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Batman 251 Cover
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132 posts in this topic

3 hours ago, Bronty said:

Obviously I don't know Neal to be able to say, but from 1000 miles away that would be my guess as well with the exception that any art returned to him he would have sold for a three figure amount in the 1970s through Mitch or whomever.     There'd be no goldmine.

I sold a lot of covers for Neal back in the mid 70s, but Batman #251 was not one of them. There were covers and interiors that were stolen from the engravers back in the day. They never made it back to DC.

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1 minute ago, BCarter27 said:

Then again, a lot of that stuff sold off the Gorblimey site! Not much left up there when I went back to it later.

There's also the issue of two parties binding third parties without their consent. Not cool either. BWS backed down from this thing, to a greater or lesser extent, I'm not sure of details but I bet some BWS fans around here do know.

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Just now, artdealer said:

I sold a lot of covers for Neal back in the mid 70s, but Batman #251 was not one of them. There were covers and interiors that were stolen from the engravers back in the day. They never made it back to DC.

Well that's a different story then, but the whole police report thing not happening does come into play too. All ancient history now, just like the mess with Kirby art but that doesn't make it right either.

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3 minutes ago, BCarter27 said:

No artist has ever forced a speculator to buy his art for resale later on. The risk lies with the buyer.

Correct. The buyer takes 100% of the risk, thus is due 100% of the reward -positive or negative.

Not to mention the artist has already been paid once in many cases!

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1 minute ago, vodou said:

Well that's a different story then, but the whole police report thing not happening does come into play too. All ancient history now, just like the mess with Kirby art but that doesn't make it right either.

13 or so years ago, I spoke to Neal about the Police report. This was when Neal was on a rampage to get all his art back, and everything was stolen.
Neal and I had a sit down at his studio in NYC and discussed the specifics of the Police Report. Neal said he did file one, but it was a blanket report. No specific pages were listed.
I told him unless specific pages were listed, there was nothing legally he could do to get back the art.

I also had to remind him just how much of his art Tony Dispoto and I sold for him back in the 70s.

Now, back in November of 1981, at the NYC Creation Con, Neal had asked if he could trade for Giordano's share of GL/GA #86, Batman #255 and the Superman/Mohammed Ali book.
So in December of 1981, after the trade, Neal had the complete books for the Batman and GL stories. I had sold several of the Superman/Ali pages previously.

When I had the sit down with Neal, I reminded him of the trade. Neal said he no longer had the complete books. So obviously someone had taken art over the 20+ years he had the art. But he never filed a Police report for those pages.

Once I told Neal how much of his art Tony and I sold back in the 70s, he backed down from his rampage.

MI

 

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5 minutes ago, vodou said:

100%

For me personally, I would have no problem cutting Neal Adams a check for 10% on this piece I likely bought for the then exorbitant price of what...? $3K? 5K? Mitch, what were Adams Batman covers selling for back in the late 70s? Whether the Bat 251 cover sells for $250K-$1M, it's all pretty much found money, percentage-wise. He made the thing.

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Just now, artdealer said:

13 or so years ago, I spoke to Neal about the Police report. This was when Neal was on a rampage to get all his art back, and everything was stolen.
Neal and I had a sit down at his studio in NYC and discussed the specifics of the Police Report. Neal said he did file one, but it was a blanket report. No specific pages were listed.
I told him unless specific pages were listed, there was nothing legally he could do to get back the art.

I also had to remind him just how much of his art Tony Dispoto and I sold for him back in the 70s.

Now, back in November of 1981, at the NYC Creation Con, Neal had asked if he could trade for Giordano's share of GL/GA #86, Batman #255 and the Superman/Mohammed Ali book.
So in December of 1981, after the trade, Neal had the complete books for the Batman and GL stories. I had sold several of the Superman/Ali pages previously.

When I had the sit down with Neal, I reminded him of the trade. Neal said he no longer had the complete books. So obviously someone had taken art over the 20+ years he had the art. But he never filed a Police report for those pages.

Once I told Neal how much of his art Tony and I sold back in the 70s, he backed down from his rampage.

MI

 

Ya know, we all know, bad stuff did happen and folks got away with it. Plain and simple. But there is a way to deal with this, it's not new law and you either figure it out for yourself or you get an attorney to help. What you don't do is let the statute of limitations expire and then expect everyone else to toe the line anyway. Supposedly, this whole body of law thing has been crafted to not favor any one party over the other but instead try to be fair to all parties. But you do have to do your part. Or suck wind. I think we've all been on that end of it at times too, at least I sure have (to the tune of mid six figures myself -no bs). And you move on and don't make the same mistake twice.

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2 minutes ago, BCarter27 said:

For me personally, I would have no problem cutting Neal Adams a check for 10% on this piece I likely bought for the then exorbitant price of what...? $3K? 5K? Mitch, what were Adams Batman covers selling for back in the late 70s? Whether the Bat 251 cover sells for $250K-$1M, it's all pretty much found money, percentage-wise. He made the thing.

Batman/Detective covers were selling for $250.

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Just now, vodou said:

and the minimum wage in NY at the times was...? That's relevant too. $250...Neal was raking it in for something he'd already been paid by DC for.

Somebody should have told Neal to buy Apple and MS stock with all those $250s in the early 80s...and then just wait. Worth way more even than 10% of cover gains today.

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8 minutes ago, BCarter27 said:

Cut it out, Steve Ditko! :baiting:

Not that I think it matters one jot for this discussion, but was Bat 251 before or after DC was giving the art back?

I think it was before but not certain, returns began 74-75 at DC right?

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On 9/7/2019 at 7:07 PM, dirtymartini1 said:

 

Neal Adams was doing a live Q&A on FB tonight from a comic book store. I asked his thoughts on the final hammer price of his iconic cover to Batman 251. He responded that he was still in talks w the seller to verify that it was real and the actual OA cover. Until then he couldn't actually say. Ill leave it right there. 

Here is the link. I believe it was around the 42 min mark. 

 

Thank you for posting this video. Turned out to spark some interesting thoughts.

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1 hour ago, artdealer said:

13 or so years ago, I spoke to Neal about the Police report. This was when Neal was on a rampage to get all his art back, and everything was stolen.
Neal and I had a sit down at his studio in NYC and discussed the specifics of the Police Report. Neal said he did file one, but it was a blanket report. No specific pages were listed.
I told him unless specific pages were listed, there was nothing legally he could do to get back the art.

I also had to remind him just how much of his art Tony Dispoto and I sold for him back in the 70s.

Now, back in November of 1981, at the NYC Creation Con, Neal had asked if he could trade for Giordano's share of GL/GA #86, Batman #255 and the Superman/Mohammed Ali book.
So in December of 1981, after the trade, Neal had the complete books for the Batman and GL stories. I had sold several of the Superman/Ali pages previously.

When I had the sit down with Neal, I reminded him of the trade. Neal said he no longer had the complete books. So obviously someone had taken art over the 20+ years he had the art. But he never filed a Police report for those pages.

Once I told Neal how much of his art Tony and I sold back in the 70s, he backed down from his rampage.

MI

 

I know this isn't the point of your story, but I've often wondered why I had never seen a single page (or the cover) for GL/GA 86 offered anywhere or anytime.  Same thing goes for the Batman 255 interiors (the cover is out there and I was offered it years ago).  You're saying he now no longer has those stories post '81 trade?

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@Michael BrowningWhy the sad face? You would disagree with me forwarding a cut of a MASSIVE windfall back to the creator? Why? In this hypothetical, it's not like I bought it at FMV 15 years ago when prices were closer to maturation and therefore the risk was significantly greater.

If this is one of the covers that was sold as stolen property, I'd work with Neal on splitting the net in some fair fashion regardless of his legal recourse.

And I think it deserves to be said once again that this is Neal Adams we're talking about... The guy who saved Siegel and Shuster from the poor house.

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