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November HA OA auction
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493 posts in this topic

On 10/23/2018 at 6:15 AM, jjonahjameson11 said:

Well, you can always check out HA's completed auctions to see that this cover sold in Feb 2016 for $2.6K.  The splash from that issue also sold in Feb 2016 for $1,075

Thanks, I hadn't noticed that.  I'll take the over on that, but it still seems reasonable for such a cool cover.  Lots of art out there!  Good reminder about doing research, much appreciated.

David

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1 hour ago, tth2 said:

Based on the bidding thus far, with 15 days to go still, I would say that the new sales tax and the current stock market downturn are having ZERO impact on OA prices.

For Platinum nite?  Yup, agreed!

for Fri and Sat Auctions, it’s more of a mixed bag with lots of stuff still very, very cheap.

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3 hours ago, tth2 said:

Based on the bidding thus far, with 15 days to go still, I would say that the new sales tax and the current stock market downturn are having ZERO impact on OA prices.

The early bidding has been spirited, but, given that less than 10% of lots have hit the lower end of FMV, that's about all you can say at this point.  I'm sure people are still thrill-bidding and marker bidding with little risk of consequences at this point.  

That said, nobody pays attention to the short-term gyrations of the stock market when it comes to art & collectibles markets.  Remember in the last cycle that the S&P 500 topped in October 2007 and the OA market was not just sizzling, but, absolutely molten through the summer of 2008, while Damien Hirst's solo sale in September 2008 marked the top of the fine art market for the next several years (most of those Hirst's are still underwater, LOL).  

In other words, it will take at least 9-12 months of stocks being in a downtrend before it's likely to alter anyone's bidding behavior.*

 

 

 

*Also, given how high OA prices are now vs. 2000 or 2007, for anyone who thinks that OA prices have not become more "financialized" and more sensitive to gyrations in other asset prices (thinking that OA prices will either not be affected by the next bear market in stocks and/or real estate or, even worse, thinking that they will act in a counter-trend manner and actually go up in price), I've got several bridges in the NYC area to sell you. 

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10 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

 

*Also, given how high OA prices are now vs. 2000 or 2007, for anyone who thinks that OA prices have not become more "financialized" and more sensitive to gyrations in other asset prices (thinking that OA prices will either not be affected by the next bear market in stocks and/or real estate or, even worse, thinking that they will act in a counter-trend manner and actually go up in price), I've got several bridges in the NYC area to sell you. 

Totally agree, the recent downturn won't impact art sales at this point. 

However, it's caused enough angst among the casual investor/observer that it's caused a huge spike in the "malt liquor/bottom shelf vodka/scratch off lotto ticket" market. Man, I wish I had spent my time and money learning about and investing in those markets. 

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See, I always thought about it the other way. When traditional market investments are tanking people would look to non-traditional market-less investments as a safe haven. No matter the rises and falls of stock markets, the comic art field is unaffected traditionally. If you are getting your teeth kicked in with stocks why not park some money into something beautiful you can enjoy having around while it appreciates?

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12 minutes ago, zhamlau said:

See, I always thought about it the other way. When traditional market investments are tanking people would look to non-traditional market-less investments as a safe haven. No matter the rises and falls of stock markets, the comic art field is unaffected traditionally. If you are getting your teeth kicked in with stocks why not park some money into something beautiful you can enjoy having around while it appreciates?

All I know is how well every "Can't Miss Opportunity" for investment works out in the long run.

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30 minutes ago, zhamlau said:

See, I always thought about it the other way. When traditional market investments are tanking people would look to non-traditional market-less investments as a safe haven. No matter the rises and falls of stock markets, the comic art field is unaffected traditionally. If you are getting your teeth kicked in with stocks why not park some money into something beautiful you can enjoy having around while it appreciates?

That's how I've looked at it too. It would take quite a downturn over a longer period of time for people to stop buying artwork or lose enough to have it impact the market materially. Short term stagnation or downturn usually spikes the influx of cash. 

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6 hours ago, zhamlau said:

See, I always thought about it the other way. When traditional market investments are tanking people would look to non-traditional market-less investments as a safe haven. No matter the rises and falls of stock markets, the comic art field is unaffected traditionally. If you are getting your teeth kicked in with stocks why not park some money into something beautiful you can enjoy having around while it appreciates?

No matter the rises and falls of stock markets, the comic art field is unaffected traditionally.  If you are getting your teeth kicked in with stocks why not park some money into something beautiful you can enjoy having around while it appreciates?

First, I don't believe this is true, at least not anymore. Maybe it was true back in the '80s through early '00s, when secular factors may have swamped cyclical considerations because prices relative to...well, relative to anything, were so damn low (even if they didn't feel cheap at the time).  I mean, I can believe that, at pennies on today's dollar, comic and OA prices' sensitivity to external factors was quite low back then. 

But, fast forward to the last downturn, when prices had soared to 10-15x prices from 15-20 years previous, and ask yourself if comic art soared to new heights from September 2008 to March 2009 when financial markets were in freefall.  If the dynamic really was that people park some money into aesthetically-pleasing tangible assets believed to be counter-cyclical, wouldn't we have seen comics soar during this time (not just remain stable)?  Comic art prices?  Fine art prices?  Beautiful luxury home prices?  Classic car prices?  

Emphatically, the answer was no.  We can look at the established indexes and see that luxury home prices, fine art prices and classic car prices all fell off a cliff during this period (because, at their respective price points, they could not help but be affected by all the destruction of wealth).  Comic and OA prices - at best you can say that the market froze up/slowed down and that there weren't many fire sales, so it gave the appearance of stability.  But, no one can seriously argue that you could have sold your comic art for more in March 2009 than July 2008 at the height of the SDCC frenzy that year.  Even if there weren't a lot of fire sales during this time (though, I got some of the best deals I've ever gotten in comic art in early 2009 - mostly private deals - so, to say that there weren't bargains to be had is just not true either), I will argue that value was impaired during this time. And, if the downturn had lasted more than just the six months that it did before the most powerful reflation of all-time kicked in, surely we would have seen more of that impairment manifest itself. 

But, in any case, that was 10 years ago.  Now, OA prices are often multiples higher than then.  A good Ditko ASM page was only $20-$25K back then, and the people owning them were in their 30s and 40s.  Now those pages are $75-$100K+ and their owners are 10 years closer to retirement.  Surely a downturn now is going to affect the dynamic more than it did in 2008-9, just as the dynamic of the last downturn was different from the 2000-2 downturn, back when secular forces like third-party grading, Internet auctions, etc. probably outweighed the cyclical forces of the day at much lower prices.  Not to mention the demographic tailwind of Gen Xers starting to make real money just when the Internet was making things readily available that weren't available before - that dynamic was more powerful than the stock market going down 50% as many/most of us didn't own much/any in the way of stocks or property back then!

The higher prices go, and the older the average age of collectors in this hobby gets (weighted average by market value of their holdings), the more susceptible this market will be to economic and market cycles. 2c 

Edited by delekkerste
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Of the 25 items I am tracking, 22 are ridiculously under FMV (some as much as 10X+ less than reasonable FMV).  The other 3 are about 1/5 to 1/3 FMV.   I also see 97 items at bids at $55 or less, including over 20 items at $0 or $1.  While everything will align much closer in live bidding, I don't recall prices this low at this stage of the bidding.

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6 hours ago, Pete Marino said:

All I know is how well every "Can't Miss Opportunity" for investment works out in the long run.

But if you'd bought stocks at their peak in 2007, or OA when it was "molten" in the summer of 2008, you'd still have done very well for yourself.  

If we were looking back on 2007 (for stocks) or 2008 (for OA) as peaks towering over our current positions today, thinking that we would have absolutely no chance of ever reaching those highs again in our lifetimes, then okay, I could accept all the lectures and predictions of doom.  But given where we in fact are, I would say that the people who did best during that period were the ones who shrugged off all the naysayers and kept buying like drunken sailors.*

*No need to trot out individual exceptions to try to prove me wrong, because of course one can always find individual exceptions.  So if you bought Lehman and Bear Stearns stock in 2007, okay, maybe not the best idea. 

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15 minutes ago, tth2 said:

But if you'd bought stocks at their peak in 2007, or OA when it was "molten" in the summer of 2008, you'd still have done very well for yourself.  

If we were looking back on 2007 (for stocks) or 2008 (for OA) as peaks towering over our current positions today, thinking that we would have absolutely no chance of ever reaching those highs again in our lifetimes, then okay, I could accept all the lectures and predictions of doom.  But given where we in fact are, I would say that the people who did best during that period were the ones who shrugged off all the naysayers and kept buying like drunken sailors.*

*No need to trot out individual exceptions to try to prove me wrong, because of course one can always find individual exceptions.  So if you bought Lehman and Bear Stearns stock in 2007, okay, maybe not the best idea. 

The only question anybody should be trying to answer is how best to position for the destruction of EUR (and corresponding sky-is-the-limit USD), collapse of all foreign paper denominated in USD, eventual break-up of EU and then...? Is it comic art that's going to come out on top here - even in 20 years time? Or is it whatever the Chinese really want for the next 65-200 years, no matter what we think or what happens?

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3 hours ago, Ironmandrd said:

Of the 25 items I am tracking, 22 are ridiculously under FMV (some as much as 10X+ less than reasonable FMV).  The other 3 are about 1/5 to 1/3 FMV.   I also see 97 items at bids at $55 or less, including over 20 items at $0 or $1.  While everything will align much closer in live bidding, I don't recall prices this low at this stage of the bidding.

I agree with batman fan. Not everyone bids early. There is little advantage in this - unless you plan to overpay and want to scare some folks off. In my case - I like to bid at the live auction.  Not before.  If others are doing this - prices now mean nothing.

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11 hours ago, tth2 said:

But if you'd bought stocks at their peak in 2007, or OA when it was "molten" in the summer of 2008, you'd still have done very well for yourself.  

If we were looking back on 2007 (for stocks) or 2008 (for OA) as peaks towering over our current positions today, thinking that we would have absolutely no chance of ever reaching those highs again in our lifetimes, then okay, I could accept all the lectures and predictions of doom.  But given where we in fact are, I would say that the people who did best during that period were the ones who shrugged off all the naysayers and kept buying like drunken sailors.*

*No need to trot out individual exceptions to try to prove me wrong, because of course one can always find individual exceptions.  So if you bought Lehman and Bear Stearns stock in 2007, okay, maybe not the best idea. 

Betting on the american economy as a whole (IMO) is always a good bet, but someday it will be wrong.

My point is not about buying into a in the economy as a whole.  I'm talking about when someone give you a tip about the "can't miss, opportunity of a lifetime."  The one investment that will always work out with huge rewards according to them.  It's almost always cow feces.  And that is how Comic art is starting to be described.  If there is a faltering sustained in prices for comic art (2-3 weak Heritage auctions would do it IMO), I just feel in my bones there will be a hug panic and sell off of a lot of stuff.  A lot of people have a lot of "money in the bank" from buying cheap and stuff appreciating in value according to recent results.  Once those assets start depreciating, i think more than 1 person's going to hit the big red button and start selling.  We all know there are many hoards of art out there.

Edited by Pete Marino
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