Varanis

100% an intended feature and a huge reason the event was as good as it was. Tickets were capped at 500 and at least 470 were sold, which was above Bill’s target for the first year.

Is the final piece published? If it's an unpublished piece and we're talking relatively small dollars, I think I'd just be happy with the art for what it is. The only time I'd care is if I bought a prelim / figure study because the provenance was important to me. For example, if I bought a prelim for a published 1st appearance page under the assumption it was the only prelim for that page I would be a bit concerned if a similar prelim was out there that I wasn't informed of when I bought the first. But that's because owning the one and only prelim to an important page has meaningful value. In this situation, it doesn't feel much different than there being similar convention sketches for a piece. However, I admittedly don't recognize the final piece here.

I might care, but it would depend entirely on specifics (e.g.; price paid, similarity to final piece, etc).

I don't have any 6-digit pieces, but if I did, they'd surely go on the wall.

I'll be there with a few potential trades. Always looking for Geoff Shaw Thanos, Burnett Cosmic Ghost Rider, or Ribic Thor. If I still have money by the time OAX rolls around, I'd be looking to buy as well. I should have Stegman AbsCarn, Walta Vision, Infantino/Nino Creepy, Shalvey CGR vs X-Men variant cover, Veitch/Alcala Swamp Thing, and maybe a few other potential trades or for sale pieces. Nothing I'm actively looking to get rid of, but fringe pieces I could part with to help build the core collection.

Here are mine! Always love CAF best of year. https://www.comicartfans.com/gallerybestofyr.asp?yr=2023&gcat=135928

Less quantity, more quality.

$21,250 for the Thor Ribic cover. No idea what happened there.

So far so good on my goal this year.

https://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=163495

Exactly. It's not really an opinion that SSB sells for crazy amounts. There's plenty of evidence out there.

I know people who've bought and sold them. From what I've seen, SSB pages have a floor around $25-$30k right now. Maybe $15-20k for the absolute worst pages. Felix sold the better pages for $3-4k originally. I've personally sold 4 non-SSB Tradd pages and made 3x, 6x, 8x, and 10x.

Plenty of his non-SSB Tradd art has traded hands publicly and privately. In my experience it all sells for 3x-10x what Felix originally sold for and it's not hard to find buyers. SSB is typically 8-10x+. Felix priced the Doctor Strange drop around 25-35% under SSB secondary, which I think makes perfect sense. The book is unproven but the art is comparable in aesthetic to what we got in SSB. I'm not sure how not receiving a lowball offer on a Tradd piece on a DOND Facebook post means anything. It's not like the poster would have sold at that price. I'd pay $250 any day for a Tradd page, but I'm not going to insult someone by making an offer like that. I'm not sure I even saw the post in question and I frequent DOND daily. It may have been taken down too quickly for the right buyers to see.

2022 may have been my lightest year for OA yet, but still had a ton of great pick-ups. My biggest and best was probably this Cosmic Ghost Rider variant cover by J Scott Campbell. https://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1859670

I post the majority of art I get on CAF. I think sharing is the best part of the hobby. I do think it's fun to keep some pieces in reserve to post later and keep conversations going during periods I may be buying less art. I also don't feel any urgency to post some of my smaller pieces. Those can be fun to save to share at in person gatherings as well. One somewhat odd disadvantage to posting I've run into is that I have 1 piece posted that is singularly more desirable than anything else in my collection. Almost without fail, it's inquired about if I ever engage in a trade / sale conversation even if the value disparity is exponential. This has made for a few awkward interactions and possibly in a case or two scuttled a deal. That was something I did not anticipate when sharing the piece and makes me regret I did somewhat.