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Does CGC grade and encapsulate Comic Art pages?
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Started by dtt255,

18 posts in this topic

dtt255

dtt255

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Just now, artdealer said:

It would be a sin against humanity to encapsulate comic book art. 

No self-respecting collector would do this.

Simply frame the art.

MI

Ah ok....I didn't know that.  So I guess grading is not something that is needed with it either. Ok.  thanks for the help!

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dtt255

dtt255

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Just now, AnkurJ said:

They grade movie posters so I’m sure they would art as well. But curious as to why you’d want to. For protection or authenticity reasons?

Both reasons.  Again....didn't know how the collecting world likes it for comic art, so I thought I would ask. 

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dtt255

dtt255

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Now I guess the question is this. How do I find out how much it may be worth now?  I remember what I paid for it back in 1985....but stored it away and haven't looked at it till today.  lol

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mister_not_so_nice

mister_not_so_nice

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3 minutes ago, dtt255 said:

Now I guess the question is this. How do I find out how much it may be worth now?  I remember what I paid for it back in 1985....but stored it away and haven't looked at it till today.  lol

Put it on eBay with a $9.99 opening bid or multiply the amount being offered via PM by 5 or 10

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TMNT

TMNT

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1 hour ago, pemart1966 said:

Why would you want the art to be graded?  It's a one of a kind item.  You're not comparing it to several hundred identical pages.

Comic art is what it is being one of a kind.  Grading would serve absolutely no purpose.

 

 

 

 

It sounds like he may want to sell. And we know in the comic world, the higher the grade the higher the realized price generally. For someone coming over brand new from slabs, I think it's a fair question. And considering all the threads here in the OA section talking doom and gloom for future generations, when someone does come expressing any interest in OA, even if its just to sell a piece, I think as a community we'd be better served treating them a bit more kindly (not speaking to you specifically just the general tone I've seen at times like this...)

In comics, there is concern about tanning, trimming, defects of any kind...for someone coming over to OA from that, I can see how that might be a concern when you see a page in hand. I mean, say you have a couple OA pages from the same book. Similar content on both. Once page has coffee stains, massive amounts of whiteout. The other is clean. All else being equal, most would take the clean, the "higher grade" if you will. And if you are brand new to OA, maybe you see a service like that validating what you are seeing is an actual, original piece of art and the condition. In truth, nowadays with quite a bit of art pencils here, inks there, blue lines here, digital there, acrylics, water colors, markers, prelim, un-used, paste over, twice up, etc. etc.... I can see where it could get rather confusing. As it stands, in order to get into OA (or any fine art market) you have to put in the work to know what you're looking at.

And it's that sheer volume of work that people must do I personally think is perhaps the single biggest barrier to entry outside of cost. People want it easy and fast in this day and age. You look at a slabbed booked, see a "9.8 WHITE 1st print Aug 1990 1st Gambit" and know exactly what you are looking at. With art...?

I don't want nor need my art slabbed. I've done the work. But that doesn't mean I don't think there's an opportunity, whether it's slabbing or not, towards making things a bit easier to understand.  

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Drewsky

Drewsky

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Cool page! No slab or grade needed, but you do need to take care of it. An 11x17 mylar with a backer board or a hard mylar shell is step one. Beware direct sunlight and do not store in a humid or dangerous place. I'm not an expert on spidery art, but I believe the content and artist are excellent so it would do well at auction. 

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timguerrero

timguerrero

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13 hours ago, TMNT said:

It sounds like he may want to sell. And we know in the comic world, the higher the grade the higher the realized price generally. For someone coming over brand new from slabs, I think it's a fair question. And considering all the threads here in the OA section talking doom and gloom for future generations, when someone does come expressing any interest in OA, even if its just to sell a piece, I think as a community we'd be better served treating them a bit more kindly (not speaking to you specifically just the general tone I've seen at times like this...)

In comics, there is concern about tanning, trimming, defects of any kind...for someone coming over to OA from that, I can see how that might be a concern when you see a page in hand. I mean, say you have a couple OA pages from the same book. Similar content on both. Once page has coffee stains, massive amounts of whiteout. The other is clean. All else being equal, most would take the clean, the "higher grade" if you will. And if you are brand new to OA, maybe you see a service like that validating what you are seeing is an actual, original piece of art and the condition. In truth, nowadays with quite a bit of art pencils here, inks there, blue lines here, digital there, acrylics, water colors, markers, prelim, un-used, paste over, twice up, etc. etc.... I can see where it could get rather confusing. As it stands, in order to get into OA (or any fine art market) you have to put in the work to know what you're looking at.

And it's that sheer volume of work that people must do I personally think is perhaps the single biggest barrier to entry outside of cost. People want it easy and fast in this day and age. You look at a slabbed booked, see a "9.8 WHITE 1st print Aug 1990 1st Gambit" and know exactly what you are looking at. With art...?

I don't want nor need my art slabbed. I've done the work. But that doesn't mean I don't think there's an opportunity, whether it's slabbing or not, towards making things a bit easier to understand.  

The OA world does not work like the slab world, you don't have a GPA or a GoCollect where you can look up pricing for one specific piece. Items are one of a kind and as you yourself express there is nothing easy when dealing with one of a kind items. What any and all OA collectors SHOULD do is study it as much as can be studied and due diligence is necessary in order to have a certain threshold understanding of it. Like all else things are worth what a person is willing to pay for it. Thinks like paying CAF's market data pricing can help figure out and give a ballpark figure what things COULD be worth.

When I started collecting art almost 10 years ago I made a lot of mistakes buying whatever I saw and not being specific in my collecting goals. What I personally did was read a lot, as much as I could. I got all the books I could find on OA. I even purchased a several editions of a price guide that was put out (which is in no way accurate). Not until this month did I join this OA forum to keep expanding my knowledge even further. I think nobody ever ceases to learn in this vast expanding world. To the original poster I wish you luck in this new endeavor you are taking on!

I think that slabbing would not be recommended for OA as off gassing could be an issue with the art. I myself don't expose any art to direct sunlight even with UV protection as I seek to preserve the art as much as it can be preserved but many others feel differently in regards to this issue.

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MAR1979

MAR1979

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On 8/11/2018 at 6:35 PM, dtt255 said:

I have an original page of comic art from Amazing Spiderman 230, page 8, drawn by John Romita Jr.  I want to get it graded and sealed up.  Does cgc do that? 

 

thanks!

IMG_4847-1.jpeg

 

 

Terrific page.  

 

On one of kind items my feeling is seriously why bother. It's not like there is a better one of the same piece.  As for the authentication angle, OK  I guess, but anyone who is not able determine if "real" on their own I feel is in the wrong hobby.  Apologies if my comment comes off as harsh but this hobby, unlike comics books, at current prices is no longer a place for greenhorns

Edited by MAR1979
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alxjhnsn

alxjhnsn

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On 8/11/2018 at 5:46 PM, dtt255 said:

Now I guess the question is this. How do I find out how much it may be worth now?  I remember what I paid for it back in 1985....but stored it away and haven't looked at it till today.  lol

One standard answer on how to determine the value of Original Art coming up. I put it in Spoiler tags so that those that have seen the answer do not have to suffer.

 

Spoiler

You might want to explore the following resources

  • The website Comic Art Tracker can help you find art and look at current asking prices for similar pieces.
  • The OA auction archive at Heritage Auctions – This archive presents the results from all of their OA auctions.. Once you sign-up and get an id, you can search for pieces by your artist and see what they have sold for.
  • The CAF Market Data - More auction results (more than 1,000,000) are available if you join the Comic Art Fans site, pay for Market Data access, and access eBay and other auction sites as well as Heritage.
  • The Comic Art Database. It contains transaction records entered by the owners of Comic OA.
  • Dealer sites. Dealers, generally, post their art with fixed prices though there are exceptions. There is a list of dealers on CGC OA board and the Dragonberry site has a list as well. The CAF site will search the inventories of several dealers for you. [Of course, Comic Art Tracker is better.]
  • Blouin Art Info which tracks sales at major art auctions. It can turn up some Comic OA as well. Look for the “Art Prices” item on the top right of the screen
  • Jerry Weist's Comic Art Price Guide - Heritage published a third edition of it. In my opinion, it's a good history book and might be useful for comparison work, but it was out of date a year before it was printed.
  • A topic  on the CGC OA boards, A-level panel page valuations by artist/run - thoughts/additions/changes?, holds a discussion that relates to your question. It provides some "generally agreed upon" ranges for popular runs by popular artists on popular characters.
  • The Biggest OA Prices thread tracked some of the largest sales in the OA space. While that particular thread has stopped; it's probably worth reading for the discussions. Meanwhile , the information is still being updated - just with a different mechanism.

New buyers and sellers often find that OA is too hard to price. I agree that it is difficult. However, I think that there is a valid reason. Each piece is unique. Uniqueness make art sales generally and OA specifically non-linear.

 

Examples of how piece can differ in ways that impact pricing include:

  • Content: Consecutive pages could and do sell for radically different amounts based on their content. 
  • Page Layout: In general, you might say:
    •  Covers > 1st Page Splash > Other Splash > 1/2 splash > panel page
    • However, that's not always true either. The right panel page can be much more compelling than a bland splash.
  • Penciler vs. character: There are "A-list" artists, but not all of their books/characters have the same value. Kirby FF pages generally go for more than JIM/Thor pages which go for more than Cap pages (2nd run) which go for more than ...
  • Pencilers/inkers combinations - Kirby/Sinnott FF pages rank above Kirby and anyone else on FF, but a Kirby/InkerX FF page might be more or less than a Kirby/Stone Thor page. Hard to tell.

Finally, you should join the comic book OA community. The three main points of Internet contact are:

The main points of physical contact are probably:

One last comment, if you are looking to buy or sell, spend the time to learn the market. That might take 6 months, but it's worth the time.

 

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