Peter L Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 2 hours ago, Brian Peck said: $78K Hammer NYX #3 cover with X-23 I thought it was crazy price last time it was in Heritage. 2 hours ago, malvin said: agreed, that is insane, there are aspects of our hobby I don't understand.. Malvin Of all the pieces in this auction, this is the one I got the most questions about in private messages through CAF. It looked like it had some of the most followers of any item before the auction so the interest was there, even if money at the top of the bidding wasn't yet there. I think it is like some previous posters mentioned on how it is a little early for the fans of X-23 having enough money to make a big bid on this, but as that generation of fans starts to make money, it could make sense. Then again people like what they like. I'm surprised the Superman/Spider-man went for what I considered below what I thought it would have been worth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluechip Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 (edited) On 7/9/2020 at 12:43 PM, jjonahjameson11 said: Interesting...they changed the description. Was: Romita layouts, finishes by Heck, and inks by Esposito, so I totally ignored it. now I see that it was corrected at a later date, listing Romita Sr as the sole artist. Very frustrating cause had I known, I would have bid I looked at the same original description and said "It's wrong. Just wrong." But -- I was concerned that if the conventional wisdom was wrong when I bought it, then it might stay wrong as long as I owned it and not be corrected until after I'd resold it (whenever that might be), when some new owner got it corrected. I don't follow art nearly as close as others do, so I am surprised when I see things listed at auction with crucial information missing or incorrect. Several silver age spidey pieces, which I tend to follow more than others, have shown up and sold for less than I would have bid had I known information that was not in the original listing. Like the ASM 97 listing which doesn't mention that all the stats have drawings underneath them, not just the one area that has an obvious stat over art. I find it odd that someone would own something like that and never investigate, leaving it for a wily dealer to discover. Edited July 11, 2020 by bluechip romitaman 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unstoppablejayd Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 1 hour ago, jjonahjameson11 said: Interesting...they changed the description. Was: Romita layouts, finishes by Heck, and inks by Esposito, so I totally ignored it. now I see that it was corrected at a later date, listing Romita Sr as the sole artist. Very frustrating cause had I known, I would have bid They announced it when it went up for bid.. but if I was the seller I would be livid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delekkerste Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 1 hour ago, bluechip said: Like the ASM 97 listing which doesn't mention that all the stats have drawings underneath them, not just the one area that has an obvious stat over art. I find it odd that someone would own something like that and never investigate, leaving it for a wily dealer to discover. Yeah, I would have bid well beyond the pittance that unpublished cover hammered for had I known that there was a full Spidey figure underneath the stat. Two things that I have learned over the years: (1) Don't dismiss a piece because of condition issues/damage that can potentially be fixed (the near-complete G.I. Joe #2 story would be mine today had I realized that the "aggressive mold" could have been removed/treated) and (2) Don't dismiss a piece because of a stat paste-over without checking if there might be art underneath romitaman, bluechip and zhamlau 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malvin Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 50 minutes ago, Unstoppablejayd said: They announced it when it went up for bid.. but if I was the seller I would be livid I wonder though, what the consignor tell HA when he consigned it? and did he look at the description and tell them to change? I get that to some high rollers, a page like that is like a $100 page to me, but I always bug comiclink to tweak the descriptions of my $100 pages :P Malvin John E. and Catwoman_Fan 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjonahjameson11 Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 8 minutes ago, malvin said: I wonder though, what the consignor tell HA when he consigned it? and did he look at the description and tell them to change? I get that to some high rollers, a page like that is like a $100 page to me, but I always bug comiclink to tweak the descriptions of my $100 pages :P Malvin In this instance, it cost the consigner of the MT 44 cover at least one bid (mine) above the hammer price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
batman_fan Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 5 hours ago, jjonahjameson11 said: Kirby Strange Tales 101 pages = $96K Kirby xmen 4 Splash = 132K Kirby FF 95 cover = 114K That two page Strange Tales 101 piece was simply spectacular. Origin retold, Thing transformation, etc. I think who ever bought it did quite well on the price. The Marvel Tales 44 cover was higher than I thought by quite a bit. Bronty 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exitmusicblue Posted July 10, 2020 Share Posted July 10, 2020 8 hours ago, cstojano said: Now at 37k. The Fire and Ice piece, which has passed around several times, already at 16k. Nude woman sketch at 25k. Insane All hail the Maestro... As for the NYX 3 cover. Surprising even if it didn't lead to net profit. I like what this signifies with respect to certain Modern OA having legs. That was a 2004 comic debut. Years since the admittedly badass movie, no concrete sequel plans. Middleton is skilled but had a career change (has since returned) and not quite one of the standard bearers of the current/next generation. So it's really about the character. Many characters have clones/kids/clones of clones of clones. Some rise above the rest -- Miles and Spider-Gwen also come to mind along with X-23. Shepherd 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grapeape Posted July 10, 2020 Share Posted July 10, 2020 The best value buy with foreseeable $ value growth was the ASM Treasury back cover with Spidey and Superman and maybe that FF 95 cover. I think? Who knows??? The hammer on the KJ page was stupefying. This hobby is electrifying and so rewarding. Or is it maddening?? Twanj 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delekkerste Posted July 10, 2020 Share Posted July 10, 2020 7 hours ago, grapeape said: The best value buy with foreseeable $ value growth was the ASM Treasury back cover with Spidey and Superman and maybe that FF 95 cover. I think? Who knows??? The hammer on the KJ page was stupefying. This hobby is electrifying and so rewarding. Or is it maddening?? Barely anything surprises me anymore. We are living in at a time when asset prices across most classes have become totally unhinged from reality. I mean, a Mike Trout baseball card hit $900K+ recently, and a LeBron James basketball card currently at auction is already over $1 million. Tech stocks routinely add billions and tens of billions of dollars of market cap in a single day these days on nothing. It's like 1999-2000 on steroids, except the numbers are an order of magnitude higher, the money is cheaper and more debased, and the markets are the most manipulated in history. Did I expect the Killing Joke page to hit $156K? No; I thought it would top out around $125K. That said, I'm not shocked at the price - the more I looked at the page, the more I liked it. If I had to have a page from the book, this one would have fit the bill - no Joker, but, it's moody and cinematic, excellent sequential storytelling even without any dialogue. And, any serious buyer would have to budget about $125K for a good-but-not-great page these days...I can see two people stretching another 20-25% to nab it. As for the price, of course it's high, but, in a hot market like we have, I guess we should expect things to be hitting new highs and not be tied down to recent comps. As I told some friends right after it hammered, I'd rather have the KJ page than 406 shares of Apple stock (worth $156K at the time). The world is so insane now that I actually think the former is a better buy than the latter (which, to be fair, is nowhere close to being the worst offender in terms of overvaluation). grapeape, exitmusicblue, zhamlau and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delekkerste Posted July 10, 2020 Share Posted July 10, 2020 As for the FF #95 cover, it went from $95.5K in 2013 to $114K yesterday...a 2.6% annualized rate of return (it did change hands in-between, presumably at a higher price than the purchase price). People only tend to look at the strongest Kirby sales; the reality is that we have seen mean reversion in Kirby OA price appreciation for a long time. The 2nd derivative of price (rate of change of the rate of change) inflected downward more than 5 years ago. Prices have not been falling, but, they are not appreciating anywhere nearly as fast as they did in the 2000s and first half of the 2010s. And the reason for that is obvious - prime Kirby art already became among the most expensive art in the hobby during this time as it was considered the gold standard (along with Ditko and Romita Spidey and a few others) for collectors of a certain age, almost all of whom are in their 50s now or older. Obviously the hottest art in the market these days is from 1986-1996 or thereabouts (where many of the most active under-50 collectors are buying), and has been for a while, as generational tastes have changed. I was pretty surprised at the FF 95 result. I was expecting $125K at a minimum. But, this is not the first time a Kirby FF cover has flopped - that twice up cover (#70) sold last year at Heritage for only $156K. Not one of the better covers, but, no one expected a twice-up Kirby/Sinnott FF cover to sell for that low. To be sure, a great Kirby cover will still fetch great prices (like that twice-up Cap cover from last year), but, the disappointing result for the FF #95 cover on top of the #70 flop last year suggests to me that the Kirby market is becoming more selective and hit and miss than it used to be with generational tastes changing. Again, Kirby art is not going down in value, but, the mean reversion and inflection in the growth rate I think is now settled science, something that has quietly been happening for at least 5 years now. ThothAmon, grapeape, cloud cloddie and 1 other 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter G Posted July 10, 2020 Author Share Posted July 10, 2020 The FF 95 cover is pretty but its late in the run. Also, not to sidetrack into a political discussion but I do wonder if a team of white people will age well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delekkerste Posted July 10, 2020 Share Posted July 10, 2020 36 minutes ago, Peter G said: The FF 95 cover is pretty but its late in the run. I'd be very surprised if that was a significant factor. I've never heard anyone complaining of a diminishing of artistic quality towards the end of the run. The stories may be less memorable, but, you could make the same argument for probably the previous two to 2 1/2 years of stories as well vs. what came before. I think it's a very well drawn cover with all 4 members prominently featured (none of them with their back turned either). I think $114K qualifies as a very good deal for it in this market, especially compared to $95.5K in 2013. I'm not a big fan of the #70 cover, but, $156K for it less than a year ago also qualifies as a good deal IMO. The Strange Tales story was fresher and fared better compared to the X-Men #4 splash and FF #95 cover. Twanj 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unstoppablejayd Posted July 10, 2020 Share Posted July 10, 2020 32 minutes ago, delekkerste said: The Strange Tales story was fresher and fared better compared to the X-Men #4 splash and FF #95 cover. I was really surprised how low the X-men 4 splash went .. I expected at least 150/175- it is Kirby x-men.. he only did 10 issues of full pencils and I think 2 or 3 of them are not sure to exist. It is a great full team image, of a very key issue and i believe the only page from that book to turn up. If I played at those levels I would have been all over it. Do you think this is one that will turn up on a different dealer sight? Twanj 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delekkerste Posted July 10, 2020 Share Posted July 10, 2020 19 minutes ago, Unstoppablejayd said: I was really surprised how low the X-men 4 splash went .. I expected at least 150/175- it is Kirby x-men.. he only did 10 issues of full pencils and I think 2 or 3 of them are not sure to exist. It is a great full team image, of a very key issue and i believe the only page from that book to turn up. If I played at those levels I would have been all over it. Do you think this is one that will turn up on a different dealer site? Entirely possible that it turns up on a different dealer site. I mean a lot of people like myself thought this one would have sold in the $150-$175K range nowadays if Anthony was willing to drop it back to that range (from the $225K asking price). A dealer who allows for trade and time payments could conceivably make a nice 5-figure/multiple 5-figure flip on this one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unstoppablejayd Posted July 10, 2020 Share Posted July 10, 2020 13 minutes ago, delekkerste said: Entirely possible that it turns up on a different dealer site. I mean a lot of people like myself thought this one would have sold in the $150-$175K range nowadays if Anthony was willing to drop it back to that range (from the $225K asking price). A dealer who allows for trade and time payments could conceivably make a nice 5-figure/multiple 5-figure flip on this one. That is what I am thinking.. Anthony offered it to me earlier in the year for 165k , Obviously not something I can swing but interested to see where it turns up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glendgold Posted July 10, 2020 Share Posted July 10, 2020 1 hour ago, delekkerste said: I'd be very surprised if that was a significant factor. I've never heard anyone complaining of a diminishing of artistic quality towards the end of the run. The stories may be less memorable, but, you could make the same argument for probably the previous two to 2 1/2 years of stories as well vs. what came before. I think it's a very well drawn cover with all 4 members prominently featured (none of them with their back turned either). I think $114K qualifies as a very good deal for it in this market, especially compared to $95.5K in 2013. I'm not a big fan of the #70 cover, but, $156K for it less than a year ago also qualifies as a good deal IMO. The Strange Tales story was fresher and fared better compared to the X-Men #4 splash and FF #95 cover. Yeah, Kirby prices were soft for the most part. I hear what you're saying, Gene, but in my case at least I'm not bidding on things because I've seen them before, and at these prices ya kinda want the best possible example. That's not always what's showing up. I think that FF 95 cover has been owned by a couple of heavy hitters already, so they were out of the bidding, and the other folks with that kind of coin had seen it before, so... I really dug the ST 101 pages. They went around where I thought they would. Bronty, John E. and Twanj 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cstojano Posted July 10, 2020 Share Posted July 10, 2020 (edited) Frazetta's on fire. The Fire and Ice, if I had to speculate, the rumored live action movie may be driving some of this (although those rumors are years old now). 65k hammer on that piece is insanity to me. Sold for 8900 in 2015. Edited July 10, 2020 by cstojano Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjonahjameson11 Posted July 10, 2020 Share Posted July 10, 2020 Buscema Conan splash = 31K Cockrum Xmen 100 page = $23K Cooke Batman/Spirit cover = 8.4K, which is interesting considering it has a $12.5K bid on Clink comic art exchange Cowan ASM 266 cover = $16K Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exitmusicblue Posted July 10, 2020 Share Posted July 10, 2020 12 minutes ago, cstojano said: Frazetta's on fire. The Fire and Ice, if I had to speculate, the rumored live action movie may be driving some of this (although those rumors are years old now). 65k hammer on that piece is insanity to me. Sold for 8900 in 2015. Actually a 78k hammer! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
