Pete Marino

oh god.... it's gonna be one of those threads.

I think we agree more than disagree. There is a difference between value and investment though. When I say Investment, i'm not talking about 5 or 10 year time frame, i'm talking about long term investment in terms of retirement planning. I still think there is current (and hopefully future) value in comic art. And, yes I use the current value of my art to hopefully upgrade the art here and there. The point I was getting at was I'd be very concerned if a large percentage of my long term plans were hinged on the value of comic art continuing to go up so I could retire at a reasonable age. Also, I'm sure views are much different when you are up on Mt Olympus buying those blue chip pieces of art. Vs myself who's not even on the same plane of existence.

That's for specific items in specific categories, from specific sellers. It's kind of the kissing cousins of coupons. Vs the site wide ones that are actually useful.

It looks like it might be part of the Wasted Lands project that he's been working on for the last few years. He's pretty responsive on social media (facebook) if you ping him there.

One thing I just want to throw out there. With prices where they are today, I get that people look at these pages as investments. But I would be really scared if more than a few percent of your net worth was tied up in comic art. This is a volatile asset. As we've all seen over the years, there's a lot of in demand art that keeps just going up in price. But there are also are a lot of people with vested interests, and dealers that prop up the market as well. At the end of the day, this is a hobby for me, and if I had the hopes and dreams of my long term quality of life tied up in OA, I don't know if i could sleep well at night. It reminds me of another "can't miss" collector that I used to work with. A woman I worked with and her husband were from Wisconsin, right outside Green Bay. They had 75% of their assets "invested" into Brett Favre memorabilia, this was when he was a super-stud-star. Before the special texts to cheer leaders, before he went to the Jets. I saw her spiral downward once Favre's career went down the drain. I have no interest in that stuff, so I have no clue if the prices rebounded. But none the less, watching it 1st hand, I walked away from that project with her story as a personal life lesson. Long story short, if something seems like such a great deal that you don't get why everyone wouldn't invest in it. If it's too good to be true, it might just be.

I personally think Masonite is the best way to ship, put the art in an art bag, tape it to the board, close it inside another piece of Masonite, and you're good to go. Cheap, strong, safe and light.

I disagree on a few of your points. When I started collecting, talking to older collectors it was always discussed how collecting is a pyramid, you build a collection over time. Building it up by starting at the bottom. I know the hobby has changed, but I still think this is true. My point is the apex of many people's pyramid might be a "B" or "C" example, but they're still willing to drop higher numbers than exist today. If an A page was is 50k,, a B 20k and C is 5. let's just call that a normal multipler. If things keep going, and an A is 750k, B is 70k, and a C is 15k, I can see a realistic world where those prices compress where A has little more room to grow people fighting for the B and C examples will cause those prices to catch up. This is what has happened in comics. And yes, a IH181 9.8 is Venom vs Spider-man action page and a 4.0 is an Infinity Inc page. No one wanted a 4.0 10 years ago, they were snubbed and not cared about at all.

For the life of me, I can't find the thread now. But there was an interesting thread in Comics General about the price compression between high grade copies of keys and lower grade copies. Where the multiples between 9.8 and 7.0 for IH181 has gone from like x100 to x10 (or there-abouts) which is amazing, and the difference between a 9.8 and a 4.0 the gap is still larger, but has closed even more . It makes me wonder if the theory that the blue chip stuff is going to go up and the B level stuff is what's going to stagnate or falter. I think the "A" level stuff will eventually hit a logical apex, it can't go up forever, but I do think we have a ways to get there as well. And as those new highs are being reached, people will still want their example, but in the case of Jim Lee instead of getting a hush or x-men page because they are just out of reasonable reach, things like Wild CATS and his modern stuff starts to really escalate in value. Dynamics are going to keep changing, but I think 15-20 years seems fairly reasonable for continued growth, as the 30-40 year olds in the hobby start hitting 50-60 and are starting to think about downsizing.

Art Adams, i think his stuff just keeps getting better and better. The problem is he doesn't do interiors very often. If memory serves the last thing he did was for Ultimate X-Men nearly 5 or 6 years ago. But he still does amazing covers on a fairly regular basis.

Just added 14 new slabs, copper and modern stuff. ASM, Saga, & some Oddball Variants. https://www.ebay.com/str/gancisgeeksupplies

Wow, this guy sounds like the type that goes: If someone wants it, it's worth more than I thought! Time to double the price! Reminds me a bit of the underpants gnomes from South Park, they have about the same business model: Step 1: Steal Underpants Step 2: Step 3: Profit!

I got it too, I know I paid my balance this month so ignored it. I figured it was a system glitch.

Thanks for all the pictures! I had a similar issue with pictures on my Android phone, I downloaded a 3rd party camera app and my pictures are a lot better.

On IG: Someone was questioning the authenticity of the art, and she said she'd get it "authenticated" by a 3rd party. When asked who authenticates art, she talked about PSA (I think thats the company) and then talked about how the person didn't understand how they did more than signatures.... shadey AF!

I had contacted an artist years ago about buying art. He laid out about 16 pages on the floor of his living room and took a giant picture, they all looked so damn cool together he sold me on buying the whole lot. I think he took close-ups of the best 4 or so as well, just so i could get some high quality images as well. It doesn't always have to be an uber-scan to get the juices flowing.

He also has an ASM 300 and NM98 up, same bidder is winning. What are the odds? I wonder if he has a couple of shill accounts, because I saw a different account winning a couple of their other auctions. one with about 1900 and change feedback. This is the problem with cheating, everything comes under question.....

I know i sell a lot less than many people here, but I got rid of all BIN's except stuff i'm unsure how to price. The reason being that i found more than half the time that i sold something at OBO on eBay the buyer was a huge pain in the rear. Buyers willing to pay my price seem to cause a lot less issues.

I follow Millar on Instagram as well, and when he was posting about the Magic Order and his other new book, I noticed that he says that the new things he's making are under a "netflix" imprint. So is netflix now producing comics as well? or is it kind of like being a producer in a movie by writing a big check?

An email to inquire to their support never hurts, but I've not heard of them offering sales. Caf Groupon

I think they're just better at meeting market demand for new product than they used to be. But try to buy an old box of sealed product from the 90's and be ready to plunk down serious cash.

So, I found this 2 year old article today, thought it was relevant to this thread. M:tg is the 2nd highest grossing thing Hasbro owns, after only star wars! https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurenorsini/2016/03/18/for-magic-the-gathering-diversity-is-the-marketing-strategy/#1b9b96c42216 If we're taking life cycle of a property, magic is much different than comics. Randomly, I was at a family party last weekend and 2 of my wife's cousins kids were playing magic against each other all day. They are 9 and 14. Those are the art collectors of 25 years from now

Because of the quality of the art, the illuxicon crowd that may not play the game at all still is collecting the art because some of it is beautiful as well. And I believe mtg has one of the highest pay rates in the industry, so they keep getting top talent.

I googled and found out you're wrong, it's "D" level. I would have thought double, or +, but nope, just strait up D level. Congrats on a fun cover!

I don't know, when I read stuff like this, I remember an old Spencer Beck post on Comicart-L a few years ago about looking to buy "high quality" art for someone and he had like a million dollars to spend for them. So if you hire someone who knows the market to build your portfolio, it becomes much easier to jump in.

Through the advice of a friend, I moved some of my favorite stuff into mylars and boards about a year ago, very happy. It's much easier to flip through and show off to others, vs passing around giant portfolios.