Madman1138

I use a fireproof safe for the more valuable stuff, but have too much for it all to fit in there. It can't get too hot inside, even in a fire, and inside it I use a few silica gel desiccant packs that absorb moisture. You just need to change them out periodically, (cheap in bulk on Amazon) but they keep it moisture-free inside the safe. And the safe itself recommends that you open it at least once a month to refresh the air inside. Hope that info helps. My kids have destroyed all kinds of nice things of mine over the years, but thankfully never my art. I keep it up high and out of reach, or in a locked safe.

A lot of the time when taking time payments, a dealer or seller will mark it as "sale pending" or "on hold." That usually will mean sold eventually, in my experience, but is pending until paid off. From what I have seen and noticed, sale pending means payments have started and on hold means someone has agreed to it but no money has changed hands yet. But as with anything, people have different interpretations of the same thing. So it's hard to say for sure, but I know from my buying from Romitaman with payments myself that it was changed to "sale pending" on his site while I paid it off.

This is actually a cool thread to hear everyone's different take on things, and all the different approaches and philosophies. So I thought I'd throw my 2 cents in the mix. First, for my philosophies on how I buy and make contact when interested in art labeled as NFS. NFS is the default label on CAF uploads, so I have learned over the years to not take it as gospel. It might just be the default or legitimately might not be for sale, but I find it is always best to at least make contact, briefly introduce myself, and let them know that I am interested in that piece if they ever decide to let it go. So many times in my first 5-10 years of collecting there was a piece I really coveted that said NFS or something clever that implied it wasn't going to be available, so I wouldn't even try to contact. Then later I would see the piece in a different gallery on CAF with it's new owner and wish that I knew it was available or at least a possibility to make an offer. So rather than miss out because the potential seller doesn't know of my interest, I make sure they know. Sometimes I get a polite response saying that it is not likely to be sold anytime soon and other times they tell me they weren't looking to sell it but would for the right price. And surprisingly enough, in many of those cases they actually just gave me a price and I never had to make an offer. When I do make an offer it's based on CAF Market Data and auction data of my own that I keep (I screenshot a lot of auction results for my Art Comp files) and I give them my offer and back it up with my supporting facts that justify that. I do tend to start on the lower-end of the price range but try not to be insulting, especially when I know what they paid for it and when. But I know they will always counter at least once no matter what I offer, so I start lower. I do feel people out though and if I see them as only wanting my one best offer, I make it for the most I would pay and I walk away if I am told it is not enough. But if they seem like they will negotiate, I will always try to do that and just go back and forth for a while. But I will only pay what it is worth to me, so I never offer double FMV or anything. At best I will pay a bit over market or I just walk if the deal can't be made because there is always more art out there I'd love to have. But if nothing else I met a new collector, made my interest known, and if not now maybe somewhere down the line if and when they decide to sell they will come back to me. I have had that happen so many times that it's crazy, so it definitely works. I hardly ever approach them with an offer outright as I hate making blind offers, just with my interest and we go from there. If they have it for sale though, I prefer to have it priced rather than "inquire" or "make an offer." If it is really for sale, then price it. I don't even reach out to most of those, but I have had some success there too.

I am trying to reassemble this sequence featuring Rogue and Gambit's first date and the first Bishop vs Gambit fight, from X-men #8 by Jim Lee and Art Thibert. Over the past 7 or 8 years, I have managed to find and acquire 3 of the pages, but still need the 1st and 3rd pages of the sequence. So here is an image of the entire sequence, and the colored pages are the ones I am seeking. So X-men #8, pages 13 & 15. Even to just know where they are would be awesome, and any help is much appreciated! Dave K

Damn, they ended this morning at $385. Some poor buyer will get an expensive lesson in art collecting and buying fakes. https://www.ebay.com/itm/142733231982?ul_noapp=true Ever since eBay changed the rules so you couldn't see eBay IDs or contact other bidders, this kind of stuff has gotten pretty common. The new rules seem to only prevent these fraudulent sellers more than any eBay customers. We would at least police the hobby ourselves, but eBay just wants those seller fees. They are killing the secondary sketch market.

My sketches shown above are from San Diego 2015 and 2016. He did no sketches beyond the type I got and definitely didn't use any red pencil on ANY of them. I flipped through the binder to choose mine each day he had them, and the Harley was one of the few requests he took on his list on one of the days. This seller is definitely lying, which seems to confirm what we already thought. The eBay sketches are bogus.

I don't know a lot about it, but I was building my own website using a blog template for a while and learned about tagging keywords in your posts to better show in search engines. I did a quick Google search for how to optimize your blog for search engines and these pages came up with some useful info. Hope it helps. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/blog-search-engine-optimization https://trafficgenerationcafe.com/blog-tags-seo/ https://sproutsocial.com/insights/seo-tips-for-bloggers/

The auction is for both the Joker and the Harley together, both pieces in the one auction, so nothing has been pulled. But hopefully they will pull it.

Yeah, looking at the eBay ones again, they are just too "off" to be by Bruce. Harley's neck is too long and thin and her head is too small. Usually it's more rounded and full. Here are some of my BT sketches for a closer look, and like the ones above they are clearly different than the eBay ones, which don't look at all like Bruce drew them.

Yeah, the line weights are all off and the linework is hesitant. Bruce's linework is more fluid from what I have seen. I have also never seen Bruce use red pencil to lay it out and even color a bit, just blue pencil, so that seems odd too. Everything about these sketches feels off, accept the seller has a pretty high score and solid feedback which is unusual for a forgery seller. So maybe he doesn't know they are fake? There have been several active art forgers selling on eBay lately, especially selling fake Art Adams, Bruce TImm, and Todd McFarlane sketches. Those of us in the Fans of Art Adams FB page report the auctions in a flurry like you mention and sometimes it gets taken down and sometimes it doesn't, but he always relists and they always sell eventually. Some even sell twice. So eBay really doesn't care. All we can really do is warn potential buyers here and on FB, unfortunately.

Another thought for where it might have gone is the "Wall Street Investor types" that started coming into the hobby only to build an "investment portfolio" of art like stocks and bonds and aren't interested in showing off what they have. I believe Art Rep & dealer Spencer Beck announced a couple years ago that he was managing just such an endeavor for investors, IIRC. He announced it on the Comicart-L list I believe, and maybe here? So some of the really prime stuff might just be in a safe or vault somewhere like bond certificates or something. Sad thought, but seems likely. Also, I believe these types of "investors" are a contributing factor in the prices soaring so much in recent years. And then like others mention, security concerns are a factor for the bigger collectors. I know a few who only put up so much of their collection for various reasons, but wanting to avoid drawing too much attention is a common reason I have been given.

That is the Art Adams FF line up, but definitely not drawn by Art Adams. The signature is too blurry for me to see clearly in your photo, but I know people mix up Art Adams and Art Nichols often and it kind of looks like his sig. I am attaching a pic of an Art Nichols sig I have on a piece of art for you to compare. But if you take a close up and clear pic of the sig on your page, that would help. I don't know anything about the Ovi page. Good luck on that one.

Really great blog! I really enjoyed it and read through it all tonight. Well done and very informative. I love sketch cards myself, and find them to be a fun counterpart to OA collecting.

What a haul! Always wanted a McFarlane Spawn sketch myself, but near impossible these days. Congrats! Great pick ups!

Thanks! I was really surprised that I won, but so very happy that I did. Can't wait to see it in person!

Good luck with the comic! I bid on some of your auctions and won the Adams cover piece. Looking forward to getting that one in hand! Love Adams.

The Fairchild swimsuit pinup by Joe Phillips and Jim Lee (above) has now sold. I will leave the "Premium Art for sale" gallery open through the weekend and then deactivate it. So the 3 paintings above are still available for offers until then, and then they are off the block and back on the walls. The remaining art for sale on my CAF will remain for sale, with no end on those being available. It's the 3 paintings left above and in the "Premium gallery" only that are available for a limited time. Thanks to all who have inquired or bought something!

When I was still pretty green in the hobby, I had some issues with storing larger art and sold a lot of it off before I just found better ways to store large pieces. I remember selling things like a McFarlane Infinity Inc twice up page just because it didn't fit in my portfolios, and every time I see that page on CAF I kick myself. I even sold a bunch of my DPS's for the same reason. I couldn't appreciate them properly in portfolios. But now it doesn't bother me at all, art comes in all sizes and I have adapted to be able to store anything. Pros like Erik Larsen and Adam Hughes prefer to draw big and use larger paper these days, about twice up size, so we just have to learn to deal with it lol. Like others have said I like my ink art 11x17 or DPS size generally, and prefer that size but I have some smaller pieces too, and am actually a sketch card junkie as well, so I don't shy away from small at all. But with my paintings I love them to be big. My largest framed painting is 30"x40", so I don't shy away from bigger art anymore.

I got in right away and have to say, Nick posts more creator content than most Patreon artists. I have supported several over the years, but think I will really enjoy his insights. And the art of course.

Howdy all! I have been moving art to my regular "For Sale" galleries for the past few days with some nice covers, paintings, and trading card art. Some of it is stuff I have had up already and some I have never offered for sale before. There are 2 Stormwatch covers by Scott Clark and Renato Arlem, as well as several Stormwatch pages by Arlem. There are 4 Evil Ernie covers from Joyce Chin, Stephen Segovia, and Nei Ruffino! A few nice paintings from Joe Chiodo, Mielan Zebrowski, Bo Hampton! And lastly there are several pieces of '90s Chaos trading card art and some other various pages, covers, and pinups. Lots of stuff for all budgets! I also set up a special temporary gallery where I have made available 4 pieces from my "Permanent Collection" for a limited time to try to raise a large sum quickly. These include 3 paintings off my walls by Simone Bianchi (Thor cover painting), Simon Bisley (She Hulk painting), Greg Staples (Mars Attacks painting) as well as a stunning pencil and ink swimsuit pinup by Joe Phillips and Jim Lee. The paintings are all framed and matted, and will be removed from frames for shipping if sold, but matting can be kept if desired. These pieces are shown below for convenience but here's a link to the Premium Gallery direct so you can see them framed as well. http://www.comicartfans.com/galleryroom.asp?gsub=168475 I'd be happier to sell several of the smaller pieces, but will sell one or 2 of the premium pieces if the right offer comes through. Everything is priced very fairly but I will accept best offers as well. Here is a link to my main CAF page, and the For Sale galleries are all in red on the upper left side. http://www.comicartfans.com/gallerydetail.asp?gcat=28210 Thanks for looking! Dave K

I have a good friend in the hobby who isn't on these boards, but he has been looking for the perfect Michael Golden cover for a few years now and I recently offered to help him get the word out. He is well aware of the all the currently available ones on the dealer sites and CAF, but is hoping someone has one that they may be looking to sell or trade that isn't posted for sale somewhere already. So many great '90s Golden covers aren't posted to CAF or anywhere else, so we are hoping to shake something loose from offline. He's primarily looking for Image/Wildstorm covers or possibly Marvel covers (basically '90s stuff), so if you have something we'd love to hear from you. You can post in this thread, PM me here, or email me at madman1138 "at" yahoo.com. Thanks!

Here's a sketch from CAF that I found that is similar enough to seem to confirm it. Not my piece tho.

I think it might be Steve Skroce.

Hahahaha! Plot was never a major part of the Swimsuit Specials. But yeah, that sounds about right lol. Tan lines suck!

Good news, I found it! It is a DPS (pages 7 & 8) from Secret Files #2 from 1996, from Angel Entertainment. Credits are listed as "Alex Jubran, Al Rio, & Friends" as the artists. Looks like Al Rio to me, around the time he was doing a more J Scott Campbell vibe, which led to him drawing Gen13 at Image shortly after this. I would swear it is by Al, but Terry would know best, I guess. But here is the published cover, title page, and DPS. Hope it helps!