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Spencer Beck Byrne rt
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43 posts in this topic

11 hours ago, vodou said:

Sometimes your assumptions of the future based on the present can turn out to be overly conservative.

Terry's repeated comment from nearly 40 years ago was based on his assumptions of what retirement could look like, he probably ended up doing a lot better than he expected. If nothing else, "rates" have only gone lower and lower from high double digits -ever since he made that comment! At the time though, who would have thought that? Or that anybody would ever see "retail ZIRP" (zero interest rate policy) or $17T and counting of negative yield bonds globally?! That's just one thing that's dramatically changed course from assumed trajectory 40ish years ago. Maybe he had a few bucks in the stock market too, and just held, not trading himself out of eventual gains? The Dow in 81/82 was under 1,000 lol so that's looking okay too nearly 40 years later. Terry's house (assuming he has one and owns it)...probably worth a lot more than he paid if he bought it more than fifteen years ago. There's just so many ways some people have done much better than trends would have lead one to believe from the late 70s and early 80s pov.

For many years I too saw my collection expanding in size/quality and value such that it became: my retirement assumption. Then other things worked out much, much better than I expected and instead the collection is "just another asset" to be kept or sold (or buried with) at my leisure/pleasure. If you don't need to sell, don't want to sell, and still like (love!) the stuff, why sell?

I do think Terry is wrong re: reproduction diminishing the value of the originals though. At today's levels, nobody with the kind of scratch needed to take down a beloved Byrne/Austin original will be settling for a nice photocopy. Those $150 books are for everybody else. And perhaps aspirational filler for those still building up their war chest.

Awesome post.  It's funny all the things that have changed since that era.  From a CDN perspective, the average mortgage rate in that 1980-82 window was ~20%.  (Can you imagine how the world would look today if that was still true globally?!?).  If one had bought nothing but strips bonds - literally take all available funds and bought strips - you'd have been retired 20 years ago.

I think we all go through those moments - selling the Hulk #181 would cover  really nice trip to Europe...but if I hold on to it for 5 more years...maybe it's a really nice trip to Australia.  I always bought the stuff for fun - the fact that some of it is worth money now is just a nice perk.  (bc yeah, the Dow has certainly done much better over time and none of my art sends me a quarterly dividend cheque!)

The other thing likely not considered at that time - how the royalty contracts from those X-Men books made insane money for the creators.  I know Claremont at one point owned a plane; Byrne - who would've been in royalty gold for all X-Men, all the FF, and (even though DC's deals weren't as good) Superman - lives like Howard Hughes today - the cooky recluse in his mansion LOL.  Have to assume Austin reaped some nice benefits as well.  Today's comics don't sell enough copies to make it worthwhile for the big name creators of yesteryear and you know those guys did that book like a regular job - never dreaming they'd create the lightning in a bottle they did.  All 3 did good work before and did, in many cases, great work after, their X-Men run.  But it was the greatest synergy of 3 guys ever.  It got better - every month.  They got better - every month.  Still beautiful to re-read from start to finish today.

And I should've been clearer in my first post - I do wish Terry shared that art with IDW - I'd buy that book in a heartbeat  Would love an original but I know I'll never spend the money on it - made the same choice around getting a Neal Adams cover about a decade ago - could do, but won't.  Not envious of the folks that make that choice - heck, pleased they do!  But I won't.

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On 12/3/2019 at 12:34 PM, mxs7 said:

I personally knew a guy back in the 1980s Austin used to sell originals to on occasion, and I seriously doubt he was the only one. While it's true Austin hung onto a lot of the art he inked, he did sell some, including some of his best panel pages and at least one X-Men cover.

Mike

I bought a number of pages directly from Terry way back when and we exchanged letters often.  I'm sure I still have some letters from him with pages/prices on them.   He was kind enough to put me on his x-mas card list and those were always a nice little treat.

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On 12/3/2019 at 7:17 PM, roach04 said:

 

And I should've been clearer in my first post - I do wish Terry shared that art with IDW - I'd buy that book in a heartbeat  

FWIW: The book is fantastic (ballpark 150 pages) and worth buying even without Terry's contribution 

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