Smith CONAN Cover # 5.....to be or not to be? That is the question? 0

[jjonahjameson11]

10 minutes ago, cstojano said:

I thought it had something to do with the value of the historical data. That is, CL sees value in those closed listings and did not want to give it away for free. Or maybe public historical data isn't to the best interest of the auctioneers, which I could envision for several reasons.

Ah, yes.  Thanks for jogging my memory.  They wanted to keep the historical data private.  One of the reasons for do so is that it would be disadvantageous for old data point to have an influence on a current auction

[ThothAmon]

Looking at the the art itself. Is the drawing of the woman and cat a stat?  If so the piece itself isn’t top shelf imho. 

[vodou]

I would think consignors boycotting consigning until certain things change could get some traction. But I also understand that nobody but us wants to know how many times The Donnelly's "sell" the same item over and over on CLink

[First Upgrade]

1 hour ago, jjonahjameson11 said:

it would be disadvantageous for old data point to have an influence on a current auction

Disadvantageous??...

As in, it would be disadvantageous to the consignor's net return...??

As in, it would be disadvantageous to the auction house's comission fee...??

As in, it would be disadvantageous to the illusion of consistently achieving 'record breaking' sales results...??

[...because most of what they are 'selling' isn't worth buying, from a certain (price) point of view.]

An auction house choosing to keep bidder's uninformed, or blind, deaf, and mute, and at a bidding, or financial, disadvantage, creates unsavoury optics...

Ultimately, IF any of the desired sales data is found to be compromised from any number of 'potentially corrupt' variables, then the data is 'useless'[unreliable] to those of us seeking historically accurate valuations of an item...but, perhaps it would prove more useful in other 'legal' arenas...

For those of you with greater memory banks...was Burkey ALSO indirectly/directly shill bidding in Comic Link auctions?? 'We' suspect that he was, but, did he in fact acknowledge/admit to doing as much in his post on the boards?

Edited March 23, 2019 by First Upgrade
Spelling, again

[glendgold]

 Business model: hope for amnesia. 

[First Upgrade]

28 minutes ago, vodou said:

I would think consignors boycotting consigning

If a few dozen or one hundred unique disenfranchised consignors decided to go elsewhere OVERNIGHT to unload their consignments, then I hypothesize that, at least in the short term, only the number of items in a given CL auction would slightly diminish.

Because...because there is a large number of potential consignment items being held in reserve by either the house and/or 'friendly' would-be consignors.

Regarding original comic art consignment material, there are at least a half dozen, active and well known, original art 'dealers' who combined hold enough material to keep the game going for an unnaturally extended amount of time (while still operating their own platforms). Years would be an understatement... 

I guesstimate that a few dozen or one hundred 'genuine' BIDDERS boycotting BIDDING would be detrimental to the house in the short-term, however, the occurance of such an event is significantly closer to being a scientific impossibility...than an equal number of 'genuine' consignors boycotting consigning...

[Rick2you2]

3 hours ago, glendgold said:

Does anyone have insight into the reasoning for c-link withholding their results?  I can't think of how that could possibly be a good business decision. 

As I recall, it is on thread which announced comic art tracker. Same reason why It didn’t scrape the comic art fans website for a while. Something to do with taking up server resources.

[vodou]

2 hours ago, First Upgrade said:

For those of you with greater memory banks...was Burkey ALSO indirectly/directly shill bidding in Comic Link auctions?? 'We' suspect that he was, but, did he in fact acknowledge/admit to doing as much in his post on the boards?

Glen first noticed a Heritage item coming off Mike's site and then ending up back on it at prices that didn't reflect the vig friction. My recollection is that Mike was specific as to how his friends helped him but was not specific as to which platform/s the help occurred on. Unless he wishes to clarify, I'm operating under the assumption of "any and all". My further recollection is that only HA made a public statement on the matter and nobody else did. I found that to be significant as well.

1 hour ago, First Upgrade said:

If a few dozen or one hundred unique disenfranchised consignors decided to go elsewhere OVERNIGHT to unload their consignments, then I hypothesize that, at least in the short term, only the number of items in a given CL auction would slightly diminish.

Because...because there is a large number of potential consignment items being held in reserve by either the house and/or 'friendly' would-be consignors.

Regarding original comic art consignment material, there are at least a half dozen, active and well known, original art 'dealers' who combined hold enough material to keep the game going for an unnaturally extended amount of time (while still operating their own platforms). Years would be an understatement... 

I guesstimate that a few dozen or one hundred 'genuine' BIDDERS boycotting BIDDING would be detrimental to the house in the short-term, however, the occurance of such an event is significantly closer to being a scientific impossibility...than an equal number of 'genuine' consignors boycotting consigning...

I probably agree with you, without realizing it before, and that probably explains why I barely play in CLink's sandbox...only when it's a screaming deal, which is like once a year or less.

The baseline bids will always be there...if for no other reason so that everybody can 'track' the items since that utility or just about any other 21st century web innovation seems beyond CLink's current business scope

[cstojano]

4 hours ago, vodou said:

Glen first noticed a Heritage item coming off Mike's site and then ending up back on it at prices that didn't reflect the vig friction. My recollection is that Mike was specific as to how his friends helped him but was not specific as to which platform/s the help occurred on. Unless he wishes to clarify, I'm operating under the assumption of "any and all". My further recollection is that only HA made a public statement on the matter and nobody else did. I found that to be significant as well.

I probably agree with you, without realizing it before, and that probably explains why I barely play in CLink's sandbox...only when it's a screaming deal, which is like once a year or less.

The baseline bids will always be there...if for no other reason so that everybody can 'track' the items since that utility or just about any other 21st century web innovation seems beyond CLink's current business scope

I think the inability to search the entire site does more to harm them than not posting on Comic Art Tracker. Why is there no way to search for "conan" and have it pull up all listings with that keyword instead of selecting: auction comics, exchange comics, auction art, exchange art, etc.

[RockMyAmadeus]

This thread's taken some interesting turns....

I'm glad to see the piece up for sale again. I bid on it at Heritage and, of course, lost by a lot. It will be fun to bid to lose again.

 

[kav]

On 3/21/2019 at 5:35 PM, Frank Mozz said:

 

 

On a recent post here in the forum about the Heritage auction last month several members made the point that they felt Barry Smiths/Conan era art well still selling well was trending downward ( I am paraphrasing). This cover ( #5) well not the peak of Smiths Conan era work imo is still pretty badass! It sold at Heritage last August for 60k, it's now coming up in the May Comic Link sale and IMO should give some insight into where Smith Conan art is at right now. I would assume selling it this soon the results will be just about the same or maybe even less and that would support the recent conversation about Smiths art leveling off a bit. Now I am new here & I may be way off & was hoping for some insight?

 

Smith used a lot of paste overs-I remember seeing one cover that was almost entirely paste over!

[tth2]

11 hours ago, glendgold said:

Does anyone have insight into the reasoning for c-link withholding their results?  I can't think of how that could possibly be a good business decision. 

Probably the same reason they don't allow their comic results to go onto GPA. 

[First Upgrade]

7 hours ago, tth2 said:

Probably the same reason they don't allow their comic results to go onto GPA. 

Their 'reasons' are meaningless to everyone but themselves and arbitration...

It is unsettling to imagine what CLink CGC graded comic book 'sales' results would do to the GPA data...when so many 'speculators' & would-be 'flippers' of the book you are selling denegrates your asking price by quoting what the last example 'sold' for according to GPA.

I appreciate GPA & HA distinguishing between non-HA 'sales' with a link to the sold item page. In countless examples, especially for certain lesser valued books, the outlying GPA sales result has been lower than the averages, when the book was 'sold' via HA. This phenomenon is presumably a reflection of bidders taking into account the impending sales tax(?).[Shouldn't sales tax be included in the data point calculation?]

CLink doesn't collect sales tax as broadly as HA...so, what is this 'recent' 'sold' auction example a reflection of??...page quality difference, perhaps. But, it is certainly not a reflection of their consistent ability to achieve record-breaking sales results for their consignors...

Two CGC graded 9.8, X-Men 101's, same auction, days apart...

[Bronty]

I don’t get it.   So one sold for 600 more, so what?   

As for the Conan 5, the paste up makes it harder to love for sure.  It looks good in print but that that paste up would bother me especially as it’s the best part of the cover.    Since I find myself looking at what isn’t a paste up I notice the lower half of conans body too which is not well done.   It’s like he drew a great upper body but didn’t leave himself enough room down below and had to splay the legs way apart to make up for it

[vodou]

11 hours ago, tth2 said:

Probably the same reason they don't allow their comic results to go onto GPA. 

We only discuss The Winners. Thus, there are never any Losers

[The Voord]

4 hours ago, Bronty said:

  Since I find myself looking at what isn’t a paste up I notice the lower half of conans body too which is not well done.   It’s like he drew a great upper body but didn’t leave himself enough room down below and had to splay the legs way apart to make up for it

I now call this cover, "The Greatest Limbo-dancing Hero of all . . . Conan the Versatile."

[thehumantorch]

On 3/22/2019 at 7:20 AM, The Lions Den said:

I think it's a great piece...

I agree, it’s a masterpiece in my humble opinion and some of he best work done by BWS 

[BCarter27]

As the kids say... I just can't even.

[I am not Glenda]

2 hours ago, thehumantorch said:

I agree, it’s a masterpiece in my humble opinion and some of he best work done by BWS 

Yea the reason for this post was not to diminish the Conan work of Smith, I know its all about opinions and sh#t but Barry kicked some on Conan imho and # 5 while not my favorite early era cover it is not something I would mind adding to my wall. 

[cstojano]

48 minutes ago, Frank Mozz said:

Yea the reason for this post was not to diminish the Conan work of Smith, I know its all about opinions and sh#t but Barry kicked some on Conan imho and # 5 while not my favorite early era cover it is not something I would mind adding to my wall. 

IMO it is the extrinsic factors here that hurt the eye a bit - that discoloration. Funkiness to the art can be written off as charming in this genre.