Bronty

On 4/9/2024 at 2:15 PM, cstojano said:

Thanks, what I figured. High quality work it seems. 

Yes - seems like they've even chosen paper of a matching tone to make it blend in.

On 4/9/2024 at 2:13 PM, Kevn said:

My assumption is that if they were vintage (i.e., part of the original production process) it would read "...logo, masthead text, and cover caption box are original paste-ups affixed to the board." I think the words "high-quality reproduction" indicates pretty clearly they're modern, at least more modern than the art. My question would be, how are they affixed?

Edit - Bronty beat me to it.

So then if we think about logo, masthead text, and caption box...

Essentially the central image will be art and nothing else.

All written elements modern.

On 4/9/2024 at 1:34 PM, cstojano said:

No it does not. Amazing to see. I may even keep this Heritage catalog.

But, the logo is a stat per the description "A logo, masthead text, and the cover caption box are very high-quality reproduction paste-ups affixed to the board. " What is never clear to me is when these were done, ie, modern or part of the production process.

thx for that.    "reproduction" means modern I think.

I'm surprised that the logo on Black Cat 50 doesn't seem to be a stat?

What an amazing looking 50s horror cover.    Does it get any better?

On 4/9/2024 at 10:11 AM, batman_fan said:

Let’s pray they can’t but I imagine the market will hover them up fine

Agreed.    The money never seems to be a problem when good material hits the block.  

Of those five records 1,2 and 4 were my consignments; the #34 pages.    I have been quite happy with how they turned out.   I hated to set them free but could use the money and I still have a fair bit of groo art even selling #34.

I think one reason some of the pages have done well is because Arba and Dakarba appear; they are the best supporting characters in the series IMO, and they are only in so many issues after all, particularly from the prime part of the run.   

I will be quite curious to see how the cover does (will likely be in the next signature I imagine).   Its a really wonderful cover with Groo, Sage, Rufferto, and Mulch.

On 4/8/2024 at 11:04 AM, Matches_Malone said:

Not if you bought it for $8k 

I don't think it was a great buy at 4k either, personally.     So if it wasn't a great buy, I guess it did well  

On 4/8/2024 at 10:35 AM, Matches_Malone said:

The market is setting the price for Madureira Battle Chasers material. Without any public offering until recently, we could only base it on the dealer's ask.  The recent hammered results are remarkably less than what was initially asked for on these specific pieces. There is always going to be a Red Monika tax. 

And its the same with respect to the BC stuff that was on HA.    a #1 page went for 5k.  

So circling back to this pencil piece, if a pencil piece does as much as a #1 page, we have to say it did pretty well. 

On 4/7/2024 at 9:49 PM, Matches_Malone said:

 I believe it sold for $8K or $10K on Kwan's site. That is a significant loss for whoever bought it before. 

OK, that's good to know, but I still think 4-5k is pretty good value when you look at what his other battle chasers stuff has auctioned for.

The 8-10k buy just seems like it was an overreach to me.

On 3/19/2024 at 12:08 PM, jaybuck43 said:

It's crazy how Turtles has exploded just in the last few years.  You could get Eastman early art for $1000 a few years ago.  High Grade first prints were under $5,000.  

Seems like its all gone 5x in the past 5 years. 

Those Raphael 1 pages took some time to sell out at 5k a pop.   And now they sell for 25 on HA.

amazing stuff Peter, kudos!

On 4/7/2024 at 5:53 PM, Matches_Malone said:

The Red Monika Battle Chaser's piece was listed for a whole lot more on the dealers website. I think the seller took a big hit. Considering the hammer prices for Battle Chaser's pieces at the most recent ComicLink auction, it seems there's not a whole ton love for them.

Pencil only, no backgrounds, etc?   Seems pretty decent to me.    An aggressive prior ask doesn't mean the auction price wasn't solid IMO.

On 4/2/2024 at 11:27 PM, tth2 said:

I retired and wanted to get out of HK (can't talk too much about it because of the Board's policies on politics), my wife is Japanese and we already owned a home here.

Oh perfect.   Easy transition then, apart from HA auction times! 🙃

On 4/2/2024 at 9:58 AM, tth2 said:

I'm in Japan now, which is 13 hours ahead of US east coast time, which makes staying up even harder.  I don't even try to stay up and bid during the floor auctions, I just put in my best shot during online bidding and then go to sleep (which is probably why I've barely won anything the last few years).

Actually, the bidding will probably go so long now that I might be able to catch the back half of the floor auctions when I wake up! 

What prompted the move?    Different language, different culture, that's a big change for you isn't it?

On 4/2/2024 at 3:47 AM, tth2 said:

I don't think they'll forget about the auctions per se, but those sessions are going to be such marathons that people targeting items that'll come up in the back half of a session might have gotten distracted, fallen asleep or lost the will to live, or all of the above, by the time that their lot comes up.

especially in Hong Kong, am I right?

On 3/25/2024 at 11:34 AM, PhilipB2k17 said:

The logic flaw in the Biff/Almanac timeline is that, eventually, sports books would adjust their odds to account for the fact that this guy never misses. He would have to get increasingly clever in his bets to disguise who he was in order not to distort the odds. 

Make 30% bad bets on purpose to throw that off?   

All you need to do is win more than you lose.     You could take your success rate down to a more believable level while still making a fortune.

On 3/26/2024 at 10:34 AM, tth2 said:

But anyone who chose to consign to Clink should've been aware of its limitations but decided to consign to them anyways.  So they need to accept the consequences of their decision.

True, you take the good with the bad, including the lesser fee structure.

On 3/26/2024 at 12:03 AM, tth2 said:

I already posted my thoughts on it.  It is no doubt OA-like defensive/price-support bidding by other Action 1 investors.

exactly

On 3/25/2024 at 11:45 PM, szav said:

If it's not at a level well above where anyone expected it could possibly finish then I don't see what the worry is, and I don't think it is yet.  I have occasionally employed the bid close to my actual max method right off the bat during an auction when there's only 1 or 2 items that I'm interested in at all.  And I almost never participate in the live auctions.

My thought has been, and of course I don't know if it works, that doing so might nudge people to go after something else instead.  I've won some books even on HA where this bid was twice the eventual winning bid, and sometimes it's very close to it, and usually I lose.  Don't do it often but could see it pretty easily being the case that you've got two guys here that don't care about money, and don't care about any other books in the auction.

I do wonder how closely the bidding psychology of someone with 100-1000 times more money than I have could still match my own in terms of a bidding on a book at the same relative value to our respective wealth.  Could it be the same just with 2 or 3 zeros added to it all.

Has anyone watched enough of the previous million dollar book sales closely enough to know, does it always come down to two whales duking it out in real time during the live auction, or do proxy bids ever take it?  I'm not sure I could do my bomb bid method over a million even if I had that money....but I dunno, these people live in a different world than I do. 

I didn't say there was a worry.    Just notably aggressive for being this early.

On 3/25/2024 at 3:58 PM, fifties said:

They also obviously don't care that before the auction, others will be bidding the price up, costing them more.  To avoid that I personally won't bid until the book is up for bid.

Well that's why I wonder if it isn't someone that doesn't already own a high grade copy or two.      Besides the consignor, no one tends to want early bidding quite as much as owners of similar items.

Those types of owners don't just *not care* if there's early bidding, they actively desire it and might be willing to help it along.   

***pure conjecture, yada yada.

On 3/19/2024 at 11:46 PM, Vintage_Paper said:

Currently up to $4,200,000.00  ($5,040,000.00 with buyers premium)

I find bidding if that strong that early to be.. curious.   

On the one hand you'd better be pretty darn careful trying to shill something with a 840,000 BP.    On the other hand WTF is anyone thinking bidding 5m two weeks before the auction deadline.    Doesn't seem to be a reserve on the lot.

Curious as to other people's thoughts on that.

And to guesses on the ultimate result, as well.

oops, delete

On 3/20/2024 at 1:52 PM, Ecclectica said:

I still love Heck's women nowadays so I suppose I must be (secretly) 73 years old.

They are fun in a breakfast at Tiffany’s sort of way. 

On 3/20/2024 at 6:07 PM, grapeape said:

I wish we could know:-) That's the beauty and horror of online bidding. Good on you for trying. It's an important piece of history.

It’s a charming piece for an early drawing like that