CLink Spring Featured Auction 1 1

[AnkurJ]

Kaluta Detective seemed reasonable 

[cloud cloddie]

Big difference between the two Perez x-men pages. Storm boob tax?

and the Jim Lee DPS from 248 seemed cheap. I could swear it sold for double years back. 

[NinjaSealed]

4 minutes ago, AnkurJ said:

Kaluta Detective seemed reasonable 

Another "Would have sold for double at HA" piece I think.

[John E.]

My real want was that Deathlok #6 cover. I pegged it at $4k and it hammered at $4075. I got cold feet at the $2700 mark when it kept going up and up those final minutes.

Maxx 1/2 page ended at $2066. I put in an obligatory bid to push it up a bit. Good deal for a nice and rare Maxx page, but you are essentially paying for one image which might have been the reason it ended “low.” I’m not certain but the Maxximized cover may have hammer lower than the retail...or slightly higher. If so, not sure what the profit margins look like after fees, etc etc.

Lady Death cover did better than I expected before the start of auction. $7k+. It had legs right out the gate.  A memorable cover from the 90s. A nice price but I don’t have any clue to the cost basis  

Speaking of the 90s, I pegged the Bane of the Demon page at $600. Hammered at $576. I guess $600 would’ve been me but I just wasn’t feeling the Tom Palmer inks. I like Baretto or Hanna inks over Nolan’s pencils. Owner was asking $1500 OBO on eBay. I’m glad I didn’t bite then.

Darwyn Cooke Catwoman page ended at $885. Great price. It sat stale on a dealer’s site for $1700.

My sincere condolences to the consignor of the Don Newton 1st Jason Todd Robin splash. Ouch. Had I known I would pushed it a bit higher.

The Batman Year 100 owner was asking 11k for that page on eBay. $7700 is still good, but I think it would have fetched that 11k on Heritage as it had in the recent past. Unless it was a Heritage buy

Edited June 5, 2019 by Jay Olie Espy

[John E.]

Okay other page I wanted was the Captain America #241 page vs Punisher. I pegged it at $3k because no one wanted it at the $5k CAF asking price. Hammered with a snipe at $5,750. 

[robert frey]

for the material that i follow- the stronger, more desirable pieces, things like the byrne ff page, the buscema ff 112 pages, etc..... i was very surprised at the final hammer for the j g jones black widow cover. everything else was kind of blah. it was a buyer's market for sure. could be that what gene says, that the market has cooled for non-A material.

[delekkerste]

10 hours ago, cloud cloddie said:

Big difference between the two Perez x-men pages. Storm boob tax?

and the Jim Lee DPS from 248 seemed cheap. I could swear it sold for double years back. 

Wow, $7800 for that Lee X-Men DPS is shocking.  

That $8200 Perez X-Men Annual page makes the $5520 page in the last HA sale look well bought. 

10 hours ago, NinjaSealed said:

Another "Would have sold for double at HA" piece I think.

I doubt it.  A friend of mine was interested in it and I advised him to pass on it.  To me, there is nothing that screams "Kaluta" about it...it looks like it was drawn quickly and there's little in the way of trademark Kaluta style that distinguishes it IMO. I also don't like how the image area is so cropped by the cover layout. I think it sold for around what it should have - I can see someone paying up for it out of nostalgia, but, otherwise, I think it sold in the range of FMV.  Maybe it could have gotten a bit more on HA, but, I'd be surprised if it was 50% more, let alone 100%. 

Edited June 5, 2019 by delekkerste

[BCarter27]

14 hours ago, Matches_Malone said:

$110K! 

I wasn't bidding, but this was the number I had in my head for the McSpidey cover.

[delekkerste]

1 hour ago, BCarter27 said:

I wasn't bidding, but this was the number I had in my head for the McSpidey cover.

I thought it would go $75-$90K, with $110K being about the very, very highest I could see it ending.

$136K? I think that's very well done...for the seller (and ComicLink)!  

[GreatEscape]

3 hours ago, delekkerste said:

I doubt it.  A friend of mine was interested in it and I advised him to pass on it.  To me, there is nothing that screams "Kaluta" about it...it looks like it was drawn quickly and there's little in the way of trademark Kaluta style that distinguishes it IMO. I also don't like how the image area is so cropped by the cover layout. I think it sold for around what it should have - I can see someone paying up for it out of nostalgia, but, otherwise, I think it sold in the range of FMV.  Maybe it could have gotten a bit more on HA, but, I'd be surprised if it was 50% more, let alone 100%. 

I agree.  In fact, HA just sold the Kaluta Batman Annual #12 cover (full size in traditional Kaluta style IMO) for only $11.4k. 

That said, the CL Batman cover is more memorable to me.  Plus, I recall the 1st Felix Art podcast featured Albert Moy who mentioned one of his earliest OA purchases was "a Kaluta Batman cover with a shotgun pointed at him".  Good chance it was the CL cover.

 

[comix4fun]

16 minutes ago, GreatEscape said:

I agree.  In fact, HA just sold the Kaluta Batman Annual #12 cover (full size in traditional Kaluta style IMO) for only $11.4k. 

 

 

 

That's a tough comp to make...yes, both are Kaluta...but one is a 1972, "Kaluta-ascending" Detective cover, and the other is an annual cover from 1988. Still Kaluta, and he's still very talented, but might not get the same collector juices flowing as one from just before "the Studio" period began as opposed to one that's from about a decade after that period ended. 

They may appeal to very different audiences within the greater Kaluta fan base. 

[jjonahjameson11]

57 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

I thought it would go $75-$90K, with $110K being about the very, very highest I could see it ending.

$136K? I think that's very well done...for the seller (and ComicLink)!  

Agreed.  A very strong result for this cover.  I had it pegged at $85-90K.

 

[delekkerste]

5 minutes ago, comix4fun said:

 

That's a tough comp to make...yes, both are Kaluta...but one is a 1972, "Kaluta-ascending" Detective cover, and the other is an annual cover from 1988. Still Kaluta, and he's still very talented, but might not get the same collector juices flowing as one from just before "the Studio" period began as opposed to one that's from about a decade after that period ended. 

They may appeal to very different audiences within the greater Kaluta fan base. 

That is true, and, if given the choice, I'd certainly take the vintage cover solely for the reasons you described (as I think it would hold its value better). But, I don't love that cover - if you erased the Kaluta signature, I'd probably guess it was by half a dozen other artists before I guessed it was by Kaluta - it just looks really, really rough/rushed.

If it was a nostalgia buy by Albert or someone else, I could certainly understand that, though. 

[Ironmandrd]

$8200 for the Perez X-Men Annual page is surprisingly high and must be a record for a non-Infinity Gauntlet page. 

[AnkurJ]

17 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

That is true, and, if given the choice, I'd certainly take the vintage cover solely for the reasons you described (as I think it would hold its value better). But, I don't love that cover - if you erased the Kaluta signature, I'd probably guess it was by half a dozen other artists before I guessed it was by Kaluta - it just looks really, really rough/rushed.

If it was a nostalgia buy by Albert or someone else, I could certainly understand that, though. 

Agreed on all. I was thinking about bidding but the image wasn’t very striking. 

[batman_fan]

15 hours ago, Matches_Malone said:

McSpidey $136K!!

[jjonahjameson11]

46 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

That is true, and, if given the choice, I'd certainly take the vintage cover solely for the reasons you described (as I think it would hold its value better). But, I don't love that cover - if you erased the Kaluta signature, I'd probably guess it was by half a dozen other artists before I guessed it was by Kaluta - it just looks really, really rough/rushed.

If it was a nostalgia buy by Albert or someone else, I could certainly understand that, though. 

I thinks the Annual 12 cover resonates with more folks because it’s has a

much more of the Kaluta elements going for it...stuff Kaluta does so well tat you want in a cover.

Additionally, the Annual cover was published approximately one year before the 1989 Batman summer blockbuster movie, and hype was already rampant on current Bat-titles (ie. Batman Death in the Family was published in ‘88 and it was huge) back issues, and movie news in general rounded out the weekly visit to the LCS.

[Pete Marino]

1 hour ago, Ironmandrd said:

$8200 for the Perez X-Men Annual page is surprisingly high and must be a record for a non-Infinity Gauntlet page. 

Wonder if it was Liefeld flashing some of that Deadpool movie money!

He's posted on Facebook several times that he collects pages from that issue.

[Dokstarr]

18 hours ago, Jay Olie Espy said:

Lady Death cover did better than I expected before the start of auction. $7k+. It had legs right out the gate.  A memorable cover from the 90s. A nice price but I don’t have any clue to the cost basis  

That was the one I was hoping to get, but I was tapped out at 5500 for it. I was going to do 6K, but it blew right by that. I honestly don't know what fair value would be for that, so just kind of going off what it is worth for me.

I may regret not getting it, but I had not prepared myself for spending that much for it. I was surprised it went that high and hadn't planned on it. I thought 5500 was gonna nab it when I looked at it a few weeks back before the auction started. Of course I really have nothing to basde that on, I was just thinking of the popularity of the characters. Since Lady Death has been less mainstream in recent years and no longer hangs out with the Chaos characters like Evil Ernie.  It would've been a nice addition to the few Red Sonja and Vampirella pieces I have. Oh well - regrets already setting in hah.

[ThothAmon]

Had my eye on the extremely creepy Corben drawing and the Norem Savage Sword cover. Prices were strong on both.