Greater Harlequin

Timguerrero I appreciate the kind offer and will see how matters go.

Grapeape I really appreciate your input and may well take you up on your kind offer. I like the Spirit cover or I wouldn't have stretched to buy it and whilst in a perfect world I would hang onto it, they may be best sold together. I can console myself with 2 more Cooke lesser pieces, both Spirit related. I too am a huge Spirit/Eisner fan and just wished Id pulled the trigger on an Eisner piece when I could have done. Regrets....I have a few..........but then again........too many to mention

Thanks for your input mtlevy1. I have been a lifelong Ditko fan and when I was looking to buy options were limited even then. Spiderman was not my first choice....Dr Strange would have been my first choice. Unobtainable so I turned to the Charlton and DC runs which I have always loved. This piece came up and although it was a financial stretch I managed to pull it together. It was quite difficult buying from the UK 10 years ago as I always felt the only real options were the dealer websites where the prices were high or the inventory well picked over.

Grapeape.......thankyou for your advice and taking the time to reply. Your comments are very encouraging! The Spirit illustration is a particular favourite of mine because although it doesn't have any action in it, I feel it captures the lonliness that the character must feel at times and I have also always loved rain since a child and Darwyn has captured that so well. Maybe its just me but I love the piece and will be sad to see it go. By the way, my original post has resulted in quite a few emails asking for photos of other pieces etc. There are obviously plenty of people looking to add pieces to their collections out there.

Whilst I have lurked here for many years I think this may be the first time I've posted so I hope you will forgive any issues with this post! Back around 2010 I got really excited about the idea of owning original art by my favourite comic book artists and over 2 to 3 years I bought about 20 pieces, almost all from recognised dealers in the US. I stopped buying in 2012 or so because of a forced early retirement but have continued to enjoy my modest collection to this day. It is all framed and rotates on display. I mainly bought low end pieces by favourite artists, a lot costing 2 or 300 dollars, but did splash out on 2 bigger pieces spending about $3,000 on each of them. I have been watching the discussions about the crazy inflated market over the last 12 months and decided to sign up to Heritage and do a bit of pricing research to see if I was sitting on any potential goldmines. Sadly as is usual for me, most of my smaller purchases such as Infinity Abyss pieces by Starlin, seem to have hardly increased in value. I have pieces by Wrightson, Rogers, Chaykin, Toth and others but none appear to have moved very much as they are from less well known books. I suppose I should have bought boring Spiderman and and Xmen pages but I was looking for artists I loved not a commercial investment and even then couldn't afford Ditko Spidey of Byrne X-men! I have also always liked minor characters such as Plastic Man, The Shadow, The Creeper etc and so thats what I bought. So here we are in 2022 and I am in need of funds in retirement. I am in the UK and looking at the possibility of consigning a few pieces to Heritage but unsure what would be worth selling. I like my art and would prefer to keep it in most cases. I am thinking therefore to sell the better (read more commercial) pieces and keep the lower value pieces to decorate my life. I am unsure however which pieces would be worthwhile consigning (assuming they only accept pieces of a certain value and above?). I am only too aware of the boards policy of not giving valuations, but in the current market and from outside of the US, its not easy to form a view. I have done as much research as I can and still feel the two most expensive pieces I own have the greatest potential but I would welcome any helpful comments anyone wishes to make to help me make my mind up. I have (hopefully) attached a bad photo of my pride and joy Ditko Creeper page which I bought from a board member for about $3k back in 2011 or so. The examples sold by Heritage since then have gradually moved form that price level to about $5k by 2016. In 2021 however two Creeper pages have sold for $18k and $19k. One page is from the Showcase story and shows him reverting back to human form and the other is an unusual trippy picture. I suspect both of these have elements that an experienced eye would suggest have strengthened the price but I am left wondering where my page stands by comparison? I think its a very good page with loads of action, laughter , large panel shot and an iconic Ditko 'eye' but will it get me anywhere near the high teens in Dollar terms fr is it nearer to $5k ? My second 'big piece' is a Darwyn Cooke Spirit Cover used for the 2nd tpb collection. I can see thats likely to be around $4k or $5k the range of values being a lot narrower than Ditko. After that I am struggling to decide what to possibly sell. I have a nice Maguire page from JLI issue 7 but have struggled to find much comparable. I suspect everything else would be well below $1k and doubt Heritage would take them. So there you have it. My jumbled thoughts. Any helpful advice? Views? Is Heritage the best route anyway?