tth2

What rumors? If anything, I'm surprised that prices haven't been even higher lately given the 1999-2000 style froth (aspects of which are "worse than 1999" according to JP Morgan this week) that has enveloped the financial markets. Most of the discussion in this forum after the last couple of Heritage Signature auctions struck me more as laments of the disappointed rather than the paeans of the triumphant. People seemed resigned to prices not revisiting the peaks of the Pandemic.

He's got a blowtorch going right onto his bicep and he's still holding on, as opposed to having his arm cut in two!

that would be amazing

That's good, it'll be the first auction in decades where I won't have been outbid on a Peanuts strip!

Based on the weekly Heritage auction that just concluded, I have to say that the rumors of the death of the OA market have been greatly exaggerated. Among the pieces I was watching, a Terry & the Pirates daily from 1942 went for $11,400, while a badly stained and damaged Prince Valiant from 1943 went for $15,600. The latter would normally be a $25-30k piece in decent condition, so I was surprised/impressed that it still went for so much considering that the damage affects the aesthetics of the piece.

Don't be surprised if they bring it to other auctions if it's successful in this first auction.

Diane Lane says you are wrong!

I call it "Stop the world, I want to get off".

I've heard this same argument being made for the entire 4+ decades that I've been collecting.

Wow, and I always thought Gene was the Boards' Debbie Downer.

A comic that went from a 9.4 to a 7.0.

Just looked at the preview of the Neil Gaiman auction. I gotta say that Neil has excellent taste!

I really don't know what the big deal is. To me, these are no different than the commissions, sketches, recreations and other unpublished work that I also always skip over.

So true. Whether Lee really created the characters or created the plots, his dialogue was essential to Marvel's popularity. It's obvious from reading Kirby's work in the 1970s that the man couldn't write his way out of a paper bag.

Reading ANYTHING scripted by Kirby is torture. I always thought the over the top “dialogue” and over use of exclamation marks in 70s Kirby art was supposed to be part of the charm—so bad it’s camp.

Interesting. How does one price a Ditko Spidey page that features almost every key character from the Spidey-verse at that time, with one notable exception?

Sounds like your friend has been talking to my wife.

7.0 to 9.4. Man I love this hobby!!!!

I'm the Mark Hammill guy in "Amazing Stories". 100% of my net worth is in OA and other collectibles and the vintage car they're all piled into.

It’s my favorite page from my favorite issue of my favorite storyline, and I waited 18 years (since I started collecting) for it to surface! Congrats! It's a great page with some of Gaiman's best dialogue. Probably not for those who only want "wall power" action poses.

As I said in that thread, the sad fact is that there are a lot of well-heeled SA collectors who will simply never touch a DC, no matter how cool or historically important that DC might be.

A Red Hook appearance!

The thing about well-heeled newbies coming into comics these days is that the hobby ain't cheap anymore. I can understand why Perrino came in with guns blazing, because comics were indeed cheap compared to other collectibles back then, particularly coins, the collectible he was most familiar with. After seeing coins' upward trajectory after slabbing was introduced in that hobby, he could see the opportunity for profit in comics as they experienced the same trend. But for whatever reasons, he bailed too quickly to see his predictions come true. But these days, comics are really expensive compared to other collectibles. For example, while the most expensive baseball cards have gone for more than the most expensive comics, that's only because the very best cards have come to market while the very best comics have not. On the other hand, while I'm not an expert on sports cards at all, I get the impression that the average comic goes for more than its comparable card counterpart, particularly after the recent post-Covid meltdown in card prices, which have been much more dramatic than the post-Covid decline in comic prices. If the intention of some of these newbies was to capitalize on an undervalued asset, comics weren't them.

I wasn't. There is a huge segment of SA collectors who will simply never buy a DC, no matter how historically important it might be.

Maybe he thought he had gotten a steal in the private deal and wanted to quickly get one over on the seller by putting the books out to public auction.