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When your eyes are bigger than your wallet...
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51 posts in this topic

4 hours ago, grapeape said:

Yes had I owned the piece I would have been hesitant to alter it. But it’s Don Rosa. You don’t say no to Don Rosa over a creative suggestion!!!

I did hesitate. I finally decided that if the price was right and I was commissioning him, I’d have gone for the color so I bit my tongue and let him go to work.

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4 hours ago, gumbydarnit said:

I gave myself about a year ban from comic art after I demonstrated ZERO self control back around 2001.

I’m so glad I don’t know what missed out on, I’m sure eBay and dealers stopped selling art during my absence xD

A self imposed ban? Are you a super hero? Activate will power!!!

What an extraordinary super power! 
 

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On 9/19/2020 at 4:45 AM, Rick2you2 said:

So my suggestion is that you specialize. It could be by artists, character, theme (faux Sugar and Spike covers) or situation. That way, you will naturally apply the brakes to buying outside your specialization.

Specializing is difficult for me, simply because I have a broad range of interests. Still, it might be fun to pick a theme and try to collect broadly within that theme. Limits force creativity, after all.

On 9/19/2020 at 11:34 AM, The Voord said:

I certainly wouldn't recommend specializing, as you'd be shutting yourself off from lots of potentially great art.  Just let the dust settle on your initial feeding frenzy and let your wallet build up reserves..  While that's happening, you could be perusing what's out there and available to you.  It's a safe bet that you've come from a comic-book collecting background . . . so transpose that interest into comic art that ties-in to the stuff that's pushed your buttons over the years.

This is basically what I'm doing. I'm thankful to have made a few purchases recently (I haven't updated my CAF just yet and am still awaiting a package) that were things on my wishlist, so that helps a lot. I don't want to buy stuff just for momentary satisfaction. I want to get pieces I will love months and years in the future.

On 9/19/2020 at 1:35 PM, vodou said:

Going back to the title of the thread, it's not specialization that matters or not, it's being too late. I think anybody coming in the last ten years, probably the last twenty years even has had to specialize. Prices have run up much faster than incomes; those of us that were around earlier and noticed that happening either ramped up our own efforts (thus reinforcing the ramp effect too) to "keep up" or backed off and enjoyed what we already had. Unfortunately, a few saw it as an opportunity to cash out "at obvious all-time highs" and they now have little/no art and not coincidentally little/no presence in the hobby today.

I don't want to discourage anyone from using comic art to build:

But...there is a lot more "other/non-comic art" out there. If the art bug has bitten you hard, you'll likely enjoy "art" in many forms; there are always opportunities to get in early, you just have to be willing to strike your own path and buy/collect where few (or at least fewer) are. Mostly this requires more of a leader than follower personality, not raw income. Really. That's it. And you can spend like a madman, get more art than you could imagine, and not even move the "ramp" up against your own future acquisition efforts. That's how it was collecting 1980s comic art 25 years ago.

Now, I don't expect anybody to read this, drop comic art and start cornering the "whatever art" market instead. I just doubt anybody else will post the thought, even though I know several of us have already been doing just that for quite some time!

This is something that worried me when I started getting into this. There's so much out there already picked up, and the big pieces I loved as a kid are either all gone or super expensive. But surprises pop up now and again. And I'm learning that this hobby requires lots of patience. Also, thankfully, there is still new art being produced, and a lot of that isn't too hard to get if you go for it. The 2nd thought is something to consider, but I actually stared my overall art collecting with animation cels, and various card commissions. I have a few other random commissions too, but nothing huge there. But I'm here specifically for comic art. It's certainly a larger barrier than it used to be, and I'm pretty late to the game, but this is a hobby where people do move on, or get new tastes, or trade up, or have to sell out of necessity, so the well isn't dried up yet.

 

5 hours ago, alxjhnsn said:

I did hesitate. I finally decided that if the price was right and I was commissioning him, I’d have gone for the color so I bit my tongue and let him go to work.

I think the color version is nicer, anyway. Just consider it him completing the piece for you.

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9 hours ago, BuraddoRun said:

...this is a hobby where people do move on, or get new tastes, or trade up, or have to sell out of necessity, so the well isn't dried up yet.

This is a universal truth: there is no shortage of "comic art" generically, ever; plenty of new art available every day minute, but also lots of de-accessioning by previous owners too...however, pretty much all of it is at an unfavorable price if you wish to collect widely, deeply and in quantity (as I do) and don't reliably pull down a mid-six figure income* annually or "even if" wish to commit a large percent of take home to the endeavor in place of all the other things the 10%ers do with their well above average disposable! It's similarly problematic if you have a rather narrowly defined short list and allow the lack of 'scores' against it to eat at your mind. Exactly what you want may simply not be released very often, and that is more true the further back in time (nostalgia) you go. The competition for shared memories among a larger and larger group exacerbates demand.

Not everyone has this collection acquisition/management perspective or even cares to...ending up with a collection numbering in the many thousands, collecting many multiple examples from many favorite artists, titles, characters may not be or is not the goal. I too started out with the "one of each is just fine" mentality, it was just so easy (then) that it seemed silly to "stop collecting" for no better reason than "...and one, well that's enough!" It's also impossible now except for true 1%ers. So this not discouragement, just reality and it's fine to step in now and pick up the special treasure at today's price (and today's budgets too, incomes have also moved up, just more slowly) and maybe 5-10 pieces or less a year is just fine. I mean...why not, right?

 

*Here's the math: 160 x $800 = $128,000. Why those numbers? The first number, 160: because 20-25 years ago I could buy exactly what I wanted 3-4 (yep!) times a week on my very modest middle class salary. But now, even accounting for moving the goalposts away from "exactly" (=1980s Marvel superhero) to "kinda sorta" (=same but much newer or vintage but alternative/independent), what's worth getting is around $800/piece average. Then...was under $100 (often) occasionally up to $200 (stellar examples**!) per piece, and again: exactly what I wanted too.

**Such as Sienkiewicz first series Moon Knight covers, through his rep @artdealer, for $200-250 each.

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11 hours ago, BuraddoRun said:

 

This is basically what I'm doing. I'm thankful to have made a few purchases recently (I haven't updated my CAF just yet and am still awaiting a package) that were things on my wishlist, so that helps a lot. I don't want to buy stuff just for momentary satisfaction. I want to get pieces I will love months and years in the future.

 

 

 

 Can you link to your CAF gallery? I would like to see your collection before adding a comment.

Thanks.

 

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