Keeping your collection private 4 4

[ESeffinga]

I see all kinds of methods. Grouped by cover, panel pages, ads, etc. Grouped by publisher. Grouped by title. Grouped by character, etc.

[Nexus]

2 hours ago, Marwai said:

Heritage would be smart enough not to put two similar covers back to back.  But the fresh to market one would get higher bids since the previous owners of the one that has passed hands would probably be out of the bidding unless they all had seller's remorse.

If both were of similar quality, then yes. But if the one that wasn't fresh to market was clearly the better piece, then it would still do better, despite the handicap. An A piece that isn't fresh to market should, by all rights, do better than a B piece that is. It's just that, in this case, the B piece will probably do better than it would have otherwise, while the A piece might not.

If it's art I'm interested in, I would LOVE it if a disproportionate amount of attention is paid to the "new" B piece. Let everyone else fight over the fresh piece...I'll take the stronger "stale" piece at a discount all day long. Over time, no one will remember which one was "fresher". But the better piece will still be better.

Edited September 10, 2018 by Nexus

[Nexus]

2 hours ago, delekkerste said:

While my goal was not to have a portion of my collection hidden to hold it over people...

This also reminds of a time when certain hobbyists made it a point to publicize how much of their collection WASN'T on CAF. The implication being that they only posted a few token pieces on CAF and should not be judged by the size/contents of their gallery; that they were major players, you just didn't know it. They promoted the mystery. Now, this is different from those who simply can't be bothered to share, or are resolutely underground. I'm talking about those who were active participants in the hobby, but who kept actual sharing to a minimum. All the while referencing their incredible hidden collections.

These days, we all pretty much know who the true players are. We know where almost all the major pieces end up. It's never with the wannabe-players. So thankfully, don't see as much of this anymore.

[The Voord]

2 hours ago, delekkerste said:

As some have mentioned before, not everything in one's collection is worth posting.  It may be redundant to better examples, or may not really be of interest to people to begin with.  I have come to believe that curation is a more admirable quality in a CAF gallery rather than a data dump of hundreds/thousands of entries. 

 

A 'Gene Park's Greatest Hits' CAF album?  

Personally, I like to post everything to keep an on-line visual inventory of what I have.  Helps me keep tabs on art . . . good, bad or ugly

[Marwai]

1 hour ago, Nexus said:

If both were of similar quality, then yes. But if the one that wasn't fresh to market was clearly the better piece, then it would still do better, despite the handicap. An A piece that isn't fresh to market should, by all rights, do better than a B piece that is. It's just that, in this case, the B piece will probably do better than it would have otherwise, while the A piece might not. 

If it's art I'm interested in, I would LOVE it if a disproportionate amount of attention is paid to the "new" B piece. Let everyone else fight over the fresh piece...I'll take the stronger "stale" piece at a discount all day long. Over time, no one will remember which one was "fresher". But the better piece will still be better.

We're talking about some high priced A type art, right?

The piece that has traded hands a few times probably has already reached it's max dollar potential for anyone buying high to resell higher.  You have to figure the well known BSDs were already approached with it privately or they already tried to get it/or even had it at some point while it was traded around.  There is already a price valuation attached to it.  So if they put it in auction, the bidding pool has been reduced to bidders who buy for the art that can still afford it or a dealer who see's a bargain and who's willing to sit on it for a while.  If the auction winner tries to resell / flip this piece, the prospects for getting more money for it, especially from the known BSDs who already turned it down or had it before are none.  They'd have to wait for the hobby to expand and new players come in to resell it.

If the piece is fresh to market, there is a comp from the other piece being shopped around, but no actual price valuation attached.  There is still the potential for the BSDs to go head to head in the auction.

Of course, this is all hypothetical since no one is buying art for resale.

What the question that should have been asked is: If there would be any difference in HA result when one piece that has not traded hands and shown on CAF for 20 years versus another similar piece that has also never traded hands but kept from the public eye for 20 years?

For A level stuff maybe not.  If it's from a well known collector in good standing, its pedigree could be a plus.  If it's from some one/entity with a shady reputation, you may think there was some undisclosed restoration/alteration going on there to spend A level prices.

 

Edited September 10, 2018 by Marwai

[Peter L]

1 hour ago, The Voord said:

A 'Gene Park's Greatest Hits' CAF album?  

Personally, I like to post everything to keep an on-line visual inventory of what I have.  Helps me keep tabs on art . . . good, bad or ugly

I deleted my comment because it was ridiculous.

Edited September 10, 2018 by Peter L
grammar

[Peter L]

1 hour ago, Nexus said:

If both were of similar quality, then yes. But if the one that wasn't fresh to market was clearly the better piece, then it would still do better, despite the handicap. An A piece that isn't fresh to market should, by all rights, do better than a B piece that is. It's just that, in this case, the B piece will probably do better than it would have otherwise, while the A piece might not.

If it's art I'm interested in, I would LOVE it if a disproportionate amount of attention is paid to the "new" B piece. Let everyone else fight over the fresh piece...I'll take the stronger "stale" piece at a discount all day long. Over time, no one will remember which one was "fresher". But the better piece will still be better.

 

31 minutes ago, Marwai said:

We're talking about some high priced A type art, right?

The piece that has traded hands a few times probably has already reached it's max dollar potential for anyone buying high to resell higher.  You have to figure the well known BSDs were already approached with it privately or they already tried to get it/or even had it at some point while it was traded around.  There is already a price valuation attached to it.  So if you put it in auction, your bidding pool has been reduced to bidders who buy for the art that can still afford it or a dealer who see's a bargain and who's willing to sit on it for a while.  If you try to resell / flip this piece, your prospects for getting more money for it, especially from the known BSDs who already turned it down or had it before are none.  You'd have to wait for the hobby to expand and new players come in to resell it.

If your piece is fresh to market, there is a comp from the other piece being shopped around, but no actual price valuation attached.  There is still the potential for the BSDs to go head to head in the auction.

Of course, this is all hypothetical since no one is buying art for resale.

What the question that should have been asked is: If there would be any difference in HA result when one piece that has not traded hands and shown on CAF for 20 years versus another similar piece that has also never traded hands but kept from the public eye for 20 years?

For A level stuff maybe not.  If it's from a well known collector in good standing, its pedigree could be a plus.  If it's from some one/entity with a shady reputation, you may think there was some undisclosed restoration/alteration going on there to spend A level prices.

 

Thanks for the thoughtful answers.  The example I gave with the Thor pieces on HA was all hypothetical but set up like an evidence based experiment.  I do value anecdotal experience from people I trust like MI, but I was searching for a better way to quantify this phenomena and to test its accuracy and contributing factors to the outcome.

I can understand if a seller is going to big collectors and asking a closed circle of buyers what they would pay.  I can see how this closed circle of collectors would not offer as much for a piece that they have seen before and could have perhaps bought in the past, and this same group would then offer more for a newly seen piece.  However if a good piece goes to auction with a world of buyers, I would think that there could be great competition for a nice piece despite it being seen previously.  There is one piece of art I am trying to track down and a dealer told me it was sold to someone in Asia and it will be almost impossible to find.

 

Edited September 10, 2018 by Peter L

[batman_fan]

4 hours ago, buttock said:

When are we going to fix this? 

Good question!  2019 may be a less crazy year for me. 

[delekkerste]

3 hours ago, The Voord said:

A 'Gene Park's Greatest Hits' CAF album?  

I have almost exactly 30% of my collection up on CAF.  It's enough for people to get a good sense of what my collecting is about, while still leaving much to the imagination. 

I enjoyed the pre-2014 days of having 98% of my collection up on CAF...as most of the time I spend on CAF is looking at art in my own gallery!   That said, I'm not enjoying it any less now, having only 30% up, and it gives me a reason to both look more at other peoples' art and to actually pull out the physical art I own to view it, rather than just looking at the images in my CAF gallery.  

[Will_K]

1 hour ago, delekkerste said:

having only 30% up

Does that mean the other 70% qualifies as a black hole collection ?

Out of curiosity... I understand the concept of a black hole collector... but how many are there ? 

Without going into values, how many BHCs have 100 pieces, 500 pieces, 1000 pieces, 2000 pieces ??

[MyNameIsLegion]

12 hours ago, Nexus said:

So why not do both? FB for the instant gratification, CAF to display/curate a collection? Too much work? Just curious. I AM absolutely biased, can't stand FB, so this is all very new/interesting to me.

well, speaking for myself- I do both- but it does double the work.  CAF is orders of magnitude better at organization, categorization, search and filtering than FB. FB is a garbage fire. BUT, it's like eating cotton candy, it's light and easy to consume.  I'm dubious how effective it is for selling- I'm not sure it's good for that, but for a spur of the moment topical post on say, Herb Trimpe's birthday, its got an advantage.  CAF could do all that, but would have to rethink some of the architecture of the site.   To me, some of the FB groups, Frank's in particular, are comicart-l 2.0, they have supplanted the dated yahoo group.  theres no question that FB is easier to post pictures, even easier than a message board. Instagram I don't see gaining too much traction- FB groups allow for some measure of privacy and separation if set up properly from a users non-hobby life. I don't want my posts about OA to show up in my mother-in-laws newsfeed. There's a great many groups I don't join or participate in for that reason. 

[NicoV]

I can understand the notion of fresh to market art as long as you sell / buy it privately. As Gene said, it can be a wild card for trading. But if you sell your "fresh-to-market" art on Heritage (or anywhere else), everybody will see it and will know for how much it sells. How could it still be considered as fresh to market by the new owner?!

[JadeGiant]

14 hours ago, delekkerste said:

I have almost exactly 30% of my collection up on CAF.  It's enough for people to get a good sense of what my collecting is about, while still leaving much to the imagination. 

I enjoyed the pre-2014 days of having 98% of my collection up on CAF...as most of the time I spend on CAF is looking at art in my own gallery!   That said, I'm not enjoying it any less now, having only 30% up, and it gives me a reason to both look more at other peoples' art and to actually pull out the physical art I own to view it, rather than just looking at the images in my CAF gallery.  

I think my number may be in the same (30%) range. Not by design, intention, or any other specific reason ... but I do believe it might be close.

[delekkerste]

13 hours ago, Will_K said:

Does that mean the other 70% qualifies as a black hole collection ?

Out of curiosity... I understand the concept of a black hole collector... but how many are there ? 

Without going into values, how many BHCs have 100 pieces, 500 pieces, 1000 pieces, 2000 pieces ??

I view a black hole collection to be one where art goes in, but doesn't come out (which used to be how my collection was, but, hasn't been for the past 5 or so years), as opposed to being a collection that is undetectable to the naked eye.  How do others define it?  The former?  The latter?  The former + the latter? 

[delekkerste]

7 hours ago, NicoV said:

I can understand the notion of fresh to market art as long as you sell / buy it privately. As Gene said, it can be a wild card for trading. But if you sell your "fresh-to-market" art on Heritage (or anywhere else), everybody will see it and will know for how much it sells. How could it still be considered as fresh to market by the new owner?!

The new owner can have the satisfaction of knowing that it "was" fresh to market when he bought it. 

[JadeGiant]

Just now, delekkerste said:

I view a black hole collection to be one where art goes in, but doesn't come out (which used to be how my collection was, but, hasn't been for the past 5 or so years), as opposed to being a collection that is undetectable to the naked eye.  How do others define it?  The former?  The latter?  The former + the latter? 

I think these are the 2 prevailing definitions that people loosely associate with the term. 

I have always thought of a black hole collection as one that is unknown to the hobby - I imagine Hulk 1 and other rare gems being in this category

More recently it seems that people are talking about collectors that buy and never sell as being a black hole. I would (to this point) qualify for this category 

Maybe we have 50 shades of black hole collectors

 

 

[delekkerste]

Just now, JadeGiant said:

I think these are the 2 prevailing definitions that people loosely associate with the term. 

I have always thought of a black hole collection as one that is unknown to the hobby - I imagine Hulk 1 and other rare gems being in this category

More recently it seems that people are talking about collectors that buy and never sell as being a black hole. I would (to this point) qualify for this category 

Maybe we have 50 shades of black hole collectors

So, an A-list black hole collector would be an A-hole collector, a B-list black hole collector would be a B-hole collector...  

[JadeGiant]

2 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

So, an A-list black hole collector would be an A-hole collector, a B-list black hole collector would be a B-hole collector...  

Indeed

How many A-holes do we estimate to be in this collector category?

[AnkurJ]

15 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

So, an A-list black hole collector would be an A-hole collector, a B-list black hole collector would be a B-hole collector...  

Which category would cool lines fall in? ?

[Marwai]

7 hours ago, NicoV said:

I can understand the notion of fresh to market art as long as you sell / buy it privately. As Gene said, it can be a wild card for trading. But if you sell your "fresh-to-market" art on Heritage (or anywhere else), everybody will see it and will know for how much it sells. How could it still be considered as fresh to market by the new owner?!

For the buyer, the fresh to market piece has not been in many different collections before.  Therefore the art has not been rejected for not being good enough to stay in a permanent collection. 

If the last owner kept it for 20 years, you won't get another chance at this piece for maybe another 20 years at 2038 prices. 

While the often traded piece could be had for a known price at any time.  People tend to think that if a piece is not good enough for so and so to keep in their permanent collection, why should I buy it for more at auction?