First Upgrade

Does anyone know if there are any vendor tables available? I suspect that the room has been sold out for sometime, but, I have not been able to confirm with Bart... Just picked up a decent Silver Age collection & would like to set up this weekend...

Least we not forget to add THE JUICE!!...

Another dollar bin recovery...

LEARNED BEHAVIOR... For many of us, perhaps nearly all of us here, who buy, sell, trade or merely 'collect' original comic book art as well as comic books and associated collectibles, our actions are significantly inspired by past interactions with local comic book shop owners and original comic book art dealers. It is a historical fact that nearly all of those formative early interactions resulted in an inequitable outcome for the young customer. As the decades passed, those of us who adapted skill sets and 'tools', often derived out of continued learned behavior from observation and interaction with 'dealers', survived to become more 'successful' in this 'business'. I suggest that the 'holding back', or not widely publicising, ownership of a piece of original comic book art is another example of behavior learned via long term proximity to original comic book art 'dealers'. ...Each one of them have numerous pieces of art, regardless of valuation (A+ through Z-), that are available for purchase at the shows which are not currently listed for sale either on their websites or eBay stores... ...Every year, several of them will announce that they are bringing to the next show 'pieces from their personal collection' which also perpetuates a 'fresh to market' phenomena... ...And when the asking price results in another unsold appearance on the showroom floor, some of those examples' FMVs shall be determined somewhere amongst the next series of online auctions, some with and many without reserves...(just check your favorite auction preview right now) ...Least we not forget about the next looming website or 'CAF dealer update' so that relevance is maintained (with the vast majority of NEW pieces going unsold)...hold back somethings for the next update and hold back some of the better stuff for the next show!...

Absolutely factual..it is a LEARNED BEHAVIOR... And, also when it comes time to BUY... Here are some text book, classic, and frequently employed lines... "I really like the art"; "I just want it for my collection"; "I never owed one before"; "Would you take XX?"; "Can I get a better price if I bought more than one?"; "I only pay 50% of FMV"; "I can't make any money at that price"; I need to make a profit"; "But I'm buying to resell"; "I have a tax i.d."; "I have to make my tables back first"; "I have payroll costs"; etc., etc., etc.

One would 'hope' so...as those same 'dealers' who are buying & selling (possibly 'shilling') pieces simultaneously during these auctions are critical to the short-term, apparent, 'viability' of the original comic book art market... [...perhaps the 'low' reserves here were in place to compensate for the 'prohibition' of shill-bidding that would otherwise be employed as it was in the recent past]

Aside from directly asking CLink representatives, did anyone here track how many reserves were in place for this auction? When I took notice, as the bid prices were advanced to the reserve, there were approximately 25 pieces with reserves (?)... And, the auction ended with 22 of those having not been met... I guesstimate that several of those 22 pieces originated from a 'friendly' source... Missing the FMV estimate on a few pieces is expected...but, missing 22 times, or almost half a page worth of auction items is unacceptable...'from a certain point of view'...

I suspect there could have been some amount of 'market' fatigue at play with certain pieces that finished where they did... The Heritage Signature Auction was followed by the Comic Connect Event Auction, and then, the Comic Link Featured Auction closed this summer's tri-fecta... ...not to mention the recent national conventions, nor the weekly offerings from HA's Sunday Internet Auctions, and those regular updates from our favorite original comic book art dealers... And, perhaps those OTHER presumably 'undervalued' examples are truly only 'worth' what the final bid said that they are...

Yup, I had it for sale at San Diego this year. Would 'we' agree that offering a piece for sale publicly, whether it be a single showing or via numerous platforms, and then sending it into a no reserve auction, is most often than not harmful to the final bid? Historically, original comic book art which undergoes this path to 'market', often sells for much less than whatever the asking price was outside of auction. Would 'we' agree? Perhaps this cover was initially being solicited with an 'unreasonable' asking price... Perhaps setting a reserve would have helped... Perhaps not putting it into an auction ending the day after Labor Day would have helped...

22 pieces ended without their reserves met by the 'market'...examples from notable artists included the aforementioned Studio legends...Jones, Kaluta, and Wrightson...the Smith Conan Title Splash narrowly avoided the same fate...

At least the RESERVE has been met...

"Looks like real trouble..."

A few additional observations from the first four pages of original comic book art offerings, sorted from highest to lowest price... The top two pieces, by Jones & Smith, both with reserves, are from the much celebrated 'Studio'...artists who are among the 'best' of their era... The next two, by Perez & McFarlane, both without reserves, are from more 'recent' times...and, who are also regarded as among the 'best' artists of their times... Examples from the other two members of The Studio, Kaluta & Wrightson, can also be found with reserves in the first four pages as sorted from highest to lowest in price... Interestingly, there are several pieces with reserves as low as $1,000...(??) Granted, the final bid for all of the original art offerings are still several days out, and the valuations can and often change during the last seconds of the auction... Nevertheless, it appears to me that their are more reserves in place for this FEATURED auction than in recent cycles, and for pieces with apparent valuations below $3,000 (at one time, this was a verbally stated threshold for placement of a reserve on an item)...

Congratulations. I tried to push the underbidder to take this one down...he will 'regret' it down the line...

Unfortunately, because this priniting error for Infinity Crusade #1 is significantly less common as compared to the the two different Venom Lethal Protector #1 printing error books (Black printing error & White printing error), it did not recieve a Blue Universal label like those did... Over 200 'Black' Venom Lethal Protector #1 Red Foil priniting error books have been graded to date... At least 2 'White' Venom Lethal Protector #1 Gold Foil printing error books have been graded to date... Guess how many 'White' Infinity Crusade #1 No Foil printing error books have been graded to date... We all know the print run for Infinity Crusade #1 is massive, however, only a couple hundred examples in total have been submitted for grading by CGC...and don't forget about the whole 'Newsstand Variant' debate...

Does anyone know the details & prices of these two pieces? Were they being sold as a set? Thanks!

Unfortunately students, as I mentioned at the start of the semester, the partial run did not have a copy of issue six...until this afternoon, I assumed that the earliest issue was number eight... Just wait until you see the issues twelve and fourteen...

X-Men 133...I might know a guy, who knows a guy... ...And, they are not faded...

The original owner kept them well preserved, despite being stored unbagged & unboarded... That one's brothers & sisters already graded well... And, yes, they smell wonderful...

...found a few hours to spend with the DELL/GOLD KEY collection that I mentioned earlier this year...this was hiding between a few Four Color issues...

The Venom Lethal Protector Gold Foil Error/White cover is graded under the Blue Universal label... I do not know why this book was not graded under the same Blue Universal label...

Just returned from Sarasota...

I use a similar, albeit more complex, approach to evaluating original comic book art pages as our HOST has employed for evaluating the physical condition of a comic book... I understand and accept that not every 8.0 is 'created equal'...for example, one 8.0 may have specific 'defects' which another 8.0 does not. Nevertheless, both examples woupd grade 8.0... Nor, is every B level piece of original comic book art simply B level as a result of the exact same determing factors (defects/detractors), which I choose to define on a case by case basis... For me, there are perhaps too many specific characteristics, unique to an original comic book art piece which influence where the page 'grades'....quickly teasing apart those differences in characteristics such as general content, artist, artistic skill, aesthetic, composition, era, publisher, current market supply and demand, litigation or arbitration with the Estate, or even 'guesstimation of bidder valuation' (just to list a few) is a 'spooky' task...was or is the bidder a 'collector' or dealer, etc., can further complicate the analysis... It would be 'nice' to reach a 10-point grading scale where I could state with 'certainty', whether a piece is a 9.9, 9.8, 9.6, 9.4, 9.2, or 9.0, in regard to A-Level examples...and for all subsequent grade levels... For now, I am content with grading B level original comic book art pieces as being either B-, B-/B, B, B/B+, or B+ I described this piece, which I just moved, as being B-/B...(nevermind 'why')... And, at some point, you'll just 'know it's level 'when you see it'...

Yesterday, Anthony put up this "B-/C+" panel page from Wolverine Bloody Choices...not sure if any of you also noticed, but, I suspect that the HA comp. was a deciding factor, or at the very least a thought, for the purchaser....$2,250 was the asking price, and was marked as SOLD by the afternoon... I was tempted for about 10 minutes...