November HA OA auction 3 3

[Bird]

Not all comic art has risen significantly in the last 20 years and some has indeed lost value. Starman art, especially if not by Tony Harris (but also Tony pages), were down for many years and still only about 80% of peak value (at best, although obviously a generalization) from the early years. I imagine that this is not the only valid example, but one I can attest to personally. And most of the 100+ pages I owned at one time were acquired through auction where I assume fmv was generated.

[malvin]

16 minutes ago, Bird said:

Not all comic art has risen significantly in the last 20 years and some has indeed lost value. Starman art, especially if not by Tony Harris (but also Tony pages), were down for many years and still only about 80% of peak value (at best, although obviously a generalization) from the early years. I imagine that this is not the only valid example, but one I can attest to personally. And most of the 100+ pages I owned at one time were acquired through auction where I assume fmv was generated.

I think you essentially stopping the purchase of starman art and occasionally selling them caused the Starman crash!

I wonder how much I am propping up specific markets myself...

Malvin

[Bird]

1 minute ago, malvin said:

I think you essentially stopping the purchase of starman art and occasionally selling them caused the Starman crash!

I wonder how much I am propping up specific markets myself...

Malvin

Yes, it is certainly possible. There were a few other guys that I would battle with but yes, removing me from the equation may have been significant.

 

Here is the top of my Comiclink sold items page

Item	Start Price	Bid	Reserve	Bid Count	Starts	Ends	Time Left	Status
STARMAN #25 PAGE 6 ,	$1	$80	$0	9	10/15/2015	11/3/2015		Sold
STARMAN #21 PAGE 13 ,	$1	$21	$0	5	10/15/2015	11/3/2015		Sold
STARMAN #12 PAGE 5 ,	$1	$180	$0	20	10/15/2015	11/3/2015		Sold
STARMAN #8 PAGE 18 ,	$1	$300	$0	20	10/15/2015	11/3/2015		Sold
FLASH ANNUAL #9 PAGE 8 SPLASH ,	$1	$185	$0	24	6/12/2015	6/30/2015		Sold
UNCANNY X-MEN #278 PAGE 15 ,	$1	$275	$0	28	6/12/2015	6/30/2015		Sold
STARMAN DRAWING ,	$1	$55	$0	4	6/12/2015	6/30/2015		Sold
RED WARRIOR PAGE ,	$1	$1	$0	1	6/12/2015	6/30/2015		Sold
STARMAN #22 PAGE 2 ,	$1	$61	$0	9	6/12/2015	6/30/2015		Sold
STARMAN #22 PAGE 1 ,	$1	$51	$0	8	6/12/2015	6/30/2015		Sold
STARMAN #21 PAGE 10 ,	$1	$56	$0	12	6/12/2015	6/30/2015		Sold
STARMAN #13 PAGE 4 ,	$1	$181	$0	12	6/12/2015	6/30/2015		Sold
STARMAN #8 PAGE 2 ,	$1	$210	$0	15	6/12/2015	6/30/2015		Sold
STARBOY DRAWING ,	$1	$45	$0	4	6/12/2015	6/30/2015		Sold

Man, glad this is a hobby and not my vocation!
 

[ESeffinga]

Man, I’m not really familiar with the book at all, but I remember spending something like $250-300 on a pretty cool looking Starman page as a Christmas gift for my brother back in the mid-late 90s. Which is chump change in today’s dollars, but you could have bought a published Kirby page for that money. Not a good one, but Demon, Forever People, Kamandi etc would have been possible. Some lower end Neal Adams Batman or Deadman. Etc and so on.

The entire decade of the 90s were the Wild West as far as the OA comic market was concerned. You had some pieces Like I remember one dealer had a really well drawn Craig Hamilton illustration. Not sure if it was published or not, but really big and well drawn piece of something like the Devil and some chick. And it was probably in that same $250-300 range. 

I could be wrong on the exact numbers but the point is I remember seeing new unpublished pieces by current artists selling as much as really desirable (by today’s money) published pieces. In some cases for more.

But only time has borne that out. 

But I do get nostalgic for those times. And in some ways I still see that as different as things are today, they are also still similar. You can spend 250-300 on a pretty great piece of art from a modern series (Felix sells them all day long), and you can spend a boatload on some unpublished art if you want. 

The ceiling prices are so so so much higher, as are the prices for “event” artwork from big two titles. But if folks want to experience some of what I’m nostalgic for. Try out a new series and if you like the art, track down work from it. Could be the next Starman, sure. Could also be the next Sandman. 

Only time will sort all that out. But I know I feel one didn’t buy art for what it would become (money). I bought for the love of the art and in appreciation of its creators. And that’s easier to do when it’s a couple hundred bucks.

As for the big tectonic shift as I remember when art prices first started the hobby wide lifting of all boats... it was Albert, Jim Lee, and the Hush artwork. 

Average interior comic art pages were 250-500. Some splashes and stuff were higher, but by and large that was what a new piece of modern comic art cost you.

Albert posted the Hush Pages, and I remember the entire hobby scoffed, including me. Run of the mill pages were $1200-1500 a pop. The better pages were higher, and the covers were stratospheric. Like nearing prime vintage art numbers. 3, 4, 5, and 6 times the price of any other modern interiors. In some cases you could have covers of other titles for the mundane panel page prices from Hush.

I remember it took Albert some time to sell the majority of the pages, and there were some early adopters who bit the bullet to buy what they wanted. But over time they all sold eventually.

And in short order I saw stronger and stronger prices from artists who became more confident in their ability to ask more. Page prices essentially doubled in one year, and then ramped quickly after that.

There also seemed like a bigger internet driven influx of new collectors shortly thereafter, and that seems to have pushed things to a point that they really started to heat up, but for me it will always be that Hush page offering that really kicked things into 2nd gear.

As an aside, I think I spent close to $200 framing that Starman page. Today it’d probably cost about the same to frame the same way.

 

Edited November 3, 2018 by ESeffinga

[PhilipB2k17]

16 hours ago, Bird said:

Not all comic art has risen significantly in the last 20 years and some has indeed lost value. Starman art, especially if not by Tony Harris (but also Tony pages), were down for many years and still only about 80% of peak value (at best, although obviously a generalization) from the early years. I imagine that this is not the only valid example, but one I can attest to personally. And most of the 100+ pages I owned at one time were acquired through auction where I assume fmv was generated.

I think Preacher art is on a downward trend as well. 

[John E.]

I’ve noticed that Albert prices his art very strong, ridiculously strong, and then history sides with him. As a relatively recent collector, I can remember recoiling at the strong prices on second-tier Darwyn Cooke art when Darwyn was still with us. One example is a nice Catwoman ‘66 unpublished pinup for $1500. That money could’ve bought you a nice cover or many nice modern pages. I believe the trigger on that one wasn’t pulled until the day Darwyn’s passing was announced. 

[PhilipB2k17]

5 minutes ago, Jay Olie Espy said:

I’ve noticed that Albert prices his art very strong, ridiculously strong, and then history sides with him. As a relatively recent collector, I can remember recoiling at the strong prices on second-tier Darwyn Cooke art when Darwyn was still with us. One example is a nice Catwoman ‘66 unpublished pinup for $1500. That money could’ve bought you a nice cover or many nice modern pages. I believe the trigger on that one wasn’t pulled until the day Darwyn’s passing was announced. 

It depends on what you could have bought with that $1500 instead. 

There is some great modern art outside of the Felix nexus (and don’t get me wrong, I bought a lot of pages from him) that is really priced to sell.  Like browsing through a lot of rep sites just to see what’s there, and amamazed at some of the stuff available. 

[PhilipB2k17]

5 minutes ago, Jay Olie Espy said:

I’ve noticed that Albert prices his art very strong, ridiculously strong, and then history sides with him. As a relatively recent collector, I can remember recoiling at the strong prices on second-tier Darwyn Cooke art when Darwyn was still with us. One example is a nice Catwoman ‘66 unpublished pinup for $1500. That money could’ve bought you a nice cover or many nice modern pages. I believe the trigger on that one wasn’t pulled until the day Darwyn’s passing was announced. 

It depends on what you could have bought with that $1500 instead. 

There is some great modern art outside of the Felix nexus (and don’t get me wrong, I bought a lot of pages from him) that is really priced to sell.  Like browsing through a lot of rep sites just to see what’s there, and amamazed at some of the stuff available. 

[mister_not_so_nice]

1 hour ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

I think Preacher art is on a downward trend as well. 

Back to 1998 prices?  

[glendgold]

19 minutes ago, mister_not_so_nice said:

Back to 1998 prices?  

If you care to threaddrift with me, the December ComicConnect All-Walking-Dead all-the-time 234-piece auction should really test the depth of that particular market. 

[vodou]

1 hour ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

I think Preacher art is on a downward trend as well. 

 

11 minutes ago, mister_not_so_nice said:

Back to 1998 prices?  

I sure hope so. Never read the book before two days ago* when I started in on the (first of) three Absolutes. Great stuff. Being a Marvel Zombie for so long sure was stupid 

Realistically though, I expect that those who got in early and vacuumed up so much Preacher are my (general) age and will hang onto them until they need to let them go (Three Ds) and that will be approximately the same time I'm no longer interested in adding more stuff either (Three Ds again), if anything I'll be near/fully de-accessioned already or trying vainly to aggressively subtract while I still can...facing the same market apathy myself. That's a whole separate discussion there, how certain people got to certain artists very early, dug in very deep, bought all the way up adding more to already significant holdings and never really sold, no matter what prices did, essentially removing cultural touchstones (for a generation) from the marketplace. And when those touchstones (of that generation) are released, will the next generation be there to take them up? Only for the bluest of blue chip icons I think, and the rest of us will watch all that other stuff -finally- hit the market at approximately the only time in our adult lives when we wouldn't be rarin' to buy, and probably at an otherwise rather attractive price point too! That right there is the other side of the whole black hole discussion, how a lack of velocity in a market can kill it.

 

*Yeah, yeah, so sue me already!

[vodou]

2 minutes ago, glendgold said:

If you care to threaddrift with me, the December ComicConnect All-Walking-Dead all-the-time 234-piece auction should really test the depth of that particular market. 

234 pieces in one sale...sheesh. Really not the way to distribute a hoard imo. At least not if one is attempting to maximize consignor return. That may not be CC's goal though

[N e r V]

On 11/1/2018 at 8:43 AM, delekkerste said:

Like I said in a previous post, the 1990s was the Stone Age for art.  That was the equivalent of buying Bitcoin for pennies. Bitcoin could fall 99% from peak (and probably will, eventually) and those guys would still be up a ton.  I mean no offense to all the dealers and collectors who were around in the '80s or '90s, but, let's face it - the market was not developed/mature at all back then.  There may have been a thriving niche hobby, but, at pennies on the dollar today...c'mon - those data points are truly irrelevant at this point, just like pre-2013 Bitcoin prices.  I mean, FFS, a lot of cheerleaders today claim the hobby is still in its infancy NOW.  If that's the case, the '80s and '90s were the equivalent of primordial ooze.  

I got some pages of Kirby art for $5.00 a page in the 1980’s at SDCC. Some people cry today at what I paid for a LB Cole recreation. GA original art could be found too.

Only slight interest back then for art. I was getting high at times then so Stone Age of Art seems appropriate today.

[John E.]

52 minutes ago, vodou said:

234 pieces in one sale...sheesh. Really not the way to distribute a hoard imo. At least not if one is attempting to maximize consignor return. That may not be CC's goal though

Well, zombies do come in hoards. 

[stinkininkin]

22 hours ago, glendgold said:

If you care to threaddrift with me, the December ComicConnect All-Walking-Dead all-the-time 234-piece auction should really test the depth of that particular market. 

Sorry, Walking Dead art is 100% off my radar, but I'm always interested in the ins and outs of the hobby, so....why in the world would someone engage in a massive single event art dump, and why would the auction house sanction this?  Is this a sale initiated out of urgent need, FMV be damned, or something else?  I don't get it.

Sorry for adding to the thread drift.

[Twanj]

11 days to go...

Ditko Spiderman #18 page is at $216k

Kirby Cap #109 cover $72k

McFarlane before he got his style Hulk #330 cover $6.6k

[batman_fan]

11 minutes ago, Twanj said:

11 days to go...

Ditko Spiderman #18 page is at $216k

Kirby Cap #109 cover $72k

McFarlane before he got his style Hulk #330 cover $6.6k

Ditko Spiderman #18 page at $216k. 

[AnkurJ]

58 minutes ago, batman_fan said:

Ditko Spiderman #18 page at $216k. 

Quite a jump over the last few days

[zhamlau]

On 11/2/2018 at 1:32 PM, Bronty said:

I think when you're discussing 80s/90s prices and today's prices it can't be overstated what a game changer online availability has been for art.   

Your description of art being everywhere might be true for somebody in new york or whatever, but a lot of buyers in a lot of locales were shut out of the market.

Art was everywhere FOR YOU!  It was NOWHERE for some!

The ability for sellers to find buyers and buyers to find sellers as of, say, 2000, has meant a drastic revaluation of anything along these lines.     That's a one-time event.

My base of reference was actually metro Detroit in the 80s. I didn't go to NY until I was in my 30s. There were small shows 2x a month and a big show 2-3 times a year within travel distance. Every local show, i would see a few pages. Every Major show (Chicago, Motor City) i would see dozens from various dealers.

Its possible metro Detroit was some hotbed of comic art activity, but its the only basis of reference I had.

[zhamlau]

On 11/3/2018 at 11:19 AM, PhilipB2k17 said:

I think Preacher art is on a downward trend as well. 

It's Funny you say that. I purchased a rather graphic preacher page back in the day for 30 bucks for a friend of mine I have since lost contact with. He didnt collect art just loved preacher...I wonder if he still has it, where he is. It was a pretty memorable page.