artists had big volume collectors that hoarded like mad. A lot of those 90s guys did not produce that much work in the first place, so someone could stockpile pages of art by an artist and in effect own 25%+ of an artist's entire run very easily.

 

There was one guy who bought every Keown page that came out. There was someone who bought all of Mark Bright's Iron Man art. There was someone that got all the best Liefeld art. There were a couple of guys who loaded up on McFarlane art. And generally, these weren't huge pocket collectors with thousands of pieces, just a serious focus on one artist. I suspect a dozen guys ended up owning the majority of memorable and iconic 90s pieces broken nicely into 1 artist collections. Some of those collections are still on CAF to this day and never updated. Who hasn't run across Scott Wingo's 2005-updated McFarlane pile and not drooled a bit? http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryDetail.asp?GCat=4548

 

So that was a serious part of the problem - guys that loaded up and had no incentive to sell. People that almost seemed to view collecting art the same as collecting comics - you want a complete run.

 

Some of those guys still have it all. Others though slowly started selling and moving on in life. A few of those collectors went from buying everything to buying nothing to selling. A huge Liefeld collector unloaded everything he had over a few years and the market was suddenly flooded with Liefeld around 2005-2010. There was a point you could look on Burkey's site and see 20 vintage Liefelds from NM and XF to choose from at $500/page.

 

In the case of McFarlane and Lee things really changed when huge sales happened and the market shifted up. The Shamus Collection had a huge impact on McFarlane and Liefeld art at the time, and Jim Lee selling off a lot of his art the last few years has pushed his market up as well, and in both cases freeing a lot of hidden art from people that now found it worth selling. There seems to be a McFarlane ASM page in every major auction now, albeit not always top tier ones.

 

Some guys, like Kieth, continued to hold onto everything, but what little they had parted with - Maxx 1/2 - filtered out through the Shamus Collection on Heritage. In that case, it was a few auctions into the process, meaning many people were tapped out and may not have even noticed it since there wasn't a Maxx market to look to for comparisons.

 

Over those 15 years I kept finding pieces a few at a time, through all different ways, on all different cycles. There was a time where Portacio was easy to find, and another when Liefeld was, and another when McFarlane was. Some artists have never had one of those surges. Others have had multiples.

 

Patience was certainly the biggest part of the puzzle, as well as the luck of being at the right place and/or paying attention to auctions and dealers to spot the rare art, and most importantly knowing when to drop serious money on something special and either take on some debt or sell off some lesser pieces to fund it.

 

The biggest thing I often stress to 90s collectors is that they need to understand how little of this art there really was. This isn't like Kirby or Romita or Byrne where there are long runs and thousands of pages of art. For many, they did a small number of issues, 10-30, of which there were a lot of talking head pages and strange inkers or any number of reasons why there isn't a constant stream of A-list pages filtering out - they simply don't exist.

 

 

 

One of the best posts I have read on the OA boards. Thanks for sharing.

[John E.]

I know that collecting New Warriors pages from Mark Bagley's run is getting harder and harder. There's about 3 of us main collectors and more and more others that are joining in.

 

Yes, I find some panel pages, but I'm getting pickier about the pages now. It makes it even harder for me. I want something splashy, with the main characters in costume. blah blah blah

 

Will's Comic Art page has put up a a dozen Bagley New Warriors pages , but the choice pieces have been snatched up.

[Rodey]

I know that collecting New Warriors pages from Mark Bagley's run is getting harder and harder. There's about 3 of us main collectors and more and more others that are joining in.

 

Yes, I find some panel pages, but I'm getting pickier about the pages now. It makes it even harder for me. I want something splashy, with the main characters in costume. blah blah blah

 

Will's Comic Art page has put up a a dozen Bagley New Warriors pages , but the choice pieces have been snatched up.

 

I know, I snatched them up!

[Catwoman_Fan]

Congrats Rodey! Those were great prices!

[zhamlau]

I gotta honest, im shocked any of them are still available. 50-60 bucks for bagley prime era Marvel hero work? Mostly the costume guys are minor or badies, but ive been looking at good pages go for hundreds of dollars. Seems like a cheap way to get well drawn art from a popular nostalgic book from an artist in his prime.

[rocket1312]

I gotta honest, im shocked any of them are still available. 50-60 bucks for bagley prime era Marvel hero work? Mostly the costume guys are minor or badies, but ive been looking at good pages go for hundreds of dollars. Seems like a cheap way to get well drawn art from a popular nostalgic book from an artist in his prime.

 

While I don't necessarily disagree with your assessment, the pages offered are for the most part bottom of the barrel. New Warriors does have a fairly rabid cult following, but relatively speaking, it's still just a small cult. (I'm reminded of the New Warriors Omnibus Marvel released a couple of years ago that went on to become one of the most heavily discounted and clearanced Marvel omnibuses of recent memory.) The market may grow in the next few years as more fans/potential collectors come of age, but as things currently stand, I think there are few enough of us out there that just about anyone who might be interested already has better examples in their collection.

 

That said, I did grab 3 pages and probably would have bought more if I wasn't making an effort to curb spending for the year.

[Sriz]

On 8/23/2016 at 11:32 AM, Jay Olie Espy said:

I'm wondering if there are any collectors between the ages of 34-42 who grew up during this reading period are having the same trouble as me, and how you've negotiated your collecting focus?

+1.  I feel like I'm in the same boat.  

[John E.]

5 hours ago, Sriz said:

+1.  I feel like I'm in the same boat.  

Finding quality 90s stuff hasn't gotten any easier since I created this post. Since posting this, I decided to mostly be a "nostalgia" collector despite the drought in the market. I've come up with a list of pages that are in my nostalgic wheelhouse that I'm waiting to pop up and these pages range from 1984-95. One example is a "C" page from New Mutants #100. I'm not a big Liefeld fan (nor am I a detractor) nor am I a NM fan--but, this is the last comic that my grandfather gave me before he became too old and frail to do much (Why did it have to be New Mutants #100?!). The problem is, as per recent Liefeld/NM discussions, NM pages don't pop up often and are in high demand; so, if I want an example, I better be ready with cash in hand (which I don't have at the moment), which also means I have stopped buying every shiny thing that pops up on the market. That said, I've come to accept that I may never get a page from NM100, but if I have a list of 20 "nostalgic must haves" and I acquire 5 on that list, then that's a win considering the market conditions. (As an aside, to keep focus, I admitted to myself that a page from NM99 or X-Force #1 is a not a good substitute).

The other thing I've realized is that, yes, modern art is more accessible and affordable. Nowadays, I don't feel the urgency to pick up modern art from every book/series that I've enjoyed. Now I turn to books/series that have made an impression on me after a few years, pages that I remember from 2012-13 for example, that are still relatively easy to find and affordable, that way I know it's something I really want. I also look to the aesthetics of a modern artist, main guy that comes to mind is Paul Pope. The guy hits homers and triples for me so I have to find the right piece for the right price and that'll do it for me; no nostalgia needed. Thing is, as reasonable Felix is with Pope's pricing (for finished published work) it's still not cheap, so I really have to be saving up money for a year.

Lastly, there are artists from the 90s whose style and aesthetics I absolutely love whose work is not largely available such as Kelley Jones and Sam Kieth, so I have to make an exception to my "no commissions, no non-nostalgic pages" rules. With Kelley Jones, I got a commission, so check. With Kieth, I'm begging for a commission list to open and I'm open to published pages of his that I didn't read as a kid, they just have to have the Sam Kieth-qualities I've developed a love for.

All this is to say that if you want to collect 90s stuff, don't give up, but know you're going to have to be patient and spend a lot of money and pass up on a lot of stuff (hence: focus). And it's okay to be flexible outside of those parameters, if what you do end up acquiring scratches that itch.

 

[Funnyslover]

Jay 

i have page 28 from NM 100, signed by Rob   

let me know when you're ready. 

G'nite ?

 

Edited April 15, 2017 by Funnyslover

[Bronty]

[John E.]

4 hours ago, Funnyslover said:

Jay 

i have page 28 from NM 100, signed by Rob   

http://www.comicartfans.com/galleryroom.asp?gsub=182123

let me know when you're ready. 

G'nite ?

 

Message sent through CAF 

CC: @Bronty

[Michael Browning]

I recently found a treasure trove full of 1990s pages that feature some of Marvel's most popular characters, but no dealer will even touch them (I was even told the art was " art"). I'm telling you, the dealers' disregard of this era prevents some prime 1990s pages from ever hitting the market. In turn, collectors won't offer them for sale because they're told they are worthless and no collector wants to be told that their art isn't worth even trying to sell.

But, when dealers start selling stuff that THEY, THEMSELVES, don't collect, and start selling art without bias to decades, then we will see a lot of great stuff hit the market that many of us have been looking for.

A lot of dealers won't sell or deal in anything that they, personally, don't collect. One dealer doesn't want anything newer than 1980, another doesn't want anything that isn't large art and another only buys art that is published by Marvel and DC. Those dealers are focused primarily on selling to help build their collections and disregard anything that isn't in their collecting scope and, a lot of times, miss out on great art that is available for sale -- art that WOULD SELL IF PUT UP ON THEIR SITES.

And that, in my opinion, would cause a lot of the 1990s art to come out of the woodwork and into our collections.

[DeadpoolJr.]

1 hour ago, Michael Browning said:

I recently found a treasure trove full of 1990s pages that feature some of Marvel's most popular characters, but no dealer will even touch them (I was even told the art was " art"). I'm telling you, the dealers' disregard of this era prevents some prime 1990s pages from ever hitting the market. In turn, collectors won't offer them for sale because they're told they are worthless and no collector wants to be told that their art isn't worth even trying to sell.

But, when dealers start selling stuff that THEY, THEMSELVES, don't collect, and start selling art without bias to decades, then we will see a lot of great stuff hit the market that many of us have been looking for.

A lot of dealers won't sell or deal in anything that they, personally, don't collect. One dealer doesn't want anything newer than 1980, another doesn't want anything that isn't large art and another only buys art that is published by Marvel and DC. Those dealers are focused primarily on selling to help build their collections and disregard anything that isn't in their collecting scope and, a lot of times, miss out on great art that is available for sale -- art that WOULD SELL IF PUT UP ON THEIR SITES.

And that, in my opinion, would cause a lot of the 1990s art to come out of the woodwork and into our collections.

I'm very curious by what characters from Marvel you found.

[Doc McCoy]

10 hours ago, Michael Browning said:

I recently found a treasure trove full of 1990s pages that feature some of Marvel's most popular characters, but no dealer will even touch them (I was even told the art was " art")

Are they guarded by a dragon that will only allow a "dealer" to get access to them?

In all seriousness, if you know that there's a market for these pages, why not attempt to sell them?  Or encourage the owner to do so?  Why does a dealer have to be involved?

[Solar]

11 hours ago, Michael Browning said:

I recently found a treasure trove full of 1990s pages that feature some of Marvel's most popular characters, but no dealer will even touch them (I was even told the art was " art"). I'm telling you, the dealers' disregard of this era prevents some prime 1990s pages from ever hitting the market. In turn, collectors won't offer them for sale because they're told they are worthless and no collector wants to be told that their art isn't worth even trying to sell.

But, when dealers start selling stuff that THEY, THEMSELVES, don't collect, and start selling art without bias to decades, then we will see a lot of great stuff hit the market that many of us have been looking for.

A lot of dealers won't sell or deal in anything that they, personally, don't collect. One dealer doesn't want anything newer than 1980, another doesn't want anything that isn't large art and another only buys art that is published by Marvel and DC. Those dealers are focused primarily on selling to help build their collections and disregard anything that isn't in their collecting scope and, a lot of times, miss out on great art that is available for sale -- art that WOULD SELL IF PUT UP ON THEIR SITES.

And that, in my opinion, would cause a lot of the 1990s art to come out of the woodwork and into our collections.

@Dealers

 

eBay / CLink certainly don't discriminate against 90s art

Edited April 17, 2017 by Solar

[Michael Browning]

On 4/17/2017 at 0:51 AM, DeadpoolJr. said:

I'm very curious by what characters from Marvel you found.

Elektra, Punisher, Daredevil, Captain America, Hulk, Ghost Rider and a few others.