Rick2you2

Still pretty good. Take last year’s market price on anything of some collector interest and double it. If you get it for less, welcome to the new reality (as I found out above).

Only 20%? Bargain.

For quite a while I have been saying on these boards that, as bidders, we don’t have to play this price escalation game by simply not bidding. That would help keep the market reasonable. I could have bought the piece if I really wanted to spend the money. I just didn’t see the personal satisfaction in it. Besides, it is in what I consider a soft price spot in the hobby due to its age, involving artists whose popularity has passed, who were employing a style that’s out of favor, on a character of limited interest. The one thing I do regret is bidding early with higher-than-tracking bids. I think that might have resulted in a stronger than expected end result. By encouraging one-upsmanship when there was too much time left to think, and bid again.

I just couldn’t justify it.

Stiff bidding. This just went for $7,360. I figured around $4,500. I wanted that one.

I wouldn’t count on too many deals.

We encourage this mercantile approach to collecting on these boards by focusing a lot of attention on what you complain about. Jump in, look at what this piece just sold for, I could have had it for $2,000 just last year, yada-yada. We don’t take much time to consider how it happened, other than nostalgia. Why does someone love, say, Ron Lim, or Jim Aparo? What are they bringing to the table that’s special? Or, are they? Personally, I suspect that an analytical approach to a lot of artists’ works as compared to price would turn a lot of price differentials into hash. They only make some sense if recognized as progenitors of a particular style, or again, popularity of subject. So, perhaps, consider threads about style, differentials, and price. Shift the conversation to art for the sake of art, instead of going with the flow. “Put a nickel in the drum, save another drunken bum.” (Guys and Dolls).

I must be getting old, but I’m missing your point. Right now, there is a boom market, and lots of people know it. Sell now, because booms are often followed by busts. You can see it in the high volume of things set for auction. But, even factoring in booms and busts, the trend still points up—on very good popular subject art, high collector interest art (e.g., mediocre Sandman pages), and name-artist art. Whether that is carrying up the other stuff a little or a lot, I don’t know. We seem to still be on the upside of the boom, but as oil prices rise, and wars continue, that may well change. Or, inflation could continue to drive prices up as OA acts as an inflation hedge. This is what happens when you buy tulips for investment. Some of those buyers, I bet, made a lot of money and quit while they were ahead. You can be a bull or a bear, but only the hogs get slaughtered. Thankfully, a lot of hobbyists maintain a sense of proportionality and will have only bought their tulips for a little show. The ones who I suspect are really at risk are dumb-dumbs who buy without investigating what they are getting (“Nossir, I really thought it was the first Venom”), or collector-dealers who see this as easy pickens to a fortune. For them, I have little sympathy.

"A fool and his money are soon parted."

This may be just suggesting a general shift in bidders’ bidding strategies. Why post a large number as a proxy when it just becomes a target to shoot at?

Is it all on the internet, or is there a live session afterward, like with HA?

I’ve never bid on ComicConnect before. How does it differ from say, HA?

Theranos?

In one sense, you are only looking at the “best case” scenario. What about the price for art by journeymen or on characters who aren’t fan favorites (where I like to dwell). Where is Jack Sparling’s Bomba work going? Or Ramona Fredon (really nice lady) and Metamorpho? They will get killed. And then we get to things like Kirby’s Boys Ranch—great artist, subject matter, uh-uh. A lot of the art I have bought in the past 2 years has not gone up or not gone up much, which is the way I like it. But if this is prologue for the future, the financial future for most art by Ross Andru, Richard Dillin, etc., is not pretty.

So do I. But should potential newbies be discouraged from buying anything because they don’t have the money for the old expensive stuff?

More pointedly, the focus on price is what I am trying to get away from. Is newer art so lousy (not), that the market prices make sense in terms of comparable quality? Should younger collectors be discouraged on a theory that the old stuff is the best, and hoard their thruppances for a dull Byrne page rather than enjoy the newer crop of artists, in particular, on books they read? I don’t think so. Logically, that’s the greatest danger to the current market structure.

I thought you were asking over time? Over the next 5 years, things will probably just march along. Maybe at a slower pace, but not if people are worried about inflation. Collectibles are a hedge against it. When you were referring to GA, did you mean art or books?

Age. And aging out. When I was a kid Indian Head pennies were a hot coin collectible. Not anymore. As has been mentioned by others, Golden Age stuff isn’t holding value (with some presumed exceptions). So, within the subset of the hobby, things that aren’t fresh in the minds of readers will either drop relative to other pieces or in absolute terms (directly or by hidden discount). If Peanuts weren’t reprinted and able to maintain a current readership, I think it would slump. Then, there is the question of the whole hobby. If readership drops, so will future buyer’s interest in any books. The high end spenders of today still get the benefit of publicity and nostalgia.

It probably is “safe” in the sense that it won’t go down in price (at least for a while). But what triggered my comment was whether “good” was being price out of the market. For those who care to really study the stuff, not at all.

“Fault” was a poor choice of words. In this case, however, ignorance is not bliss. Just an empty bank account.

I want an original Piet Mondrian. Can you find a dealer who will sell me one for less than a grand? It's just a bunch of lines and boxes with a little color here and there. See my point?

Which is the fault of the would-be new collectors, for not looking elsewhere, or perhaps not knowing where to look. Next time, point them in the right direction. Lot's of good Swamp Thing coming out at reasonable prices. They will (or should) thank you for it.

Not at all. What you have to do is ignore the hype about what I consider absurd pricing for certain art and focus on what is really good yet affordable. There are 10’s of thousands of modern pages which are excellent. There are older backwaters of Silver and Bronze Age art that are relatively cheap, and there are other subjects besides superheroes, like war stories, that are great. Start by looking at a typical page. If a splash, is the subject strong and well centered? Does the activity justify the splash at all? Are the characters accurately drawn in realistic poses (unless it is the type of art where realism is out the window). Do the secondary activities relate well to the center? Does the style match the content? For example, I like supernatural art to have more of an impressionistic feel than a biologically accurate one. If you have a panel page, are the panels logically arranged? Did the artist do something offbeat or cool? If so, the odds are it is a good page. Then it comes down to taste. Pricing, on the other hand, is heavily influenced by nostalgia and artist recognition. I also have to tell you that all artists have bad days. And many artists get assignments which I suspect are done half-heartedly to earn a paycheck. If you pay attention, weed them out. Those who got in early bought the good stuff, and bad, just as you can do now with new stuff or backwaters (with some exceptions). A long time ago, I bought a Neal Adams cover for $200, and wish I had bought the other one for sale. But so what? Now I buy new stuff at the inflation-adjusted equivalent, and it still makes me happy. Just don’t get wrapped up in the money game of investors, dealers and shills, which can be depressing. And the next time you see someone buying a black-costumed Spider-man page for $3,000,000, just laugh your off.

In late January, Vicente Cifuentes listed his inked pages from Phantom Stranger 42 with prices ranging (mostly) from 50-60 Euro's (1 Euro is $1.10). I bought 2 of them, for 60 and 65 Euro's (which came with an extra overlay). All but one has since been sold off of his site. A few days ago, I received an email from a potential art source telling me had 2 Phantom Stranger pages for sale from issue 42. Only $250 a piece. Here is one of them: Nice work, and only 4 times the purchase price. FYI: I would probably have bought a few more, but I already had 3 other pages of his work from WW.

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