John Buscema Family Owned art eBay sale final $83,100 ??? 1 1

[grapeape]

John Buscema’s maternal grandson (that’s how seller identifies himself) sells this piece on eBay. I tracked it all week and $83,100 the final hammer this afternoon. What say ye oh merry CGC Marvelites and avid Buscemerians?

[Timely]

Great piece of art!

[boomtown]

It looks like it was sold for $3995 as a buy it now on Aug 19th, and then resold on Aug 29th for the $83,100. Was the first sale a mistake, or did someone get to him and let him know it was wayyyy underpriced?

Edited August 30, 2020 by boomtown
Never mind, read the explanation in the 2nd auction.

[grapeape]

2 minutes ago, boomtown said:

It looks like it was sold for $3995 as a buy it now on Aug 19th, and then resold on Aug 29th for the $83,100. Was the first sale a mistake, or did someone get to him and let him know it was wayyyy underpriced?

He said he canceled the first sale and the buyer was “understanding.”

[grapeape]

4 minutes ago, boomtown said:

It looks like it was sold for $3995 as a buy it now on Aug 19th, and then resold on Aug 29th for the $83,100. Was the first sale a mistake, or did someone get to him and let him know it was wayyyy underpriced?

[Drewsky]

I hope he does not ship it between thin cardboard or rolled in a tube or loose in an envelope. 

[ShallowDan]

17 minutes ago, Drewsky said:

I hope he does not ship it between thin cardboard or rolled in a tube or loose in an envelope. 

With a $250 shipping charge, I'd be expecting a hand-crafted plywood crate that's hand-delivered!  

Anyway, congrats to the seller.  It's a very nice piece, but as he said, the memories he has of his grandfather are worth way more than a single work of art.  I'm guessing he was shocked by the final bid.

[Brian Peck]

One of John's best pieces penciled and inked of most of the characters he drew during his 30 plus years at Marvel Comics. I tried but came up short, the final hammer is impressive but not enough nostalgia for me to match that. Congrats to the new owner.

[zhamlau]

Not gonna lie, I was surprised at how well that did.

[ESeffinga]

Hope the shipping cost wasn’t inflated to cover insurance or something? He’ll be sad To discover if it’s damaged and files a claim, that there’s no way any of the carriers, shipping insurances will cover it, even if he pays full freight on the insurance cost. 
Or maybe it’s via a more white glove shipping service, door to door?

Ill tell you one thing. I sure wouldn’t trust a piece that spendy to USPS. Buyer might not see it for a month or two.

FedEx first overnight plus a packing/shipping service, so they gotta cover the insurance?

 

Edited August 30, 2020 by ESeffinga

[Twanj]

Was this published? What's the original?

[gumbydarnit]

83k!

Watch out Heritage here comes eBay!

[vodou]

11 hours ago, ShallowDan said:

With a $250 shipping charge, I'd be expecting a hand-crafted plywood crate that's hand-delivered!  

That's going to be closer to $1,000 (depending on distance) -and "full" value insurance is not available from any common carrier at that level. No way! From the seller's POV...this is really high risk situation for PayPal chargeback - I'm not going to give anybody any further ideas here, but most of us know how that game works, many bad actor plays available. Hope that's not how it plays. For $83k it should be shipped by art handler/freight co and delivered person-to-person only with all the warranties that company can offer to offset PP risk, pictures/video of the package (condition especially) being handed off, etc.

Then again...anybody that can legitimately fund $83k to begin with...perhaps not the kind that would monkey around anyway. That would be really good.

[PhilipB2k17]

11 hours ago, ShallowDan said:

With a $250 shipping charge, I'd be expecting a hand-crafted plywood crate that's hand-delivered!  

Anyway, congrats to the seller.  It's a very nice piece, but as he said, the memories he has of his grandfather are worth way more than a single work of art.  I'm guessing he was shocked by the final bid.

A big chunk of those shipping costs are probably insurance. There are specialist art shippers too. Maybe he’s using that?

[ShallowDan]

1 hour ago, vodou said:

That's going to be closer to $1,000 (depending on distance) -and "full" value insurance is not available from any common carrier at that level. No way! From the seller's POV...this is really high risk situation for PayPal chargeback - I'm not going to give anybody any further ideas here, but most of us know how that game works, many bad actor plays available. Hope that's not how it plays. For $83k it should be shipped by art handler/freight co and delivered person-to-person only with all the warranties that company can offer to offset PP risk, pictures/video of the package (condition especially) being handed off, etc.

Then again...anybody that can legitimately fund $83k to begin with...perhaps not the kind that would monkey around anyway. That would be really good.

Thinking about it, if I were the seller in such a case (where I had an item sell that far exceeded expectations, with a non-zero chance of shenanigans on the part of the buyer), I would definitely go the route of a specialized courier service - either that or hop in the car and make a road-trip to deliver it myself and video record the actual hand-off to the new owner.

[Latverian Tourism Board]

3 hours ago, Twanj said:

Was this published? What's the original?

If it’s the original Art of John Buscema cover art from 1978, then yes. Of course, it could be a recreation, but I think that’s less likely if it really was sold by his grandson.
 

Either way, it’s stunning. I’m guessing with all the updates added during the auction (7?), that some high-level collectors or dealers were able to verify. Obviously, there were a lot of big bids, so big collectors were comfortable shooting the locks off of their wallets.

Edited August 30, 2020 by Latverian Tourism Board

[aokartman]

It's a great example of the value of provenance, vetting, transparency, and competitive bidding.

David

[stinkininkin]

49 minutes ago, Latverian Tourism Board said:

If it’s the original Art of John Buscema cover art from 1978, then yes. Of course, it could be a recreation, but I think that’s less likely if it really was sold by his grandson.
 

Either way, it’s stunning. I’m guessing with all the updates added during the auction (7?), that some high-level collectors or dealers were able to verify. Obviously, there were a lot of big bids, so big collectors were comfortable shooting the locks off of their wallets.

It's not a recreation. The line work and signature match exactly.  There are always multiple variations with recreations. This was the real deal, and looks great.

[Latverian Tourism Board]

58 minutes ago, stinkininkin said:

It's not a recreation. The line work and signature match exactly.  There are always multiple variations with recreations. This was the real deal, and looks great.

Thanks for the verification. I figured as much, but don’t feel knowledgeable enough to say definitively. It looked right to me, but I’m not a professional. 
 

Someone got an amazing piece! 

[Brian Peck]

2 hours ago, stinkininkin said:

It's not a recreation. The line work and signature match exactly.  There are always multiple variations with recreations. This was the real deal, and looks great.

John would sign (cursive signature) all his recreations to indicate they were not the originally published artwork.