Lago32

Why are dealers allowed to post inventory pieces that have in some cases been sitting on their website for years? I had thought there was a rule stating all dealer offerings had to be fresh material? If so, it obviously is not being enforced. Kudos to Albert for bringing out some fresh material at least.

It is invariably going to happen given what I said re more collectors and less art, its simple economics. Throw in the nostalgia/go-nuts factor and it turns it up to 11. I am just saying that that mentality and the current hobby economics have lead to the prices we see today, which many collectors consistently gripe about (ie. I am getting priced out of the hobby, etc.). Do whatever you want, I am just saying what it leads and has lead to.

That's fine and I have done it too on a couple of "gotta have it" pieces. But when we do that, in other words when we let nostalgia take control and "go nuts" as you put it, often it leads to bidding to irrational unprecedented levels. And again, that is fine except it invariably leads, and has lead to, exponential price jumps in OA as opportunistic dealers and collectors that hold that type of art will see these "go nuts" results as bar-setting. This results in that OA being that much higher for the rest of us which then triggers countless threads here complaining re rising prices. Again, I have done it but I am very aware of what I contributing to when I do it so I try to be selective where/when I do it. Unfortunately for the hobby, it is happening more and more nowadays as there are more collectors chasing less art = major FOMO = more people "going nuts"

And people wonder how/why prices escalate in this hobby the way they do lol.

Seller took a 30% loss on the Byrne Avengers 191 page vs April 2022. And that is with the black backing board removed as well.

Honestly, I would be hard-pressed to find examples of artists where I don't prefer their pencil art to their inked art. In my opinion, it is a purer form of the medium. In particular, as Scott mentioned a few years back, Neal Adams' pencil work was/is sublime...and was pretty much right up until he passed. The best example is the tight finished pencils he provided for the Green Arrow back-up story in GL87. I used to own a few originals from that story and it is some of the best OA I have ever seen. Another pencils-only favourite is Byrne, just look at the great con pieces he did between 78-82, and then of course his shot-from-pencils work in Cap255 is stunning.

I had the HP Officejet Pro 7740 for about 5 years and after about 3-4 years it started wearing out so I took the opportunity to buy the EPSON Workforce WF-7840 a year or so ago, and frankly I like it much better. The scanning/printing is more accurate on the EPSON but the big differentiator for me is the fact you can print on 13x19 paper on the EPSON. I do not frame any of my originals but rather I make high-res color scans of the art and then print it on either 11x17 or 13x19 high-quality heavier card-stock-ish paper and then frame that. You would never know the difference and no fading and no theft with the actual art locked away.

I hear you and he sounds like a fun dude. My point remains that lots of dealers/collectors nowadays offer high-end art at what can be called ambitious prices, and without additional context how is one to discern what is serious and what isn't....fun dude or otherwise.

All good, but just curious how it's funny to you that some folks took Dinesh seriously given many don't know him at all or well, and there was no additional context other than the price itself. I mean, are we not supposed to take certain dealers seriously when they post high-end art at 2-3x comps/perceived FMV?

It's the constant "pushing" of prices that irks me. Always been there, always will be I suppose.

10-20 years ago, it was a mix for me. Nowadays, it is almost strictly at auction for a few reasons. First, with prices escalating as they have been, I find trying to work private deals with collectors to be frustrating and often fruitless as many are indecisive and greedy as everyone is scared of leaving money on the table. Likely as a result of this first reason, Second is that most good art now seems to be going to auction vs dealers as anything can seem to happen in a live bidding environment. Third, after 20+ years in this hobby, my tolerance of the shenanigans and brutal customer service from many of the dealers is basically nil at this point. And finally Fourth, I just don’t have the energy or interest any more in tracking down art outside of what is offered at auctions, for a bunch of reasons including some that I just mentioned…different phase of collecting now for me I suppose.

Now $340k next bid for both pages....

The two Secret Wars 8 Spidey pages now at $210k next bid with 19 days left in the auction...looks like the offer of $250k may have been a little...low.

I totally get the one-of-a-kind rationale, it is just mind-boggling to me that it happens.

Reading this thread just reminded me how much slack we readily give dealers in this hobby when it comes to customer service. Imagine telling someone to not worry about getting a response back from Best Buy or Walmart or Amazon or your electrician or your plumber or your doctor...because August isn't a good month for them....and then being ok with it. Crazy...

A couple of observations... 1) With his "forever keeper" comment on his X109 page (and therefore dashing the hopes of anyone with designs on his page), I think Gene may have just inadvertently added another $10-20k to the final hammer price for this X109 page in Clink lol 2) It is a real sign of the times - and in particular of the high demand for, and coinciding dearth of, Byrne X-men pages - that we are giving so much attention to this one Byrne X-men page

The issue with this and the other OA claim shows is that 95% of the material that is offered by the various dealers (across all price points) is C or B-level "inventory" art. I understand why of course, as there there is simply more of it and there is likely more margin to negotiate on that stuff and it is art that wouldn't move quickly (or at all) otherwise. I predict collectors will begin to tire of this quality of material which will either force the dealers to bring out higher quality material or will shut down the shows themselves. There is a reason everyone still talks about Dino's OA offerings during his first outings Amateur Dealers - he brought out higher quality material at very reasonable prices.

I was pleased as an Adams fan, and frankly surprised, that the GL76 page got to where it did given that it has ping-pong'ed back and forth between various dealers, as well as at least two private collectors, over the past few years. When you have a book as key as GL76 and a growing dearth of prime Adams pages come to market, I suppose a page like that becomes more resistant to over-exposure. For me, the more appealing Adams piece was the killer Deadman page from SA209.....most memorable page from the run for me and the perfect example of both character/story and of Adams ground-breaking composition and style - and fresh-to-market to boot.

Appreciate it bud but honestly not sure what would change my mind. Regarding these comments about "it is working" or me "blinking" lol, it depends what you are referring to. If you are referring to it irritating me, yeah it does obviously. If you are referring to that irritation then having the intended effect of deterring/demotivating me from bidding on or winning a piece, no it doesn't at all. I will stay there and bid as per normal up to my threshold and put up with it taking 10 minutes instead of 2 minutes - nothing changes on my part. Conversely, if you are referring to that irritation having the intended effect of then motivating me to bid more on a piece, yeah I can see someone potentially getting caught up in the emotion of it all and placing some "how-dare-they" type bids perhaps past their original threshold. But as mentioned by someone previously, in this latter instance why would anyone want to do this unless they do not intend on winning the piece and are either thrill-bidding or shilling, which obviously does happen. Hence my initial post questioning the intention and effectiveness of the bidding "strategy" to give someone an advantage in winning a piece. Anyways, nuff said on this, seems pretty clear to me.

Exactly, this is what I am talking about. Someone is either doing it to have fun aka irritate or they mistakenly feel it advantages them somehow.

There is no rattling or demoralizing in the situation I am describing - only irritating. I am talking about in the Heritage Live format (either the weekly auctions or the cheap day on the Signature Auction) where all active bidders are watching and participating. The irritation comes from the guy who decides to wait to bid until literally the last second during the "fair warning" period. There is no "too late" as I am sitting there ready and watching and am still able to bid and I do immediately and then often have to wait for the other guy to count down the clock. With the other guy(s) doing this literal last second bidding, the outcome will still be the same but instead of the auction potentially being over in 20 seconds, these "snipers" have to drag it out for minutes needlessly. There is no situation where I get demoralized or rattled and give up bidding or adjust my bidding if the other guy(s) are doing this, again it is just simply incredibly irritating. I guarantee it is simply a mistaken instinct on their part having been through other auction formats where this type of "sniping" actually works like Clink or eBay.

This is to those of you that consistently wait until the 1 second mark under the "Fair Warning" section of the Heritage Live! auctions to place your bid....and then get outbid and then wait again until the 1 second mark of the next "Fair Warning" section to place your next bid and so on and so on. Newsflash - there is no strategic advantage to doing so....it is pretty obvious that HA is not like Clink or eBay in this regard. All you are doing is dragging things out and frankly annoying us all. Thank you in advance. Venting over.

When Big John put in the time and effort into inking his own work, it was pretty special (ie. some of his early covers and more specifically many of the plates he did). Unfortunately, I would imagine given his workload, this usually wasn't possible hence why many feel his own inks are rushed/loose (and they aren't wrong). In terms of his inkers, Klein on Avengers 58-62 and Palmer on Avengers 74-76 is the gold standard. I may be in the minority on this, but I really don't like Palmer's inks on Buscema after Avengers 76...Palmer's influence becomes increasingly evident with each subsequent issue which is not as desirable to my eye. Not sure why this happened - maybe Buscema started to feel more comfortable giving Palmer looser pencils after Av76 or maybe Palmer just started feeling more confident in his inking which started to overtake the pencils. Same thing happened with Palmer over Adams pencils on their X-men run.....compare the first few issues to the last few issues of the run and there is a significant difference in terms of amount of Palmer that shows through. There is an even greater difference between early Adams/Palmer X-men vs their Avengers run.

Here we are 20 years into the internet age with a wealth of information at the click of a button but yet this guy posts this vintage Byrne Avengers page as if it was still 2003. https://www.ebay.fr/itm/193505765205 I suppose it's good to see deals can still be had every once in a while on eBay. And if the buyer is reading this and you'd like to make a nice profit on that page, please send me a direct/private message here on the board

Just noticed this in the weekly HA auction....partially credited to "Frank Miller details". https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/panel-pages/sal-buscema-frank-miller-and-dan-green-avengers-193-story-page-15-original-art-marvel-1980-/a/122014-11555.s?ic2=mytracked-lotspage-lotlinks-12202013&tab=MyTrackedLots-101116 Did Miller work on the interiors to this book? If so, to what extent did he contribute? Thanks. Mike