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Shocking Sunday HA result
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46 posts in this topic

7 minutes ago, Jay Olie Espy said:

I’m not at all qualified to answer this. Rhetorically speaking, what were prices on average before this? How often do these Smith pages pop up?

What I find interesting is that this topic was brought up before the auction ended. Not at all saying there was a correlation between the video and the auction, but the final auction price seemed to back what they said?

did you watch the video, Malvin? Did I get it right? Or am I misspeaking again 😬

I have no dog in this fight, dear readers. Just info sharing.

I only watched parts of the video, so I didn't watch the part about PMS.

You are right though, all it takes is for that video to convince two (deep pocketed) people that PMS UXM pages are scarce and they should snatch them up when they can for that one auction to spike up.

Malvin

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4 hours ago, Jay Olie Espy said:

I’m not at all qualified to answer this. Rhetorically speaking, what were prices on average before this? How often do these Smith pages pop up?

What I find interesting is that this topic was brought up before the auction ended. Not at all saying there was a correlation between the video and the auction, but the final auction price seemed to back what they said?

did you watch the video, Malvin? Did I get it right? Or am I misspeaking again 😬

I have no dog in this fight, dear readers. Just info sharing.

I had a chance to watch it. 

Gary mentioned that he personally had amassed a large amount of PMS X-men artwork, but that he didn't see much else out there over the years. Just a few pages here and there.

He mentioned that he didn't know where the rest was and that "Maybe Paul Smith has a big stack that he's sitting on.", so he wasn't making a claim that Smith was sitting on art, just that he hadn't seem much outside of what he's piled up.

That makes sense though. PMS's run on X-men was VERY short.  9 issues with full pencils, 1 issue with a portion of the book containing his breakdowns. 217 fully penciled pages total from his first run.

Gary owns/owned ALOT of that run. Every public sale and auction that caught his eye wound up with a piece in his collection or with the price going for a gigantic (relative) amount. 

 

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I knew that PMS art is rare and, between what Gary has/had and what PMS has, that very few pieces ever come up for sale, but I haven't seen too many pages like that one go up for sale and go for so high. Albert was selling pieces earlier this year for $4000 each and I thought they were much better than the page that sold on HA.

Paul Smith's run on UXM is fondly remembered by comic fans who grew up in the 1980s, so I guess these pages will probably continue to go higher and higher in price with each one sold.

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On 7/23/2019 at 1:16 PM, Jay Olie Espy said:

I’m not at all qualified to answer this. Rhetorically speaking, what were prices on average before this? How often do these Smith pages pop up?

😬

Prices have broadly been from high $1Ks to mid-$3Ks for the bulk of the pages from the run (for example, a page from #169 sold for $2.28K at HA in April).

I disagree with Michael and think that none of Albert's recently sold pages were as good as this page that just sold; if they were actually any good, I would have bought them myself, as I'm always buying good PMS pages to use as trade bait for #172-173 pages (which all trade at a premium because my bid puts a high floor on all of those pages). #175 pages are also quite in demand when they turn up. 

A couple/few pages seem to show up every year, either publicly or privately. I wouldn't say they are super rare, but, it's true that they are not plentiful. That said, the market for then had been more or less in equilibrium; aside from this result, which very well could be a minor outlier, I haven't noticed any other data points which would indicate to me that prices are broadly shooting higher. 

It may well be that people push up prices on these as they seem underpriced relative to the 1sr Cockrum, Byrne and Lee runs, but, I have always viewed PMS X-Men as having a nostalgic expiration date. There is nothing in the comic world more nostalgic to me than PMS X-Men, but, to those 10 years younger than me, no one really cares much, it's all about Silvestri and Lee - anyone who knows younger X-Men collectors knows this to be true. PMS X-Men was just so refreshing when it came out, and Claremont got a fantastic second wind writing the title. That said, looking back now, it was a short run that is now just one of dozens to choose from; I really don't see where the love is going to come from when the Xers who grew up with the run contemporaneously age out of buying this stuff. 2c

That said, even if they go to zero, I'm never selling my pages. :shy:

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9 hours ago, delekkerste said:

It may well be that people push up prices on these as they seem underpriced relative to the 1sr Cockrum, Byrne and Lee runs, but, I have always viewed PMS X-Men as having a nostalgic expiration date. There is nothing in the comic world more nostalgic to me than PMS X-Men, but, to those 10 years younger than me, no one really cares much, it's all about Silvestri and Lee - anyone who knows younger X-Men collectors knows this to be true. PMS X-Men was just so refreshing when it came out, and Claremont got a fantastic second wind writing the title. That said, looking back now, it was a short run that is now just one of dozens to choose from; I really don't see where the love is going to come from when the Xers who grew up with the run contemporaneously age out of buying this stuff. 2c

Completely agree. PMS (and JRJr too) was the last of the pretty old school X-Men artists...followed by the too many lines crowd ;)

The appeal is pure nostalgia, at any four figure price level. Otherwise it's just attractive vintage X-Men art. Same with non-key JB, Cockrum 1st (and especially 2nd) run work. I was paying $150-$350 (high end only from Albert lol ) for 2nd run (and Sherman/McLeod/Sienkiewicz/Anderson too) anything ex-splashes/covers for many years 1990s-early oughts. I stepped off when panel pages left three figures behind. I expect them to eventually end up right back there again.

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2 hours ago, vodou said:

Completely agree. PMS (and JRJr too) was the last of the pretty old school X-Men artists...followed by the too many lines crowd ;)

The appeal is pure nostalgia, at any four figure price level. Otherwise it's just attractive vintage X-Men art. Same with non-key JB, Cockrum 1st (and especially 2nd) run work. I was paying $150-$350 (high end only from Albert lol ) for 2nd run (and Sherman/McLeod/Sienkiewicz/Anderson too) anything ex-splashes/covers for many years 1990s-early oughts. I stepped off when panel pages left three figures behind. I expect them to eventually end up right back there again.

I would Alan Davis to that list.

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On ‎7‎/‎22‎/‎2019 at 12:39 AM, oldwhy said:

As somebody who bought 2 early Alan Davis/Paul Neary Excalibur pages in the past couple of years I would say the fact that one person owned the overwhelming majority of the Davis Excalibur pages for years and when he decided to sell a lot of them the pent up demand and the fact that these pages may not be available for a long while are causing people to rush to get them (speaking for myself as well). If you don't get them now you could potentially miss out forever due to inflation of prices or lack of availability. At least that's what I think. 

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5 hours ago, vodou said:

Completely agree. PMS (and JRJr too) was the last of the pretty old school X-Men artists...followed by the too many lines crowd ;)

The appeal is pure nostalgia, at any four figure price level. Otherwise it's just attractive vintage X-Men art. Same with non-key JB, Cockrum 1st (and especially 2nd) run work. I was paying $150-$350 (high end only from Albert lol ) for 2nd run (and Sherman/McLeod/Sienkiewicz/Anderson too) anything ex-splashes/covers for many years 1990s-early oughts. I stepped off when panel pages left three figures behind. I expect them to eventually end up right back there again.

I must respectively disagree with the bold faced “attractive vintage X-men art”. Just looking at the page with no knowledge of what it is from and who did it, I would have guessed a sophomore high school art student’s work to avoid getting an incomplete.  The quality of the work just does not look that good in my opinion.  I was shocked when it clear $1k hence the needs to two pairs of depends to save my shorts.  It has to be like 99.99% nostalgia and 0.01% quality of the work.

Let the flaming begin! 

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1 hour ago, batman_fan said:

I must respectively disagree with the bold faced “attractive vintage X-men art”. Just looking at the page with no knowledge of what it is from and who did it, I would have guessed a sophomore high school art student’s work to avoid getting an incomplete.  The quality of the work just does not look that good in my opinion.  I was shocked when it clear $1k hence the needs to two pairs of depends to save my shorts.  It has to be like 99.99% nostalgia and 0.01% quality of the work.

Let the flaming begin! 

It's not just the art that makes these pieces attractive, it's also the story, and they fit well together, something I think has been lost in recent decades.

 

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1 minute ago, pinupcartooncollector said:

It's not just the art that makes these pieces attractive, it's also the story, and they fit well together, something I think has been lost in recent decades.

 

I would put that in the nostalgia category 

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1 minute ago, pinupcartooncollector said:

it's also the story, and they fit well together, something I think has been lost in recent decades.

Ah...the stories. But looking back from 35 years on...there's so many, and it's all just lost to the endlessness of corporate-owned characters.

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30 minutes ago, kbmcvay said:

I hope somebody named Chris bought that page...

If not, if he can afford $5K for the piece, he can afford a restorer to get rid of the dedication if it bugs him so much. :)

Malvin

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4 hours ago, batman_fan said:

I must respectively disagree with the bold faced “attractive vintage X-men art”. Just looking at the page with no knowledge of what it is from and who did it, I would have guessed a sophomore high school art student’s work to avoid getting an incomplete.  The quality of the work just does not look that good in my opinion.  I was shocked when it clear $1k hence the needs to two pairs of depends to save my shorts.  It has to be like 99.99% nostalgia and 0.01% quality of the work.

Let the flaming begin! 

I respectfully disagree with your respectful disagreement. I read Smith’s run well after publication in my mid twenties, not sure if that makes me prone to nostalgia.  I think his art is eccelent throughout and this page is a very strong page artistically, both from panel compositon and storytelling standpoint . The body language perfectly reflects the dialogue , the close up is lovely with great effect on Kitty’s hair (very distinctive of PMS’style) . And I find the last panel hauntingly beautiful even if it is only sketched .  Admittedly this is a case of less is more , so if you equate great art with lots of detail, well I agree this ain’t Perez or Art Adams, but I like it better.

I am a big X M fan, so I may be skewed, but  I also have read tons of comics and not all XM art appeals to me (2nd run Cockrum....ouch!). But Smith’s run is close third to Byrne and first Cockrum.  My 2 cents .....

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1 hour ago, Carlo M said:

I respectfully disagree with your respectful disagreement. I read Smith’s run well after publication in my mid twenties, not sure if that makes me prone to nostalgia.  I think his art is eccelent throughout and this page is a very strong page artistically, both from panel compositon and storytelling standpoint . The body language perfectly reflects the dialogue , the close up is lovely with great effect on Kitty’s hair (very distinctive of PMS’style) . And I find the last panel hauntingly beautiful even if it is only sketched .  Admittedly this is a case of less is more , so if you equate great art with lots of detail, well I agree this ain’t Perez or Art Adams, but I like it better.

I am a big X M fan, so I may be skewed, but  I also have read tons of comics and not all XM art appeals to me (2nd run Cockrum....ouch!). But Smith’s run is close third to Byrne and first Cockrum.  My 2 cents .....

If you like that page from an artistic and composition standpoint, then you would completely flip out if you looked at something done by John Buscema (thumbsu

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3 hours ago, kbmcvay said:

I hope somebody named Chris bought that page...

Whaddn't Me!

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2 hours ago, batman_fan said:

If you like that page from an artistic and composition standpoint, then you would completely flip out if you looked at something done by John Buscema (thumbsu

Also, you have to bear in mind that this is not an action page.  Not sure how Buscema would've conveyed the subtlety of the page any better.

 

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