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Show off your favorite Prelims
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87 posts in this topic

On 8/23/2019 at 4:06 AM, Bronty said:

That’s finished unpublished art not a prelim... point of order!  

(And how cool is that piece, never gets old!)

You are correct.  There are many distinctions within the two.  Sometimes you have a prelim and sometimes you have a partially completed piece that was than changed a little.   So it's an incomplete unpublished.   And then there is the complete unpublished piece.   But usually those are images which have been completely revised.  The AF15 is essentially the same image concept simply redone by another artist for stylistic reasons.  Of all the covers for first appearances, the AF 15 cover uniquely features a stylistic rendering of the main character which seems timeless meaning it could have been drawn at any point in his publication history, whereas the unpublished version very clearly is the spidey that existed only at the very beginning of his run.  Even Ditko himself would have drawn him different at another point in his tenure.  

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The recent Comiclink auction had a Brian Bolland Killing Joke prelim page that sold for $2500 which got me to thinking what's the most expensive prelim art sold? I love prelim art and have quite a few pieces by various artists and one of the things I like is that its usually a very affordable way to get something from an artist that may otherwise be out of reach.

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Prelims in mtg art, game art etc often go for more than comic prelims often do because there is just one actual final illustration (if that) per piece.   So you don’t have a cover and 22 pages before getting down to the prelims.   There’s just the one illustration and then maybe a prelim or two and that’s if you’re lucky and if it exists in the first place. 

I’ve sold some above five figures as a result which is pretty rare for comic prelims I think despite comics being bigger and more established. 

Edited by Bronty
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1 hour ago, Bronty said:

Prelims in mtg art, game art etc often go for more than comic prelims often do because there is just one actual final illustration (if that) per piece.   So you don’t have a cover and 22 pages before getting down to the prelims.   There’s just the one illustration and then maybe a prelim or two and that’s if you’re lucky and if it exists in the first place. 

I’ve sold some above five figures as a result which is pretty rare for comic prelims I think despite comics being bigger and more established. 

I think he means comic prelimas not any/all art categories. Any Picasso prelim for a significant work trumps everything we talk about here, all day every day. Hell...it's not hard to pay $100-$250k for a Picasso pencil drawing (prelim for nothing, just a drawing) at any ol' Sotheby's or Christie's Day Sale. But this isn't what he wants to talk about either, just comic art.

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Yeah fair enough.   I’m just making the related point since the question was asked about what comic prelim would be the record that it’s an interesting thought (anyone know the answer? ) but is probably a pretty small quantum .   There’s so many pieces to a given comic book that comic prelims are usually going to be your 24th and up best options for a given comic .

i remember the gsx1 cover prelim going for what 7k some years ago?   Even though I’m sure it would go higher now, thats  not a big number.  

Edited by Bronty
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2 minutes ago, Bronty said:

Yeah fair enough.   I’m just making the related point since the question was asked about what comic prelim would be the record that it’s an interesting thought (anyone know the answer? ) but is probably a pretty small quantum 

And I wasn't really busting on you, per se, but just reminding everyone of the insularity of this Board. Few type comic art every time they post but that is the given, as much as some of us collect much more wide and deep. Likewise, it's US mostly, not European and Japanese...but of course some Tezuka is out there and likely has put up numbers that would make most here just pass out on the spot ;)

I've bought my fair share of 'em and the most I've paid is $500/ea for two very nice sweet spot Uncanny X-Men covers. Even then I knew "too much" but if you want to pry something loose from a collection that's what it usually takes. They're worth more now, but I can't imagine over $2k per. Are there any regular ol' American comic book prelims, covers or interiors, that would hit/exceed $10k? I can't think of any off the top of my head.

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I’m no authority on this bu I suspect that the gsx 1 cover prelim would be over 10k now, the hulk 181 for sure if one exists, any significant frazetta prelims etc etc.   There would be a few candidates but only top level sruff

Edited by Bronty
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19 minutes ago, mtlevy1 said:

In my experience, tight prelims are generally 5-10% of the final piece so a $10K prelim would need to be for a $100 - 200k piece of art

I have a couple which I wouldn't take that percentage for, and there are many iconic pieces for which I would happily a much higher percentage for prelims, if they were to become available.     

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30 minutes ago, mtlevy1 said:

In my experience, tight prelims are generally 5-10% of the final piece so a $10K prelim would need to be for a $100 - 200k piece of art

Though you are generally correct, I have at least a couple I wouldn't take that percentage for, and there are many pieces for which I would happily pay a much higher percentage for prelims, if they were to become available.     

Edited by bluechip
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Yeah and it’s nit just the percentage, the absolute value comes into it as well.    I think the higher the value of the finished piece then generally the more drag on the percentage.   Simply put I believe there’s a ceiling to what people want to pay for a comic art prelim because there are so many substitutes (finished pages, other issues etc).   

As an example the GSX1 cover was I’m sure worth at least 500k when the prelim went for 7.   That’s 1.4% only. 

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35 minutes ago, Bronty said:

Yeah and it’s nit just the percentage, the absolute value comes into it as well.    I think the higher the value of the finished piece then generally the more drag on the percentage.   Simply put I believe there’s a ceiling to what people want to pay for a comic art prelim because there are so many substitutes (finished pages, other issues etc).   

As an example the GSX1 cover was I’m sure worth at least 500k when the prelim went for 7.   That’s 1.4% only. 

Exceptions that prove the rule...

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41 minutes ago, Bronty said:

Yeah and it’s nit just the percentage, the absolute value comes into it as well.    I think the higher the value of the finished piece then generally the more drag on the percentage.   Simply put I believe there’s a ceiling to what people want to pay for a comic art prelim because there are so many substitutes (finished pages, other issues etc).   

As an example the GSX1 cover was I’m sure worth at least 500k when the prelim went for 7.   That’s 1.4% only. 

If that's true and you' ve got Kirby's FF cover prelims I will be happy to pay 2.8% so you will double your money on all of them.

Obviously not expecting you to have any or that you would sell them at that price if you did, and that's sorta the point. 

Kane is a great example to use if you want to make a case that prelims should be cheap because 1) he did prelims for just about everything, so they are exceeding common and 2) because his prelims are exceedingly rough compared to other artists and they are often ugly compared to the finished piece.  Nonetheless, I bid on some of his ASM 121 prelims when they came up for sale because of their place in comics lore, but was hugely outbid each time.  So, though I place more value on prelims than you would, somebody placed much more value on those than I did.

I would be happy if your 1.4 rule was widely accepted, and if all other artists did prelims as commonly as Kane.  If so, I would have a huge number of key cover prelims in my collection,.

 

 

 

 

Edited by bluechip
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2 minutes ago, bluechip said:

If that's true and you' ve got Kirby's FF cover prelims I will be happy to pay 2.8% so you will double your money on all of them.

Obviously not expecting you to have any or that you would sell them at that price if you did, and that's sorta the point.

Kane is a great example to use if you want to make a case that prelims should be cheap because 1) he did prelims for just about everything, so they are exceeding common and 2) because his prelims are exceedingly rough compared to other artists and they are often ugly compared to the finished piece.  Nonetheless, I bid on some of his ASM 121 prelims when they came up for sale because of their place in comics lore, but was hugely outbid each time.  So, though I place more value on prelims than you would, somebody placed much more value on those than I did.

 

I was going to make that point on Kane as well - his prelims are not tight like Bolland or some others

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34 minutes ago, mtlevy1 said:

I was going to make that point on Kane as well - his prelims are not tight like Bolland or some others

I do find some of his "unused covers" or "rejected covers" appealing.  The ASM 97 is one I wished I'd bid higher for and while I would not value the unused ASM 97 more than the published cover (which is itself a classic), I would prefer it (aesthetically and historically, anyway) more than I would having many other Kane Spider-man covers in their published form. 

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