Heritage Summer Auction 1 1

[Dick O.]

3 minutes ago, comix4fun said:

He's got a private patreon channel. People pay big bucks for his auction recaps, and he uses all kinds of special effects and power point. It's fancy. 

 

 

[tth2]

2 hours ago, delekkerste said:

- Is that the cheapest Alex Raymond Flash Gordon Sunday out there ($11,352.50)?  I know it's atypical subject matter/setting, and is past the more desirable mid-to-late '30s strips, but, dang...that is cheap

that piece went for a little bit cheaper than comparable 1940s flash pieces from raymond, but the reality is that prices for his work drops off a lot as you get into the late 1930s and particularly into 1940 as he changed his style from the iconically lush work of the mid-1930s to the very commercial bland style that typifies his late flash and rip kirby work.  it’s like he was this genius that somehow morphed into john buscema.

but overall, comic strip oa prices were very strong in this auction. no signs here of your long-awaited liquidity bubble bursting

 

[Skizz]

This was my first time watching a Heritage auction. In fact, I accidentally bid thousand of dollars, money I didn't have to spare, on a page I didn't want. Thankfully I was outbid.

That hiccup aside, it was an very educational experience. And heartening too.

Heartening because my only experience with higher end art prices so far are those of dealer websites or EBay BIN/high start prices (usually from coollines listing). So the auction results actually seemed reasonable in comparison. The first Alan Moore penned Swamp Thing for less than $2500, a pretty good Jack Kirby for just over £1,500. Hell even a Watchmen page for £10,000.

i am nowhere near ready to throw that kind of money at art. But watching this auction in real time and learning how Heritage works went a long way to convincing me that stuff I wanted was gettable. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow - but one day 

[Matches_Malone]

Quick thoughts.

Is it me, or did the Neal Adams pages underperform ?

I was expecting a higher price for James Jean Fables Cover

Still can get over a Preacher SOK page  selling just shy of $9K.

[NinjaSealed]

14 hours ago, malvin said:

So I was surprised at the Murry Batman/Judge Dredd cover even before the live auction.

It's pretty but is Jim Murray some sort of popular artist that I happen to be not aware of?

Malvin

This is my WTF result of the auction so far. I would really like to know what I am missing.

 

I thought the Batman Hush Page went really strong, it's pretty  as far as Hush Batman pages are concerned.

I thought the Huntress/Catwoman one went cheap, I was expecting almost double. Guess nice girl art doesn't always sell!

At first I wasn't even paying attention to the Swamp Thing #20 page because it was Day/Totleben, but in hindsight it looks like a very fair price.

 

 

[chromium]

9 hours ago, comix4fun said:

He's got a private patreon channel. People pay big bucks for his auction recaps, and he uses all kinds of special effects and power point. It's fancy. 

 

Oooh Power Points, I'm sold

[John Bamber 1973]

15 hours ago, comix4fun said:

$3585 for JRJR X-men (first run) page...a public auction record, by a LARGE margin, and Wolverine is nowhere on the page. 

Holy Cow!

I sold a page from issue 191 through Comiclink 2 years ago from $3000.  Not too far off and I've thought that JRJR 1st run was beginning to get up there.

[suspense39]

11 hours ago, tth2 said:

that piece went for a little bit cheaper than comparable 1940s flash pieces from raymond, but the reality is that prices for his work drops off a lot as you get into the late 1930s and particularly into 1940 as he changed his style from the iconically lush work of the mid-1930s to the very commercial bland style that typifies his late flash and rip kirby work.  it’s like he was this genius that somehow morphed into john buscema.

but overall, comic strip oa prices were very strong in this auction. no signs here of your long-awaited liquidity bubble bursting

 

"it’s like he was this genius that somehow morphed into john buscema."

funny!

[comix4fun]

2 hours ago, John Bamber 1973 said:

I sold a page from issue 191 through Comiclink 2 years ago from $3000.  Not too far off and I've thought that JRJR 1st run was beginning to get up there.

Where there more characters, or Wolverine on it? That's been the dividing line as far as I can tell. Also Clink recently sold two pages from this same issue for just over $1k each. 

I actually bid on all the pages, and the cover, from 191 when you sold them. I think it was over three auctions (if those were all yours) through Clink. They almost all went between $700 and $1300 with one going for $1800 and another going for $2988 as you mentioned. I just don't remember what was on the $2988 page to make it go so much more than the rest. 

Edit: Nevermind. Found it. It was the page that mirrors the cover. It's Colossus and Vision squaring off and the other Avengers battling the X-men with the Calisto joining in. I remember people discussing the sale at the time now that I've seen the image. That's a pretty big outlier sale with someone willing to more than double up on the average of what all the other pages were selling for to get it. Normally you'd need Wolverine slicing people up to ratchet the price, or it had to be a page from 183. 

 

But I am not complaining at all. Glad I kept as many panel pages as I did.  Good news all around.

Edited August 12, 2017 by comix4fun

[comix4fun]

7 hours ago, Matches_Malone said:

Quick thoughts.

Is it me, or did the Neal Adams pages underperform ?

 

I had the two GL 85 pages pegged to go slightly higher, maybe 20% more. I think the Strange Adventures #216 Title page was a nice buy too, by probably the same margin 15-20%.

[Bronty]

1 hour ago, suspense39 said:

"it’s like he was this genius that somehow morphed into john buscema."

funny!

Yeah, that was a good line

[delekkerste]

15 hours ago, stinkininkin said:

Don't know if this seems like a silly question, but would the price of the gorgeous DD 181 page have been different if Matt was simply wearing his mask in all those shots?  On second thought, not a silly question.  Yeah, it made a difference and punished the final price.  Same with the DD 166 page (how weird is it to have two such similar training pages with multiple figure motion sequences in the same auction?).  And speaking of Miller, that Ronin page at just north of 17k was a really big number.  Gorgeous page, but I believe that page has bounced around a bit.  Nice to see Ronin getting some love.  Spectacular material and somewhat under appreciated and (until today) under valued.

Scott

Yeah, the lack of mask affected the final price on both - add a mask and I could see the #181 page going for ~20% more.  Meaningful, but not as big a deal as if he hadn't been in costume at all. 

 

13 hours ago, comix4fun said:

He's got a private patreon channel. People pay big bucks for his auction recaps, and he uses all kinds of special effects and power point. It's fancy. 

 

Yeah, I use the freemium model.  The free stuff is what you get above; otherwise you have to pay the big bucks for the in-depth subscription-only research.  

As for X-Men #94 pages, I just think the one HA had in 2014 just had more visual punch to it (plus Wolvie and Nightcrawler) than the one they had in this auction.  The last few panels of the page that just sold are quite memorable, though.  But, for me, having more of the new X-Men is more important to have on an X94 page vs. the key moment where the old XM decide to leave.  Plus, Sunfire's sayonara on the 2014 page is quite awesome too! 

 

13 hours ago, tth2 said:

but overall, comic strip oa prices were very strong in this auction. no signs here of your long-awaited liquidity bubble bursting

You won't see me calling for a top in the OA market when the stock market, Bitcoin, housing prices, etc. are at/near record highs.  We will need to see some evidence of weakening in the overall macro environment before we're likely to spy any meaningful weakness in the OA market.    

[MyNameIsLegion]

3 hours ago, suspense39 said:

"it’s like he was this genius that somehow morphed into john buscema."

funny!

ouch! @Brian Peck is not going to find that funny!

[Michael (OML)1]

17 hours ago, DJRome said:

I bought the What If #5 and I'd debate that it would have sold for decent money four years ago. Those early WI issues always carried some premium. I know Doc Joe scooped up the #2 a few years back, but he paid a lot more than 3k for it. The #1 is still available from Bechara, but I don't see that going cheaply (65k the last time I checked), now or back in the day. And it's not even Hoberg; it's Kida!

If you could have gotten one of those first 10 covers (or so) a few years back, it would have been tough to land it for under 5k. I didn't enjoy bidding that high, but I have no regrets. A friend recently said that "context is king" and I think the What If #5 is a great example of that. Would that be considered the "Hoberg Defense"?

 

I was the underbidder on the What If -- I wanted it because there are no covers with Cap and Bucky fighting Zemo and Skull and I always loved it.  I dropped out as I needed the $$ for some other pieces which I did win. 

 

[comix4fun]

3 hours ago, delekkerste said:

 

As for X-Men #94 pages, I just think the one HA had in 2014 just had more visual punch to it (plus Wolvie and Nightcrawler) than the one they had in this auction.  The last few panels of the page that just sold are quite memorable, though.  But, for me, having more of the new X-Men is more important to have on an X94 page vs. the key moment where the old XM decide to leave.  Plus, Sunfire's sayonara on the 2014 page is quite awesome too! 

 

 

I like your other reasons....but the "wolvie's on it" wouldn't make me pay more in this instance....when this is all it is.  

 

[delekkerste]

2 hours ago, comix4fun said:

I like your other reasons....but the "wolvie's on it" wouldn't make me pay more in this instance....when this is all it is.  

Yeah, but without Wolverine on your X-Men #94 page, you might as well be owning a page from X-Men #93.  

[vodou]

Something special about that MK 23 page to justify $3800?

[delekkerste]

53 minutes ago, vodou said:

Something special about that MK 23 page to justify $3800?

It's a really well-drawn page from the part of the run where his art was really starting to get very good.  Content-wise, it's part of one of the more memorable storylines in the run, but, nothing to really justify a price like this.  Guess two people just really liked it.

[DeadpoolJr.]

25 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

It's a really well-drawn page from the part of the run where his art was really starting to get very good.  Content-wise, it's part of one of the more memorable storylines in the run, but, nothing to really justify a price like this.  Guess two people just really liked it.

The consignor must be happy for sure.

[comix4fun]

1 hour ago, vodou said:

Something special about that MK 23 page to justify $3800?

 

22 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

It's a really well-drawn page from the part of the run where his art was really starting to get very good.  Content-wise, it's part of one of the more memorable storylines in the run, but, nothing to really justify a price like this.  Guess two people just really liked it.

I think I figured it out......

Here's the page:

 

 

Now lets look a little closer at that middle panel:

 

yep...I knew it.