delekkerste

Platinum Session: Today's session:

I should have known!

The #181 page surprised me too. Beautiful page, but, I didn't think a standalone Bullseye page would fetch a price like that. Standalone Elektra, sure, as that's Miller's creation and #168-181 pages featuring the character are the most prized, but, Bullseye only surprised me. Guessing it was probably a throwdown between two people who really wanted this page and that the 2nd underbidder was miles away. I'd be more inclined to call this one an outlier, though, and not Miller DD as the new Miller DKR. Would need to see more sales like this one to convince me, personally. Speaking of Daredevil, the #42 cover (1st Jester appearance) selling for $49.6K yesterday seemed like a bargain for the buyer.

When the facts change... The money is there now if people want to spend it. As the comics session went on yesterday, I was surprised that some of those books (like Showcase #4 and B&B #28) didn't go higher. Pretty surprising, actually.

There were a few lots that outperformed (esp. that Perez Avengers cover, at least to me) but, overall, a friend aptly described it as "muted bidding". That said, I didn't think this was a particularly strong selection of art for the Platinum Session and we've seen other quiet Platinum Sessions over the past year or two only to see the buyers come out of the woodwork for the other sessions, so, I think the jury is still very much out. Could just be that there weren't any real showstoppers in this session. I think the real heat will be in comics today...the All-Star Comics #8 CGC 9.4 just sold for $1.5 million.

Canada now: South of the US/Canada border:

Stocks within 0.5% of all-time highs, Bitcoin at $49K, interest rates down 100 bps from 3 months ago, gold over $2000...the animal spirits are partying like it's 1999 or 2021 again. No reason to expect anything less than fireworks in this auction.

Tim is a Boomer.

No complete stories - there were a few multi-strip or multi-page lots by the same artist, but, all unique pieces. Mind you, the median cost per piece acquired is in the low $1Ks, and the mean cost is in the low $2Ks so we're talking about a few chunky pieces and the vast majority being smaller, fun pieces - lots of strip art; modern comic pages; niche nostalgic favorites that not a lot of people care about; mainstream nostalgic favorites but from 3rd tier artists and/or titles; etc. We're not talking about Byrne X-Men or Miller DKR/Daredevil here...that part of the market is, for the most part, just not fun anymore given where prices are. I will definitely be buying a lot, lot less in 2024 - it's been a fun couple of years of buying like crazy, but, it's time to be more targeted/focused again.

I may have other examples that I personally like more. Also, I underbid the main McGinnis image for the Thunderball campaign that was at Heritage last year. I knew that my wife would give me all kinds of grief about the babe content, even though she understood why I had to go for it, and I didn't have any regrets after losing it. It made me realize that I didn't need this version either, and certainly not at an even higher price (though, I had already ruled out a bid early on; IIRC I mentioned that to Dave and others).

Between UXM #137, UXM #141 and Daredevil #181 (the trade-off discussed in the podcast), UXM #137 is a far distant third for me. Between Daredevil #181 and UXM #141, I personally love DD #181 more, but, UXM #141 is not far behind and is objectively worth more financially and has more of an aura/mystique about it. If I was stuck on a desert island, I'd rather have the DD #181, but, in the real world, if given the choice straight up, I'd probably take the UXM #141. I'd enjoy it almost as much and my kids will enjoy it more as they love the X-Men/Wolverine and don't care at all about Daredevil. Plus, if they ever wanted to sell after I'm gone, the UXM #141 will almost surely be worth more at that time. Like Dave, though, I'd rather have UXM #137 and DD #181 together over UXM #141 alone.

Also publicly confirmed (275,000 GBP, about $336,000 on the day of the sale):

You would think, but, that excellent ASM #36 page only hit $100K on the dot two months ago at Heritage (see pic below), suggesting that not-great Spidey pages might fetch a bit less than 6-figures. That said, as I've stated elsewhere, with so many people flush from asset price inflation this year (and people will be more willing to cash out in January - new tax year and all), I'm expecting strong bidding in the January auction cycle.

WTB: the first appearance of Tigra's groomer page.

My most active period of buying was actually 2011-15. I slowed down considerably in 2016-17 and then actually sold more than I bought between 2018 and 2021 due to a long-overdue curation of my collection, selling to help fund a real estate purchase, and building out numerous other collections (trading cards, record albums, RPGs, etc.) By early 2022, I felt that I had pruned too much from my collection and so I've really been making up for it since then. But, I feel that I'm once again in a good place regarding my art collection and that it's time to slow my roll again in 2024.

I have no particular OA collecting goals for next year, just to spend (a lot) less and be more discerning. Less buying for the sake of buying after a very active 2022 (101 pieces bought/2 sold) and 2023 (104 pieces bought/1 sold).

From my collection

What's crazy to me is that The Frost Giant's Daughter story was first published in Savage Tales #1 (May 1971), with only the cover and new title page (along with some minor censoring edits) being added for its re-publication in Conan the Barbarian #16 (July 1972). So, that means that BWS drew this story at about the same time or even slightly earlier than Conan the Barbarian #5 (also published in May 1971). And yet the art is just sublime, better than anything Smith did in the first 15 issues of the Conan run. Of course, much of that is due to BWS inking himself, and also being drawn for a B&W publication which caused him to experiment a lot more with light, shadow and shades of grey. In any case, it does suggest that he had more of a developed style even from fairly early on in the Conan run and that he was capable of more than just aping Kirby - it was either his inkers and/or BWS himself hewing closer to the house style in the main Conan run (for the first 15 issues) that largely disguised this until he broke out in his new style with Conan #19. In any case, the FGD pages are just gorgeous - wish I had pursued them more aggressively back in the day.

I think I saw somewhere that the Frost Giants cover wasn't available at the start of the sale and was added later.

This book looks amazing: Conan the Barbarian Colossal Edition Apparently it was supposed to be an IDW Artist Edition but this new company (Pan-Universal Galactic Worldwide) nabbed the Conan license and is bringing this Artist Edition-style Conan book to market.

@Brian Peck Bechara posted the page for sale today at $3200:

With the holidays out of the way and with the Fed and Treasury doing their best to reinflate the Everything Bubble, I'm expecting prices to be high come in January across the board.

I don't know if they still do it this way, but, Robert Edward Auctions used to do this back in the 2000s and 2010s. Former REA owner Rob Lifson had a huge trove of Warren art that he would periodically sell off in his card auctions (they also would get a lot of Mars Attacks! original art - not sure whether that was from Lifson's personal collection or not) and so I was an active bidder back in the day. He ended up selling all the art that didn't get sold in the auctions in one shot to a single collector back in the late 2010s IIRC. One day (probably mid-2010s or a little earlier) me and a friend went out to Lifson's house where much of REA was being run out of the basement or lower floor. There was a huge box of art sitting right next to an industrial-strength air conditioning unit - the Vampirella #24 original cover art had been totally warped by the extreme fluctuations in temperature and humidity. I wonder if the current owner was able to get it restored.

100% As a buyer, I love the eBay/ComicLink style hard auction expiration where there's no chance of further price discovery after the timer runs out. As a seller, you have to love those platforms which either allow back and forth live bidding until someone drops dead (e.g., Heritage) or those platforms which at least extend the bidding time so people can react to those late bids (e.g., ComicConnect, Hake's).