(attempted) Flip of the Day! 12 12

[Rick2you2]

6 hours ago, vodou said:

Aw man, busted (again!) on bad math. Okay I give up, hanging up my spurs

$1,000...that's a sweet 15% discount...why isn't anybody jumping all over that? It's 1987 after all...paging RS88, haven't you heard Jusko is the *new* Jim Lee (but cheaper!!)

Or, as my youngest used to say: yea, and copper is the new gold.

[NC101]

On 2/11/2020 at 5:42 PM, romitaman said:

Just for the record......

I did NOT buy this Curt Swan Superman splash where Superman is getting punched out by Clark Kent, on EBAY......

I got it from a collector privately at double what it sold for on Ebay...But HEY... Thanks for letting me know where it came from....

AND PLEASE......EVERYONE.... keep checking out my website and find your flip of the day and keep posting it..I love this and its quite informative!

ROMITAMAN (dot com)  

I think one thing people may be reacting to, I know I am, is your apparently flippant attitude (and you may not intend it that way, I just know that that's how it comes across to me). I think you're right that you, along with anybody else, have the right to flip. It's perfectly legal and plenty of people do it. You've also very rightly pointed out that you wouldn't be able to flip without people on the other end who are willing to buy. The thing is, that activity, like all activity, doesn't occur in a vacuum. It does have consequences, much as you may or may not like it to. 

If there is a bubble and it bursts, flipping will have played a significant role in that. While that may be fine and well for those who have been profiting off the bubble all along, it's going to leave a lot of collectors with very devalued collections. I personally don't care if people who create a bubble then lose by it, and I'll be happy to buy work off them at much lower prices if the opportunity arises, but I don't think that that's the majority of collectors (maybe I'm wrong). If there is a bubble, and especially if there is a recession in the next couple of years which it looks more and more as though there might be, then when that bubble bursts I imagine there will be plenty of people who are still paying off work that they suddenly can't afford. I imagine there will be plenty of people who suddenly need to sell work they've bought, losing quite a bit of money on the transaction that they may not be able to afford to lose. And all the other problems that come along with a sudden devaluation of your assets.

Like I said, you've rightly pointed out that in any transaction it takes two to tango. But if there is a crash at some point (which I personally think there will be), you won't be able to rightly claim you don't bear any responsibility for that. Not just from flipping in itself, but also from encouraging a climate that makes it seem harmless. Like it or not, your actions have consequences, which I'm sure you know but it still bears repeating.

All that being said, I don't get the impression that this thread is intended to shame, just to cast humorous glances at what might seem like increasingly ludicrous activity.

Edited February 13, 2020 by NC101

[RBerman]

Obviously a bubble results when people buy a collectible only to resell, with no intention of owning for its own sake. How much is that happening? If 50% of the art being traded back and forth is just financial speculation (as evidenced by quick resale), then a collapse is certain. If it's only 10%, then the market is healthy and stable. So, what percent of pieces are resold within six months? twelve? twenty four? That's how we gauge whether the increasing prices are really just more (and more well-heeled) collectors entering the fray.

[NC101]

1 hour ago, RBerman said:

Obviously a bubble results when people buy a collectible only to resell, with no intention of owning for its own sake. How much is that happening? If 50% of the art being traded back and forth is just financial speculation (as evidenced by quick resale), then a collapse is certain. If it's only 10%, then the market is healthy and stable. So, what percent of pieces are resold within six months? twelve? twenty four? That's how we gauge whether the increasing prices are really just more (and more well-heeled) collectors entering the fray.

That's a good point, and if that can be measured it would be very interesting to see. There are indicators of a bubble that we can look at for reference - irrational pricing (i.e. Kirby has been fetching high prices for a long time, it makes sense that his work would be priced high because it has a recorded history of steadily increasing price; johnny new kid the hot young talent fetching prices that don't reflect a solid market history doesn't make sense), "gold fever" atmosphere, a large influx of speculators, quick and large increases in price without any accompanying increase in utility, press coverage of suddenly rising prices, an increase in talk about "the next big thing" with accompanying high prices. None of these in and of themselves is definitive, but they're red flags.

I just want to mention that I don't have any wish for there to be a bubble and especially a crash, and my budget isn't big enough for me to seriously benefit from one anyway, but I do think it's prudent to try to be realistic about possible scenarios. And I may very well be wrong, I can't see the future any better than anyone else. My intention wasn't to start a discussion on the possibility of a bubble, just to point out to Romitaman something he may not be seeing about why people react to flipping, and in particular his posts, the way they do.

Edited February 13, 2020 by NC101

[RBerman]

 

31 minutes ago, NC101 said:

That's a good point, and if that can be measured it would be very interesting to see. There are indicators of a bubble that we can look at for reference - irrational pricing (i.e. Kirby has been fetching high prices for a long time, it makes sense that his work would be priced high because it has a recorded history of steadily increasing price; johnny new kid the hot young talent fetching prices that don't reflect a solid market history doesn't make sense), "gold fever" atmosphere, a larger-than-normal influx of new collectors, quick and large increases in price without any accompanying increase in utility, press coverage of suddenly rising prices, an increase in talk about "the next big thing" with accompanying high prices. None of these in and of themselves is definitive, but they're red flags.

A larger than normal influx of new collectors means a stable, long-term increase in prices. A larger than normal influx of flippers indicates "gold fever." Discerning between the two can be challenging, but "percent resold quickly" seems like as good a metric as any to capture the concerning behavior. And, as you mentioned, the proliferation of shills. Joe Brancatelli described turning down an offer to become a comic book collectibles shill back in a late 1970s column that ran in Vampirella.

 

[NC101]

8 minutes ago, RBerman said:

 

A larger than normal influx of new collectors means a stable, long-term increase in prices. A larger than normal influx of flippers indicates "gold fever." Discerning between the two can be challenging, but "percent resold quickly" seems like as good a metric as any to capture the concerning behavior. And, as you mentioned, the proliferation of shills. Joe Brancatelli described turning down an offer to become a comic book collectibles shill back in a late 1970s column that ran in Vampirella.

 

Woww that's wild, thanks for posting that - a good illustration of the mentality that can poison a fun hobby like collecting. You're right I misspoke, an influx of flippers/speculators not collectors. 

[RBerman]

By the way, this is the same dynamic that seems to have struck the Wrightson Frankentstein print that Frank Darabont made available. All the copies were instantly bought by speculators, and now they'll be sold in the coming years at far higher prices.  The scalpers won. The only way to avoid this would be to make the print run so large as to kill the collectibility value for a long time to come, and no seller would want to be saddled with that inventory problem.

[Rick2you2]

8 hours ago, NC101 said:

That's a good point, and if that can be measured it would be very interesting to see. There are indicators of a bubble that we can look at for reference - irrational pricing (i.e. Kirby has been fetching high prices for a long time, it makes sense that his work would be priced high because it has a recorded history of steadily increasing price; johnny new kid the hot young talent fetching prices that don't reflect a solid market history doesn't make sense), "gold fever" atmosphere, a large influx of speculators, quick and large increases in price without any accompanying increase in utility, press coverage of suddenly rising prices, an increase in talk about "the next big thing" with accompanying high prices. None of these in and of themselves is definitive, but they're red flags.

I just want to mention that I don't have any wish for there to be a bubble and especially a crash, and my budget isn't big enough for me to seriously benefit from one anyway, but I do think it's prudent to try to be realistic about possible scenarios. And I may very well be wrong, I can't see the future any better than anyone else. My intention wasn't to start a discussion on the possibility of a bubble, just to point out to Romitaman something he may not be seeing about why people react to flipping, and in particular his posts, the way they do.

This is a subject which comes up quite a bit here, also known as Tulipmania, and I have been in that mix for quite some time as well as have other people, like Gene. My current take on the subject is that some prices are already at their max, and have started to either drop or not sell for years. I was tracking one for 8 years before it looks like it sold (at an unknown price). I think that it would make more sense to view the hobby as a series of bubbles or potential bubbles instead of a unified big bubble. A lot of pricing is based on nostalgia. So, the pieces from issues that are old are more likely to be at the top of their range (with exceptions, of course) because the people who read them stop buying and start selling. So, if a comic came out when you were younger, and if you are in your prime art buying age, that one should still have legs. I also think that over time, a lot of the prices will sink. I would never buy this stuff as an investment because for every one that works, at least ten won’t.

Let me add that I think a lot of the art out there in the last 20 years (if not more) is at a higher level of quality than older art. Part of it is that comic artists have more freedom than they used to have to produce more visually interesting pieces, and also, the pay plus royalties is better so more quality artists are attracted to it (and with movies and tv, it is no longer viewed as quite the underbelly of publishing that it used to be). Some of the pricing, in my view, is out of whack for certain names, but for pure skill and style, a lot of it is undervalued.

[RBerman]

3 hours ago, Rick2you2 said:

This is a subject which comes up quite a bit here, also known as Tulipmania, and I have been in that mix for quite some time as well as have other people, like Gene. My current take on the subject is that some prices are already at their max, and have started to either drop or not sell for years. I was tracking one for 8 years before it looks like it sold (at an unknown price). I think that it would make more sense to view the hobby as a series of bubbles or potential bubbles instead of a unified big bubble. A lot of pricing is based on nostalgia. So, the pieces from issues that are old are more likely to be at the top of their range (with exceptions, of course) because the people who read them stop buying and start selling. So, if a comic came out when you were younger, and if you are in your prime art buying age, that one should still have legs. I also think that over time, a lot of the prices will sink. I would never buy this stuff as an investment because for every one that works, at least ten won’t.

Let me add that I think a lot of the art out there in the last 20 years (if not more) is at a higher level of quality than older art. Part of it is that comic artists have more freedom than they used to have to produce more visually interesting pieces, and also, the pay plus royalties is better so more quality artists are attracted to it (and with movies and tv, it is no longer viewed as quite the underbelly of publishing that it used to be). Some of the pricing, in my view, is out of whack for certain names, but for pure skill and style, a lot of it is undervalued.

Recent art is better on a technical level, in part because it makes more sense to do detailed art when it's going to be printed on high quality paper.

However, the pool of readers is a teensy fragment of what it used to be, so the pool of nostalgia buyers is correspondingly small. In the case of buying the complete comic, that's balanced out by correspondingly small print runs. But there's not less new original art per month; indeed, there seems to be more.

[vodou]

11 hours ago, RBerman said:

By the way, this is the same dynamic that seems to have struck the Wrightson Frankentstein print that Frank Darabont made available. All the copies were instantly bought by speculators, and now they'll be sold in the coming years at far higher prices.  The scalpers won. The only way to avoid this would be to make the print run so large as to kill the collectibility value for a long time to come, and no seller would want to be saddled with that inventory problem.

In the print world, an area I make my daily bread, the debate among amateurs (fans and flippers) ranges over exactly this dynamic (print runs) and whether a given product (that's what it is) is intended for tru-fans or flippers. Any offer with a smaller print run (in the mid to low hundreds) and lower price( $75 or less) is being marketed to speculators. That's obvious. The other end of the spectrum is: open-ended or timed (print to order) runs at lower price points, clearly this offering is aimed at non-speculators. Most offers fall in between somewhere, placing more risk on the speculator and letting the collector know they'll need to pay more but there is a chance of the thing eventually going up in value, if the artist and image are "good" and the body of collectors increases over time (demand eventually outstripping supply).

If Nakatomi really wanted to market to collectors the Wrightson Frankenstein wraparound print would have been offered at a lower price (high enough to put money in everybody's hands but still put a print in almost anybody's hands that would want one) and open-ended or a rich timed window (several days at least) That formula would have been a red light signal to speculators to stay away, zero flip potential (in the short* term at least). Instead they went the traditional route of "fast sellout" by pricing mid-range and limited edition, pushing to risk of overrun and unsold inventory out to the market. Your standard cash grab. Color me: unimpressed. And something is going to Liz Wrightson, right, but Nakatomi conveniently did not disclose "how much", so you can expect the amount is not notable. Your standard cash grab. Color me: unimpressed.

 

*I successfully (250-500% roi in 5 years or less) flip the bejeezus out of open and timed prints runs all the time; you just have to have patience for the market to fully absorb the initial offering first, allow some time for a drought of product to occur while new interest builds and then set your price, that's all. Most flippers aren't even second cousins of 'patience' though as they're underfunded, use leverage (credit cards) to speculate and have to make that nut every month to keep the top spinning. Amateurs

[cloud cloddie]

Sold on eBay last week

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Art-for-X-Men-238-page-18-Artist-Silvestri-/223885933629?hash=item3420a43c3d%3Ag%3AerkAAOSw7wZeMipB&nma=true&si=mgVy%2B9K%2Fl81Yg43m4v2pGNh%2BDS8%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Now available at probably 3-5x markup...

https://www.comicartfans.com/ForSaleDetails.asp?ArtId=4219833

[zhamlau]

3 hours ago, cloud cloddie said:

Sold on eBay last week

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Art-for-X-Men-238-page-18-Artist-Silvestri-/223885933629?hash=item3420a43c3d%3Ag%3AerkAAOSw7wZeMipB&nma=true&si=mgVy%2B9K%2Fl81Yg43m4v2pGNh%2BDS8%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Now available at probably 3-5x markup...

https://www.comicartfans.com/ForSaleDetails.asp?ArtId=4219833

Side note, anyone else bid on that Silvestri X-men page that ended today on ebay? That price seemed high but the more I looked at it...I think it was actually a pretty nice pick up. Just so much going on with it, real prime example.

[Michael Browning]

On 2/12/2020 at 7:14 PM, NC101 said:

I think one thing people may be reacting to, I know I am, is your apparently flippant attitude (and you may not intend it that way, I just know that that's how it comes across to me). I think you're right that you, along with anybody else, have the right to flip. It's perfectly legal and plenty of people do it. You've also very rightly pointed out that you wouldn't be able to flip without people on the other end who are willing to buy. The thing is, that activity, like all activity, doesn't occur in a vacuum. It does have consequences, much as you may or may not like it to. 

If there is a bubble and it bursts, flipping will have played a significant role in that. While that may be fine and well for those who have been profiting off the bubble all along, it's going to leave a lot of collectors with very devalued collections. I personally don't care if people who create a bubble then lose by it, and I'll be happy to buy work off them at much lower prices if the opportunity arises, but I don't think that that's the majority of collectors (maybe I'm wrong). If there is a bubble, and especially if there is a recession in the next couple of years which it looks more and more as though there might be, then when that bubble bursts I imagine there will be plenty of people who are still paying off work that they suddenly can't afford. I imagine there will be plenty of people who suddenly need to sell work they've bought, losing quite a bit of money on the transaction that they may not be able to afford to lose. And all the other problems that come along with a sudden devaluation of your assets.

Like I said, you've rightly pointed out that in any transaction it takes two to tango. But if there is a crash at some point (which I personally think there will be), you won't be able to rightly claim you don't bear any responsibility for that. Not just from flipping in itself, but also from encouraging a climate that makes it seem harmless. Like it or not, your actions have consequences, which I'm sure you know but it still bears repeating.

All that being said, I don't get the impression that this thread is intended to shame, just to cast humorous glances at what might seem like increasingly ludicrous activity.

What you don't seem to understand is that Mike Burkey is a dealer. He flips to make money. He's not buying from people and telling them he's going to keep that piece until the day he dies; he buys with the expressed intent to sell.

Mike isn't going to trade dollar for dollar, meaning he isn't going to buy a piece of art just to sell it for the same amount he paid.

[RBerman]

I don't expect a dealer to sell without marking up.

From the collector/buyer's perspective, a dealer's presence at an auction is a downside since it increases competition for buying and reduces the likelihood of picking up a bargain. But from the seller's perspective, the presence of the dealer is a benefit, ensuring that sale prices are closer to the top of what collectors would pay for them -- and perhaps over.

[Matches_Malone]

6 hours ago, vodou said:

Even though he keeps telling us that's exactly what he's doing? (PS -we all know that's BS.) I don't need to quote him here, ya'll can just go back through the last five pages and read for yourselves

I'm curious... Did Mike Burkey steal your car and killed your dog?  Because  you are constantly after him.

[AnkurJ]

31 minutes ago, Matches_Malone said:

I'm curious... Did Mike Burkey steal your car and killed your dog?  Because  you are constantly after him.

If the shill thread was still here you would agree that the games played in the hobby by said person are worse than stealing a car.

[vodou]

15 minutes ago, AnkurJ said:

If the shill thread was still here you would agree that the games played in the hobby by said person are worse than stealing a car.

Yeah funny thing, Mike told us seven ways from Sunday that there was nothing wrong with what he and his friends did, even though he never gave us a list of lots shilled on...but anyway, still the entire thread was blown away. Too funny. Hey if you can't find it in the archives...must not have happened...right?

[Unstoppablejayd]

21 hours ago, zhamlau said:

Side note, anyone else bid on that Silvestri X-men page that ended today on ebay? That price seemed high but the more I looked at it...I think it was actually a pretty nice pick up. Just so much going on with it, real prime example.

I did.. fantastic page.. but can not believe it went for that much.

[Matches_Malone]

6 hours ago, AnkurJ said:

If the shill thread was still here you would agree that the games played in the hobby by said person are worse than stealing a car.

I'm quite aware of the shill practice.  He openly said it. here.   After said incident It's your personal choice if want to  continue to buy/sell/trade with him or not. Once the choice is made, just move on. 

At the end of the day he is a dealer. I personally continue to buy/ trade from him regardless of the admitted shilling. 

 

[AnkurJ]

7 hours ago, Matches_Malone said:

I'm quite aware of the shill practice.  He openly said it. here.   After said incident It's your personal choice if want to  continue to buy/sell/trade with him or not. Once the choice is made, just move on. 

At the end of the day he is a dealer. I personally continue to buy/ trade from him regardless of the admitted shilling. 

 

We have all moved on including major auction houses who have looked the other way. The effect this can have on the hobby is significant, and I as well as many others can’t ignore what was done.