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Selling advice
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55 posts in this topic

17 minutes ago, JadeGiant said:
33 minutes ago, comicwiz said:

 

I agree. Based on the backstory, it sounds like you most likely have a legitimate Fraz sketch. Do your diligence and list at a big auction house and I would think you will do well. 

I don't think I meet the requirements to auction it at Heritage. I'll check out Hakes.

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2 minutes ago, emme_jay said:

I don't think I meet the requirements to auction it at Heritage. I'll check out Hakes.

Surely HA would take a piece like this? Are you sure?

Not knocking Hakes by any stretch but this has me wondering what you have to have to auction through HA if they won't take this?!?!

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51 minutes ago, comicwiz said:

If OA market health was entirely contingent on provenance, it would be a surviving artist only market.

LOL. For such a smart guy...

For unpublished anything, provenance matters.

For one of the most faked artists in comics along with Schulz and Watterson, it definitely matters.

You should know better.

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3 minutes ago, vodou said:

LOL. For such a smart guy...

For unpublished anything, provenance matters.

For one of the most faked artists in comics along with Schulz and Watterson, it definitely matters.

You should know better.

I'm saying there's no way to know in certain cases. Chain of custody? Came from a Marvel staffer at a St Louis Con in 1970. How did he get it? Dunno. It's a Kirby, but you know how that goes. Or maybe you just put on the blindfolds like everyone else does.

If I kept score, I'd say there's more of these questionable pieces in terms of COC and provenance that sell rather than languish. But if things were as strict as you say, then you would apply my surviving artist only market.

You might not be catching my drift, but I do alright on the raft in a fast moving flow.

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21 minutes ago, comicwiz said:

If I kept score, I'd say there's more of these questionable pieces in terms of COC and provenance that sell rather than languish. But if things were as strict as you say, then you would apply my surviving artist only market.

Absolutely true; doesn't make this or any of them 'right' though. Hey, it could be, I do not know. What I do know is that there are tons of fakes out there (truly, hundreds), many are ancient, and they've been changing hands or sitting in old collections, for a long time. This is well-known among old-timers, too many fake unpublished Frazettas out there. Just like Charles Schulz. If you can't point to the piece in question in an old Russ Cochran catalog or similar from another dealer that directly dealt with Frank, if it didn't come from a known collector that was buying directly from Frank and Ellie, etc...there's an unfortunate likelihood of it being fake. For the same money, why go with un-papered over papered? So then, we're talking about a healthy discount w/o provenance, and that's not what attracts me but it will others. This will sell but not for the best money. Suggest OP try to find something, a receipt, anything that 'helps' sell this. Otherwise, newbs will bid/buy, thinking it's a deal, but old-timers (because they know) will pass right by. That is all.

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1 hour ago, vodou said:

OP try to find something, a receipt, anything that 'helps' sell this. Otherwise, newbs will bid/buy, thinking it's a deal, but old-timers (because they know) will pass right by

Ugh. He had a lot of receipts and notes inserted in books. He had (and I still have) thousands of books. I know I tossed a lot of them. Guess I'll do some more digging. He made a lot of comic purchases through a shop called Zanadu Comics in Seattle. I just checked and they closed in 2018. I'm pretty sure I'd remember a receipt for this drawing. 

My sister also left half of my brother's belongings in his apartment when the movers came to move the boxes that I spent three days packing. It still makes me sick to think about. 

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As for the “line” it’s very hard to discern specifics from the scan in this thread, but the motion and visual implications show more than the signature ever could as to its presupposed legitimacy.

The only truly reasonable way to autheticate would be for a very trusted Frazetta scholar to hold the piece in hand. For all we know it could be a great copy from a xerox machine. 

I’ve seen a handful of printed ink pieces that could fool all but the most experienced collectors over the years. So a low res scan posted on here doesn’t mean a ton. But it doesn’t look like your run of the mill forgery, from what I can see. 

Fraz is one of the hardest to do, correct. Even today. Even by folks that have made their careers trying. Especially this loose and effective. That’s my 2 cents worth.

But I’d only sell if I could set eyes on and have folks that’d know set eyes on it as well. The rest is conjecture.

 

 

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3 hours ago, emme_jay said:

He made a lot of comic purchases through a shop called Zanadu Comics in Seattle. I just checked and they closed in 2018. I'm pretty sure I'd remember a receipt for this drawing. 

Zanadu did close last year (R.I.P.), but I believe the owner, Perry, is still active online.  It’s a real long shot that this drawing came through the store, but I guess you could try contacting him at zanadu@zanaducomics.com.

Mike

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3 hours ago, MGS said:

Zanadu did close last year (R.I.P.), but I believe the owner, Perry, is still active online.  It’s a real long shot that this drawing came through the store, but I guess you could try contacting him at zanadu@zanaducomics.com.

Mike

Thanks. I don't know how much my brother went in there after the early 90s, but it couldn't hurt to ask.

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7 hours ago, ESeffinga said:

So a low res scan posted on here doesn’t mean a ton. 

I originally did a super high res scan, 1200 dpi, but I was afraid it would look distorted on the message boards.

Edited by emme_jay
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7 hours ago, ESeffinga said:

But I’d only sell if I could set eyes on and have folks that’d know set eyes on it as well. The rest is conjecture.

Ok, message me your address. I'll ship it right out for you to inspect. 

Also, what makes you think CBCS didn't have an expert look at it? How else do companies get signatures and artwork authenticated? I've had dozens of signatures authenticated from this collection. There are in-house people who are hired to authenticate signatures. 

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A signature is better than unsigned for certain. But drawings, paintings etc ARE far more difficult to forge than a signature.

The stroke of a pen or brush that is controlled by a hand is often committed to muscle memory. Your own signature is muscle memory. You don’t often think about what you are writing. It just comes out. Your days of belaboring it are years behind you.

For artists like Frazetta, the act of drawing is the same. They know how to draw an arm, a leg, a figure or a scene as easily as you write your name. For them it is more a matter of warming up their hand to loosen and get ready for a day of work. And often little sketches and drawings like this are exactly for that purpose. Or perhaps to personalize a book or a favor for a friend or fan, on the right day.

The point being, an artist’s work will have telltale signs, similar to the things that people look for in signatures. Only a LOT more of them. Like, almost the whole thing. And they come along a lot less requently and more intuitively. Meaning much much harder to forge.

As to signature experts. They exist. They perform a service. Some people are into that. I’ve seen so many forged signatures that were certified as authentic from one source or another over the years, I give them only somewhat more credence as I do third party certificates of authentication.

People don’t have to agree with me, it’s just how I roll when I buy work for myself. I wouldn’t buy something from an unknown source unless I could set eyes on it, or have someone I trusted thoroughly do so. I try to know more about the artists work I am personally collecting than most 3rd party folks, so I have a better sense of what’s legit based on experience.

And I certainly wouldn’t advise sending this piece to me (I know you were only being sarcastic), but having a high res scan sent to Doc Dave, Rob Pistella or someone else who knew Frank and are super familiar with Frank’s work would mean a lot more to a collector like me than someone who gets paid to authenticate signatures.

Just my 4 cents because you brought it here for advice, one would assume.

Take mine for what it’s worth to you. Or not. No biggie. Good luck with it either way.

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4 hours ago, emme_jay said:

Ok, message me your address. I'll ship it right out for you to inspect. 

Also, what makes you think CBCS didn't have an expert look at it? How else do companies get signatures and artwork authenticated? I've had dozens of signatures authenticated from this collection. There are in-house people who are hired to authenticate signatures. 

More out of curiousity, but what is the status of this drawing with regard to CBCS' VSP? The photo you took appears to have been accepted for VSP, and it may be due to unfamiliarity with the program, but was a final determination reached? That one sticker on it doesn't appear to have been checked off (verification received) and a serial number assigned (I'm not sure that number on the other sticker is the serial number).

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7 hours ago, emme_jay said:

Ok, message me your address. I'll ship it right out for you to inspect. 

Also, what makes you think CBCS didn't have an expert look at it? How else do companies get signatures and artwork authenticated? I've had dozens of signatures authenticated from this collection. There are in-house people who are hired to authenticate signatures. 

When this alternative third-party grading company first entered the fray, I asked a rep about their VSP while at a comic-con. The rep told me that their signatures are authenticated through a computer program that runs the signature through many authenticated signatures. In fact, the rep told me that it wasn't them who actually did it, but rather they sent it to another company to do this. Their website now doesn't mention any of this. Their website makes it sound like there's a team of three people looking at every signature. And now that it's under Beckett's ownership, I especially don't know how the VSP has changed. I don't know how Beckett verifies signatures but I would find it odd to go from a computer application analyzing it to humans doing it, with the latter being more prone to errors.

By the way, the rep at the alternative third-party grading company told me that they don't authenticate art, just the signature. As far as I know, no company authenticates art (for a fee like you would an autograph). The insinuation is that if the signature's authentic, then the art is--so it's based on faith.

On a different note, there was a Batman painting attributed to Bob Kane that sold on ComicLink not too long ago. Now Bob Kane is another artist known to be faked and he even had ghost artists! The signature, however, was verified by JSA and the piece sold at what I thought was a high price ($5100). I know the dealer who consigned it, who is a comic dealer not an art dealer, and who probably got it in a trade--which is to say I don't think he knew about the history of Bob Kane fakes and I didn't feel it was in my place to break it to him. He had the painting for sale at a show for somewhere between high 4-figures to low 5-figures, so he might have been disappointed with the auction result. My guess is that those Frazettas should do well even if it's not as well as they could if they had the provenance. And if you didn't dump money into it, then everything is just icing on the cake.

Kane Batman paiting.PNG

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Call me crazy, but at least as far as art goes, I much prefer the loose & smaller but, IMO much more accomplished Conan drawing to the blobbier, over-rendered random caveman piece. 

It shines in ways the caveman is awkward.

Artists all have work when they are “on”, and for my Monopoly money, the Conan has “it” and the caveman does not.

More lines, more detail and more ink doesn’t always = more better.

So often, less is more. Even where Frazetta is concerned. 

And most artists will tell you, the artists that can convey the most with the simplest line are often the most accomplished. 

A small anecdote, I want to attribute but can’t recall where I read it, and so I am paraphrasing...

An old story of an artist that was once confronted by someone who complained about what he was charging for his sumi-e ink drawing. The man said “it only took you a few minutes to draw that”, and the artist replied that it took him 35 years to draw it.

 

 

Edited by ESeffinga
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