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Noob observation
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39 posts in this topic

5 hours ago, exitmusicblue said:

And it helps to be extremely picky.  "Save your shot for the grails, unless something is very affordable and of great sentimental value" pretty much sums up my collecting approach.

I’m more omnivorous than that. There are no “grails” I want that are within the range I will spend for OA, so I enjoy what I find and search for more— which is half the fun.

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7 hours ago, exitmusicblue said:

And it helps to be extremely picky.  "Save your shot for the grails, unless something is very affordable and of great sentimental value" pretty much sums up my collecting approach.

If you are a new collector, you are probably not going to buy "grail pieces". To keep a hobby interesting, and in this case, as a collector, you are going to want to buy enough pieces to feel like a "collector". 

I have thought about this a lot (and not because of this post), but if I was starting over and didn't have tons of funds to spend, my course of action would be.

1) Sign up for Comic Art Fan and become a premium member at some point.

2) Research all the dealers that rep for new artist. Search everyone of their sites and make a list of "artist" that you like their style. Obviously, you would like to see that they draw characters or the themes that you are interested in.

3) If you see a page from an artist that you like, if it is not too expensive (a few hundreds or less), buy it. Get your feet wet with those artist.

4) Also, bid in auctions (Heritage, ComicLink, eBay, etc.) for pieces by those artist. Look at Heritage auction archives for past prices. Realize that a lot of new art does not sell at auctions yet (more on that in a minute).

5) After a while, you will be constantly looking for pieces by these artist when they first are available (CAF can send you emails daily when your specific artist have new art for sale).

6) Build a collection (10-30 pieces). At this stage, if you see a panel piece at $200 that you really like and another at $100 that you kind of like, buy the $200 piece. Make sure that you are buying pieces that you really like and don't sweat paying $50-100 more for the better piece (once again, more on this later).

7) At some point as you have built a nice collection, then gravitate to older art (could be 5 years old or 50 years old), that you really like, more in demand from other collectors and most likely more expensive. This is when you could start to buy grail pieces.

The reason I suggest this approach is:

* Unless you have a job that is going to give you $20k or more a year in disposable income for your hobby, you are going to need to buy some art cheaper and hope it increases in value over several years so you can take the profits and package that into more expensive art. Your ability to buy pieces for $100-300, and then hopefully sell / trade them for $200-600 in three or four years is a lot greater than you finding a $5,000 piece at an auction that you can sell for $10,000-$15,000 a few years later. Reason, way more bidders, way more smart collectors that would understand that the piece is a bargain and clearly there is already a lot of demand for that artist/piece. 

* My major regret is not the fact that I didn't buying more art 20 years ago (everyone, even successful collectors/dealer could regret that), but seeing art (or particular artist) that had newer pieces for sale just in the past few years at very reasonable prices that I didn't even know about. I should have known about them if I just had done my research. And what hurts worse, is it is very hard to buy these pieces from other collectors because the price might have gone up (maybe doubled or tripled) but in real dollars it's not enough "profit" for the person who bought it for $200 to want to sell for $400 or $500 (especially if it is a really nice piece).

* I said, that with newer art buy the best pieces (the one you like the best and don't worry so much about the extra cost). That true with older art, but the real truth is that while everyone would love to buy older covers and splash pages, the competition for these has made the prices very unaffordable. Most of the people buying these have either a lot of money (multimillionaires) and/or have been collecting so long that they really are playing with house money. By that I mean, they bought so much art 20-30 years ago that their collection is worth so much that even if they overspend on a piece they really want, they know they can sell a few pieces they bought a long time ago. They don't have to put fresh money into their acquisitions. 

These are my thoughts and I'm sure others have a different opinion. 

 

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 Thanks for this well-thought-out post. I see the merits of it and I’ll try to follow it. One of my complications is that I have so many other collecting interests that would starve if I solely feed my art habit. 

 The good news is that I’m pretty good at collecting things in general, meaning I tend to do a lot of research and stay patient so I don’t overspend on junk that I’ll regret. I know what you mean about how sometimes spending an extra $50 Can mean the difference between a good collectible and a great collectible, though an extra  $50 doesn’t go as far in art.  

It’s good advice to bone up on newer and emerging artists. My interest is not just solely Comic art, I like illustration art, which thankfully is cheaper, but your concepts still apply.

For what it’s worth, I do have at least a dozen convention sketches that would be considered “great” by today’s standards simply because I collected them more than 20 years ago. Unfortunately I don’t think I’ll ever sell those. I’ve started posting those on CAF.

 Thanks for the info. Gives me a lot to think about and refine my strategy. 

Steve

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Another Noob Question:   So, I was corresponding with somebody who mentioned  the concept of Art being “fresh to market“. I follow what that means, but generally what qualifies as fresh to market?  How long does Art need to stay out of circulation to qualify?

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8 hours ago, Westy Steve said:

Another Noob Question:   So, I was corresponding with somebody who mentioned  the concept of Art being “fresh to market“. I follow what that means, but generally what qualifies as fresh to market?  How long does Art need to stay out of circulation to qualify?

Maybe, forever. Some people here have phenomenal memories. 

Personally, I don't care if it is "fresh to market" or not. I am not buying fish. Adams won't stink with age.

The only thing the concept really means is that you get to perhaps figure out what the seller originally bought it for, and maybe lament you didn't buy it yourself when you could have.

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8 hours ago, Westy Steve said:

How long does Art need to stay out of circulation to qualify?

Assuming the art in question if of interest to me to begin with, my true definition is: something I've never seen before.

11 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

Maybe, forever. Some people here have phenomenal memories. 

My fallback is something I haven't seen in a very long time (at least fifteen years). I've been at this for nearly 30 years and I do have a very good and long memory. Something I haven't seen in the open market (including on CAF or a collector's personal site) since 2002 definitely excites me. Having never seen something at all, ever, that does excite me even more. But they're close - in both cases I have a unique chance to get something for the first time or make up for an error in bankroll or taste a second time!

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5 hours ago, vodou said:

Assuming the art in question if of interest to me to begin with, my true definition is: something I've never seen before.

My fallback is something I haven't seen in a very long time (at least fifteen years). I've been at this for nearly 30 years and I do have a very good and long memory. Something I haven't seen in the open market (including on CAF or a collector's personal site) since 2002 definitely excites me. Having never seen something at all, ever, that does excite me even more. But they're close - in both cases I have a unique chance to get something for the first time or make up for an error in bankroll or taste a second time!

Hmmm...an "error in bankroll".  And all this time I just thought I was poor! :)

Interesting perspectives...especially regarding outlasting the previous sales data. 

Personally, I'm in the camp that if it's cool and the price is right, I'm OK if it was just purchased a few weeks ago.

Steve

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8 minutes ago, Westy Steve said:

Personally, I'm in the camp that if it's cool and the price is right, I'm OK if it was just purchased a few weeks ago.

Likewise, but we wouldn't call that re-offer "fresh to market" would we? I wouldn't.

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Somewhat going along with this line of comments, I have one more "guide" in buying art.

It seems to me that every now and then, a large amount of work, usually by one artist becomes available. Since maybe every Heritage Auction or dealer website will have a lot of this art (I am not talking new art just created), it seems like there is an over supply at the time. If this is an artist that you really like (or even somewhat interested in), buy now the best pieces even though it will seem like there will be time to buy later (e.g. maybe a better piece will be offered in the next auction). Obviously this happens when an estate sells the art, but also when a large collector sells.

At some point, all the art will be in many different collector's hands, the value will probably not increase for awhile (since there was a large supply dumped on the market) and what really happens is that very little of that art will come back to the market anytime soon. It's almost like a complete story is being broken up and there are 20-30 pages offered over a few months. If you really want a page, buy now.

 

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1 hour ago, sfilosa said:

Somewhat going along with this line of comments, I have one more "guide" in buying art.

It seems to me that every now and then, a large amount of work, usually by one artist becomes available. Since maybe every Heritage Auction or dealer website will have a lot of this art (I am not talking new art just created), it seems like there is an over supply at the time. If this is an artist that you really like (or even somewhat interested in), buy now the best pieces even though it will seem like there will be time to buy later (e.g. maybe a better piece will be offered in the next auction). Obviously this happens when an estate sells the art, but also when a large collector sells.

At some point, all the art will be in many different collector's hands, the value will probably not increase for awhile (since there was a large supply dumped on the market) and what really happens is that very little of that art will come back to the market anytime soon. It's almost like a complete story is being broken up and there are 20-30 pages offered over a few months. If you really want a page, buy now.

 

Same with subject matters. Lately, there have been runs of commissions involving Batman sitting on stone gargoyles (which I confess are cool), weird commissions involving Wonder Woman (not just the usual run of soft porn), and that other Phantom guy, the one in the purple skintights. 

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Since I'm asking all these questions, what can you tell me about a "glut" of art that hits the market.

Yes, I know the size of the glut and the demand of the art can make the time vary widely on how fast a glut of art gets absorbed.

But what's the fastest, slowest, or most interesting glut or horde you're seen that rattled the market?

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1 hour ago, Westy Steve said:

But what's the fastest, slowest, or most interesting glut or horde you're seen that rattled the market?

Only heard about secondhand, but reliable source, the Iger Shop stacks sold (iirc) by the foot in the early 1970s.

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Look at Heritage Auction archives and type in Murphy Anderson. I don't know the story but sort by recent sales and over 600 pieces that he worked on have been sold since mid February 2019. Before that, there were sales but more like three or four a month, not thirty or forty a month.

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4 hours ago, sfilosa said:

Look at Heritage Auction archives and type in Murphy Anderson. I don't know the story but sort by recent sales and over 600 pieces that he worked on have been sold since mid February 2019. Before that, there were sales but more like three or four a month, not thirty or forty a month.

Interesting.  I went further with this and looked him up on CAF.  Something I noticed is that the ratio of dealer items to the for sale by owner classifieds is a ratio of 20:1.  That seemed awfully high to me...so many dealers selling relative to private sales, so I looked at other artists and figured out that a typical average ratio range might be 2:1 to 8:1.

 

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Also a lot of Michael Kaluta art has just hit the market. Once again, look at Heritage. I think that Michael released this himself (with a lot going to Graphic Collectibles).

Just to point out, this isn't like a rep artist that publishes something new and then releases it. These are pieces that are 10 or more years old, just released to the public. Once again, if you like any of this stuff, buy now when you have options. Five years from now, all the good pieces would be gone into collectors hands.

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13 hours ago, sfilosa said:

Also a lot of Michael Kaluta art has just hit the market. Once again, look at Heritage. I think that Michael released this himself (with a lot going to Graphic Collectibles).

Just to point out, this isn't like a rep artist that publishes something new and then releases it. These are pieces that are 10 or more years old, just released to the public. Once again, if you like any of this stuff, buy now when you have options. Five years from now, all the good pieces would be gone into collectors hands.

I had noticed that. For the most part, they were/are relatively low level pieces selling for low level prices  (like Madam Xanadu).

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