Fischb1

On 10/30/2023 at 1:49 PM, vodou said:

Too bad you missed it on CAF for 32k. That buyer flipped it immediately to Heritage.

EDIT: my mistake, I’m thinking of What If 29 cover, sorry.

The what if 29 cover was purchased at auction (by someone I know), sold to someone else 3 years later, then flipped on Heritage, and now Bill J owns it. Beautiful cover! but a different book as you said. 

On 10/30/2023 at 1:18 PM, Lago32 said:

That's fine and I have done it too on a couple of "gotta have it" pieces. But when we do that, in other words when we let nostalgia take control and "go nuts" as you put it, often it leads to bidding to irrational unprecedented levels. And again, that is fine except it invariably leads, and has lead to, exponential price jumps in OA as opportunistic dealers and collectors that hold that type of art will see these "go nuts" results as bar-setting. This results in that OA being that much higher for the rest of us which then triggers countless threads here complaining re rising prices. Again, I have done it but I am very aware of what I contributing to when I do it so I try to be selective where/when I do it. Unfortunately for the hobby, it is happening more and more nowadays as there are more collectors chasing less art = major FOMO = more people "going nuts"

So, if I understand you correctly, what you're saying is: Don't take my own money and buy what I love because it will lead to prices going up in the hobby? Doesn't it sound silly when rephrased like that?

On 10/30/2023 at 12:30 PM, Lago32 said:

And people wonder how/why prices escalate in this hobby the way they do lol.

If I can buy what I love and make the money back by selling off other pieces that I don't love (and that have gone up in value over the years), why not? 

On 10/27/2023 at 4:50 AM, Nexus said:

Your take on this does come off like a case of sour grapes for the consignor. But what I believe the OP was trying to say is that the dealer may have taken the cover on "consignment" and then immediately "sold" it...to himself. At perhaps below market value. And is now flipping it himself 18 months later. At a much higher value. Read his post again.

Or maybe that's not what happened. Whatever the case may be, consignors should have the right to know who bought their art. IMO.

With no proof at all except that the page is for sale again at a higher price? Making the accusation itself is sour grapes. I've sold pieces through dealers that those dealers then had again years later, that's the business. And if consignors insist on knowing who buys their art, all the anonymous buyers that dealers have go away. I'd rather have access to a larger pool of buyers, that's why I sometimes go through a dealer in the first place. 

Today's prices have been very strong. Overall, I'd say Thursday was strong. Friday was a mixed bag. Some strong, some weak, some middling. And today strong.

Is the market still moving upwards? No. Is the market collapsing? No. (I'm sorry to the guy who overpaid for 2 pages in his heat and then lost a ton on the flip one year later. But that does not a market make.)

I'm optimistic!

I think Friday's Byrne sold well too. 45k for a panel page with Kitty running away from an alien/brood? That's not squishy, add Wolverine with claws or Phoenix and you're back up to 70k. This all seems like peak pricing to me.

On 6/23/2023 at 8:02 AM, Bronty said:

Right, and I even said it wasn’t exactly a huge leap, and yet it was still a debate somehow 🤔 

Whooooooosh

On 6/19/2023 at 5:03 PM, Bronty said:

  A $6m potential sale for a piece that surprises some people is going to have some of that.     Maybe it’s pessimistic maybe it’s realistic but it’s never going to be a discussion that is all sunshine and puppies.    Besides we just came out of three years of sunshine and puppies that halted pretty abruptly…

This was what set off my responses to you.

Either way, today's prices have been super strong. Blue chip Comic oa looks strong to me. 

On 6/22/2023 at 1:33 PM, Bronty said:

My prediction was that it was tough to write a 6m check right now and that there was only one party who would bid at that level, and that it would end at $6m with no further bids.    Remind me what happened?  

 

I'm not talking about that 1 piece. That was never what we debated on. We were debating on the general state of the comic art market, and today's prices have been fire. Everything has gone on the higher end. The market looks super-strong at least for today. 

Today's prices have been super strong so far. Agree? 

On 6/22/2023 at 1:24 PM, Bronty said:

The only button I pushed during the Frazetta lot was "Disable Live Bidding."   

On 6/20/2023 at 7:02 AM, Bronty said:

IMO though the broader discussion is that nothing is on fire right now.    Not Bitcoin, not stocks, not real estate , not collectibles, because we measure all those things in cash terms and cash is up. 

I hear what you're saying, but again, let me step in with some facts: BTC is up 60% ytd. The S&P 500 is up 15% YTD and that's after starting in a deep hole and digging it's way back out (to now be up 15%). So, are many collectibles down? Yes! Comics, and Video games have gotten killed. Is everything down? No. Not at all. If you just look at news headlines everything seems glum. But if you check the facts, plenty of asset classes are doing fine to great. 

(I also think we may have a bigger downturn soon. I'm just saying that it hasn't happened yet. People are just saying it's happened and finding random examples here and there to prove something that just isn't true yet.) 

P.S. If a number of pieces slip through the cracks this weekend in HA and end at low prices,  I hope to be the winner on a few of them. 

On 6/19/2023 at 11:51 PM, Bronty said:

That's fair; comic art hasn't dropped as much as most things, but I'm not sure there's a category of collectibles that is, broadly speaking, up since interest rates started going up.      I collect in 5-6 different categories so yes I do tend to think about more than just comic art, but even in comics the drops have been quite noticeable.    We discussed in another thread about how someone lost a cool million on flipping a Superman 1 in 7.0 recently.      Cash is harder and pricier to come by and that's taking the wind out of the sails of all asset classes.

Yes. Comics have gone way down. That is definitely true. Some as much as 80% off their height. But I don't think of comics and comic art as the same asset class. If I'm having a rough financial time, I can sell off any comic and buy it back later. Whether I want the same grade or a different grade, I can always get one back (except in very rare circumstances). But if I sell a piece of comic art I love, it's most probably gone forever. And the same is true if one I love comes up for sale: Even if I'm worried about a recession, I know that if I pass, I may never have the shot again, so I somehow make it work. Very different asset classes at least in my opinion. 

On 6/19/2023 at 5:03 PM, Bronty said:

Well, what else were you expecting?   

A $6m potential sale for a piece that surprises some people is going to have some of that.     Maybe it’s pessimistic maybe it’s realistic but it’s never going to be a discussion that is all sunshine and puppies.    Besides we just came out of three years of sunshine and puppies that halted pretty abruptly…

Bronty, I know you're a video game collector, or maybe more specifically a video game art collector, so I can understand if your "halted pretty abruptly" is referring to that market. But, if your comment is geared towards the original comic art, I really don't think that's been true at all. The comiclink results were strong. The Heritage auction is this weekend and already a number of pages are very high. Weekly auctions are still bringing in huge numbers. I just came back from Heroes con where a lot of big deals were made. Are there some pages that aren't selling well? Sure. Is the market stabilizing? Maybe? But you make it sound like you've witnessed some great fall that I just haven't see evidence of yet. I guess we'll all know more after this weekend's HA auction, and maybe you'll be right. But for right now, it's just a guessing game. 

On 6/18/2023 at 10:48 AM, KirbyCollector said:

Apologies, was unaware... have no social accounts so did not know

A few people who knew the family knew, but then last night they announced it at Heroe's Con. So I guess it's public knowledge now. 

On 6/17/2023 at 10:05 PM, KirbyCollector said:

Would someone mind explaining?

Jim's son, Mikey, passed away last week (at a very young age). 

First ever panel appearance fun! 

On 6/8/2023 at 5:31 PM, comix4fun said:

The piece we're talking about is 15x21.... 315 square inches

A standard piece of modern OA is on an 11x17 board.....187 inches. 

It wasn't a price comparison, just a size one.
A dramatically larger format piece (like in the comparison is like quality 1966 vs 1969 Marvel OA pieces) gives a buyer more reasons to talk themselves into feeling good about their bids. 

Ah.

Thanks for clarifying. 

On 6/8/2023 at 5:20 PM, comix4fun said:

That probably explains the perception difference. Coming at the series well after it was released probably gives us different memories of the time period. 

In today's art market it doesn't take much to get to a number that feels nutty. The Bagley art market is mature enough that seeing a piece that large (168% of a standard 11x17 piece) that was part of a big card series...well....we've seen less go for more. 

Wait. In all seriousness, how did you come up with a price for a "standard" 11x17 piece? How would one even begin to figure that out?

On 6/8/2023 at 3:54 PM, Unstoppablejayd said:

Our angry friend tried to reunite it with its counter piece and failed… not sure if he is happy or sad from that happening

They would have looked nice together, but with his impending nuptials, 35k was out of the question. 

On 6/8/2023 at 12:54 PM, comix4fun said:

This one is actually kind of a "big deal" in the realm of card art collecting. 

1994 Fleer Spider-Man was more of a tent-pole, franchise-film, card set among most of the others in that time period. It was popular for years in a sector of the hobby that had sets coming and going everyone month or so. 
This piece is one giant 15"x21" piece on one board that links the 9 cards that people would see in their "Official 1994 Fleer Spider-Man Binder" every time they looked at it. The entire set is interlocking 9 card images, but only 2 of them have spider-man (or some version of Spider-man) featured in all 9 cards. This is one of those. 

It's also got a nice art team with Bagley inked by Austin. 

It went for A LOT, don't get me wrong, but it's one of those pieces that going to need to be listed with an asterisk if being compared to regular single card art or something from a lesser or less nostalgic card set. 
Given what it is, and not even being a card-art collector myself, I would have set the absolute floor on this at somewhere between $27-28k, and it wouldn't take much to look at that size, that art team, the composition and talk oneself into a few more increments. 

It's 9 different Spiderman cards. So that's less than 4k each. The fact that they make one huge poster makes them even more valuable imo. 

On 6/5/2023 at 3:47 PM, Benedict Judas Hel said:

Good luck, Fisch!  May the money flow freely for your auctions!

Thanks, Benedict! The money went to other comic art already, haha. So it all stays in the hobby.