PhilipB2k17

If you are so desperate for a hit that you broke into a warehouse and stole art, then shopped it around to comic shops, you are going to take $600, if you originally wanted $800. You and I agree on 90% of this story. The only part where we disagree is that it was Junkies, and not some kind of inside job. Frankly, this sounds a lot like the type of stuff a small-time Mafia crew would pull off at the time.

Which is why nobody wants to talk about it now. I likened it to how Joe Kennedy made his fortune bootlegging, and later used that money to become Ambassador to Great Britain and finance his Sons' Senate and Presidential campaigns.

Take it up with Mitch.

Fine. The final piece of the puzzle would be a story somewhere about how Marvel's warehouse got ripped off sometime in the late 70's early 80's by outside thieves. Did Marvel file a police report? Did they file an insurance claim? You'd think this would make a news report somewhere, did it? Maybe there was such a story (I never saw anything like that on Shooter's blog, and he discounts that possibility). Maybe Shooter's lying? Or covering up for Marvel's negligence? But, this doesn't seem plausible to me. What does seem plausible is that this was an inside job.

The store owners "loaning" money to buy stolen art? And the "haggling: part means that the thieves didn't accept a lower price for the art, despite being paid in cash. No Junkie would do that.

Look. Maybe Warehouse employees figured out what was in the warehouse and decided to rip it off? So, they first figured out where they could sell it. Logically, a comic shop would be the first place such a thief would call up or check out. The two guys could be middle men for the actual thieves, or they could be the thieves themselves.

Junkies do not HAGGLE! Junkies take whatever cash they can get for this stuff. I mean, give me a fricking break.

The story Bechara tells is that both the shop and Brad tried putting enough cash together on the spot to buy the art. And why in the world wouldn't a comic owner want the art? Only two reasons: 1) It was more than they were willing to pay (which seems unlikely if it's two junkies fencing stole goods); or they knew it was stolen and did not want to receive stolen goods. If a Junkie mugs someone and takes their purse or wallet, they are immediately going to a fence (or an unsavory pawn shop) to sell the stuff for whatever they can get. They are not haggling with them.

Jesus Christ. I can use logic.

Marvel would have done it. And maybe Marvel was lying to the artists about what they still had, so filing a police report created more legal problems than it’s worth.

Look. Junkies are going to sell the stuff they just stole from Marvel for whatever reasonable cash they can get. They need cash RIGHT NOW to feed their habit. They aren’t haggling. Thieves who know what this stuff is, or who are middle men for the actual thieves (Marvel warehouse employees? security guards? The mob?) etc. are going to haggle. And they are not just walking into a comic shop cold. They are shopping it ahead of time (making calls, etc.) to make sure they get willing buyers and not someone who will call the cops. Which is why Brad was there when they walked in. It wasn’t a coincidence.

Whatever. It’s still questionable.

I question the “Junkes broke in and stole it,” part. I think someone stole it, but it wasn’t junkies.

This happened in the 80’s. Even then, OA from ASM #1 & X-Men #1 was valuable. And the people selling it knew it was worth something. And, (assuming the story is true) obviously Brad knew the guys selling it didn’t legally own it. Instead of alerting the police, or Marvel, he bought the stuff. Also, the story isn’t true of it happened in the 80’s, because Marvel gave back Kirby & Ditko pages in the 70’s, and that stuff shouldn’t have been in the warehouse to begin with

That's fine. But the description of how Savage came to acquire the X-Men #1 pages is inherently phony. 1. He just happens to be in someone else's comic shop in the 1980's when these two guys walk in with the complete ASM #1. What a coincidence! If true, my guess is that they were shopping this stuff to all the shops in town, and this owner knew Brad collected art so he called him in to authenticate this stuff. But, let's assume it was just pure coincidence, for the sake of argument. 2. Brad and the shop owner can't come up with enough cash for the ASM #1 pages, so they agree to come back with the right amount a couple days later. These guys show up, claiming they sold the ASM art, but brought X-Men #1 instead! Plus they brought some other choice early ASM pages. I mean, boy these two mystery guys who nobody ever names, or has ever heard of, just happen to have a bunch of complete Marvel grail comic pages. Where or where did they come from? 3. Brad, of course, acts like a complete dummy and pretends that there's nothing the least bit fishy about these two guys. My conclusion: The story is complete bunk, and Brad is covering up how he actually got the pages; or its true and its patently obviously they were stolen from Marvel, and these two guys were fencing the loot and Brad played dumb. I lean to the former.

Because it would essentially blow up the entire hobby. Jack's estate got paid off handsomely, so have no incentive to rock the boat. And the collector community (the Cabal?) doesn't want to do it either. So everybody plays nice. So, if neither Marvel (which doesn't want to open up a can of legal worms about how they let the stuff get stolen in the first place), and the Kirby estate are not asserting title, then everyone can pretend the whole thing doesn't stink, and the initial thieves get away with it. I mean, the person who had the AF #15 pages offered them back to Steve Ditko first. And when he refused them, they donated them to the LOC anonymously rather than sell them off at auction. What does that tell you? They knew they were stolen, and didn't want to get tainted with the stench. To this day, there is a lot of speculation about who donated them but nothing confirmed. The person who is rumored to have donated them worked at Marvel. This suggests that a LOT of this art may have been pilfered through embezzlement.

He claims he facilitated its sale by Brad Savage. My bad, as it was Brad who gave Bechara the and bull story about how it wound up with Brad. http://originalcomicartlocator.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-real-story-how-original-art-to-x.html?m=1

It’s pretty easy to prove that most very early Jack Kirby Marvel hero art was stolen.

That’s not the public version of the story he told. Which confirms my theory that he concocted the story to cover for the thief. UPDATE: I got my timeline mixed up. Brad Savage is the first known owner other than Marvel. He had a doozie if a story that sounded like complete nonsense to me on how he got the pages. http://originalcomicartlocator.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-real-story-how-original-art-to-x.html?m=1

Bechara is the dealer I mentioned in another thread who either covered up where he really got the X-Men #1 art from with a fanciful story, or played really dumb when two guys tried to fence him stolen art. IMHO. Kind of like Joe Kennedy, who made his fortune from bootlegging.

Yes. I generally separate DPS pages and store them next to each other in an Itoya. I find that much more satisfying that folding them over and only being able to look at one half of the art at a time. You can still pull the out and put them together to look at them as a complete page. If you're going to frame them, you can use archival safe materials to reconnect them. It's not a big deal.

The Statute of limitations has long since run on the crime pertaining to the stolen art. The question is chain of title and whether or not anyone who buys this art legally owns it. I think the folks paying big prices for this older marvel stuff are taking a huge risk, if it is not blessed by either Marvel, the Kirby estate or the Ditko estate. Now, Marvel may in fact not be trying to assert ownership, because they gave up title back in the 70's to the artists. But, what about the art that went (conveniently) missing before that transfer of ownership happened? This is a mess.

Oh please.

The description of how a certain well-known collector originally (1st known person, anyway) obtained them said a guy came into a NYC comic shop with some ASM #1 art, when this collector happened to be there. The Collector offered to buy them on the spot, and didn't have enough cash. So they agree to come back the next day (or in a couple of days) to sell. They came back, and they said they sold the ASM art already, but brought the X-Men #1 pages instead. The Collector bought them complete, and held onto them until he broke them up years later. This description (if True) is clearly a description of some thief fencing this stuff with a comic shop. Alternatively, the original collector just made this whole story up and is trying to cover up how he got them. Either way, it's theft. The only people who should have had that art are either Marvel, Steve Ditko, or the Kirbys at the time. Period. It's a dead giveaway that it was theft because they had both ASM #1 and X-Men art. And, of course, this collector played dumb about it. (Assuming that's how it actually happened).

Nope. I’ve read the story about how X-Men #1 entered the market. They were clearly stolen.