cstojano

On 5/25/2024 at 5:09 AM, timguerrero said:

I wanted to sign up for a Fedex account but they told me at Fedex, in El Salvador, that I had to use the service a number of times each month to apply for an account with discounted shipping. What were the conditions you got when you signed up for one?

No conditions like this when I signed up, which was simply like signing up for any other website. Still expensive but much better than whatever rates they show online. Note the item was wrapped in one of thoe massive heritage manilla envelopes and they made me take it off because "it will get stuck in the belt, leading to damage or loss of the item". Fortunately she was nice enough to cover all the old labels with stickers.

On 5/24/2024 at 6:20 AM, JC25427N said:

I haven't used them in a while but GoShippo used to offer discounted rates for Fedex 

https://goshippo.com/

Thanks I may give this a try. I ended up signing up for a Fedex account which seemed to knock a chunk off the cost, still ridiculous though.

On 5/24/2024 at 6:24 AM, comix4fun said:

American Express regularly offers cash back as a percentage of money spent at Fed Ex with individual promotions for Fed Ex Office, Ground and Express. 
You have activate the offer online in your AmEx account and then the cash back is automatic as long as you use the card to pay for shipping. 
My normal discount is 10%. 

Good to know. Thanks.

Anyone know where to get discounted rates on Fedex shipping like you can for UPS and USPS through places like Pirateship (among many others)? Google is not turning up anything. I have had good luck with Pirateship for UPS and USPS, which are equivalent to what you get through eBay or Paypal.

TIA

Chris

On 5/15/2024 at 1:08 PM, cstojano said:

I sold my first piece during a CAL and was happy to only book a 1k loss!

And I knew I spoke too soon. Purchaser unhappy with the art and wants his money back. Anyone looking for Blade Runner pages by Williamson? Does this matter to Bill Cox enough to report it to him to adjust his figures?

Hello, I totally forgot about the Miller. I see 22 bids. Can you tell me what it sold for?

On 5/18/2024 at 4:11 PM, AndyFish said:

Spray fixative will flatten out blacks and give everything a smooth texture-- it protects the art-- even in some cases having UV properties.   I've used it in the past to prevent any damage to inked pieces, but I had a buyer once acccuse me of a piece being digital when it wasn't.    I use Deleter Ink (which is Japanese) it comes in small bottles numbered 1-8-- one of those numbers is so smooth and even when it goes down I can see why someone would doubt it-- but once you spray a fixative over it game over-- it's hyper smooth.

So it MAY not be AI just because it looks smooth, and fixative is a legit answer to the question.

Thanks for replying to me and confirming my experience. I totally believed the artist in my case but I was shocked at the result

On 5/15/2024 at 7:13 PM, John E. said:

Fresh to market + exuberance + no comps x FOMO =

 

This nailed it. I tend to collect weirder stuff so the "no comps" thing really applies. 

On 5/15/2024 at 2:36 PM, Michael Browning said:

Fifteen years ago, I dropped a quarter in a Books-A-Million and looked down with the intentions of picking it back up and putting it into my pocket. I got busy talking to the cashier and forgot to pick it up and left it there and it eats at me to this very day. I cannot imagine selling a piece of art and losing even a single penny on it and being okay with that. Nothing ever offsets a loss for me.

Boy do you want to feel better or worse because I can keep going with tales of woe

I sold my first piece during a CAL and was happy to only book a 1k loss!

On 5/11/2024 at 11:24 PM, Tnexus said:

I finally took a closer look at the pieces I bought, but I don't have a magnifying glass to really look in depth. There is for sure some ink, some paint, and some pencil on each piece, but it seems like more of a remark. I don't really feel indents on the page around the character borders, but as I'm a casual collector, I'm not too sure. I'm not denying this could be a real artist, but I'm wondering, could someone train an AI on their art to pump it out, then just add some minor remarks? Also to this artist's credit, it seems like I'm seeing more color in the more recent postings which I would think would be harder to fake. I just can't imagine anyone drawing this many works and selling them for this cheap.

 

I can't speak to these pieces but in terms of how the art looks in hand I do have a recent experience. There are several well known fantasy artists that work primairly in photo realistic black and white. I went to get a piece reframed and was pretty shocked when I examined the art out of glass. I was expecting pencils and pastels but the piece looked and felt like a print mounted to foam core. I mean, there was no texture to this at all. I was told it was due to the fixative used to avoid smudging, which does make sense. The artist and rep took the art back withouth issue after nearly a year. I felt like a jerk but this was a shocker to see. Not sure that applies to these eBay listings or not but thought I would share. I believe the art was legit but also realized I had no interest in owning an original that had the look and feel of a print. 

Interesting set of images. The poster image is a real skull except for the left side of the mandible, which they must have painted in to complete. That means the cover painting was a still life of sorts from a real skull. Given all the controversy with such things recently it is interesting to consider that some skull somewhere is technically a movie prop.

On 4/13/2024 at 6:09 PM, batman_fan said:

I think how it works really depends on the company and industry.  Other people at the same levels me have only a marginal idea what their people do.

Also industry specific is the offset in salary. If I was making 2M doing management, well, I would be doing it too. But unfortunately top end is roughly 400k and top end "in the trenches" is roughly half that - soooo not worth it for all the problems you take on. 

On 4/13/2024 at 3:29 PM, batman_fan said:

I am getting close to hitting 60.  Came from a very poor family but went to college majoring in engineering. At this point my salary has gone up over 100x since I graduated which affords me more discretionary spending. 

100x. That's like 20k to 2 million! I find that the further advanced I get and the more I make the less I actually do. 

And looks like the comics from this collection are getting their own sale to boot:

https://comics.ha.com/c/search/results.zx?dept=1938&mode=live&auction_name=40273

On 4/11/2024 at 11:54 AM, Chip Cataldo said:

I guess it just boggles my mind sometimes that I post here and there are others who post here that can bid $175,000 on something. To me, that's beyond my comprehension.

Whenever I think I am doing well with life and finances I just look at HA.com and it brings me down to earth. I have no idea how much money I would need to have in the bank or make on an annual basis to spend this kind of money on collectibles. For someone who has spent his entire adult life collecting, and a lot of my free time engaging with the collecting hobbies, I sure feel like a light weight in my willingness to drop this much money on something. 

On 4/11/2024 at 11:19 AM, Chip Cataldo said:

Not John Byrne. Not by a longshot. He ruined Byrne's 1982 Surfer one-shot.

delete, wrong thread

On 4/11/2024 at 6:54 AM, The Voord said:

All vegetables and no meat, lol!

Its the prelim to Dark Kingdom.

On 4/10/2024 at 4:57 PM, batman_fan said:

After looking at what has been posted so far,I have selected the piece to go "all in" on.  

Don't be hasty they keep adding more!

On 4/9/2024 at 3:35 PM, IngelsFan said:

For me, the best covers from each Harvey PCH title are CoC 23, Witches Tales 25, BCM 50, and Tomb of Terror 16 (yes, 16 not 15). To see 1/2 of them up for sale in one auction is amazing, as I’ve been trying to track down CoC 23 for over a decade. My predictions for final hammer are BCM at 250-325 and CoC at 100-125. Just my 2c.

Based on your username this is the auction for you!

On 4/9/2024 at 12:11 PM, Bronty said:

Because COC19 is the only decent comp, its also hard to handicap whether it did sell cheap last time.   Certainly its striking to see a 174k sale for the original art in 2020 next to a 102k sale for a 9.6 in 2021 (and later a 72k sale on a 9.2 in 2022).   The margin of the art's results over the result of hg copies is so very slim.

That doesn't mean anything is wrong with that if that's where the supply and demand falls, but it does suggest that perhaps the 2020 sale was a bit soft.    Or maybe not, we'll see, but I'll stick with 500 for now.    That cover is one of those covers that jumped out at you when picking up the Photo Journals for the first time, and I'm guessing that translates into some additional bidding for the OA, but this is a very very difficult piece to predict.

Yeah this Black Cat cover is one that makes a lot of fluff lists for people just getting into comics and comics history.