ShallowDan

Rude is someone whom I've come to appreciate more and more over the years. Obviously he's a very solid artist, but one of the things that I most respect about his work is his ability to tell a story through a panel page. The posts above are great examples of this.

One of the nice things about the O/A hobby is that there's something to be had at any price level (and always something to aspire to at the next level). Budget-dictating-taste is an obvious factor at play, but everyone can find something that brings them great joy, even if we are slightly envious of those with bigger/better collections. If you don't mind me being nosy about these buys, did you have any idea of who the under-bidders were on the pieces that you did win? As I mentioned in the OP, that's an aspect of this side of the hobby I've always been curious about. I'm sure it's a rather small fraternity.

Those are actually a great points, and something that might be at play way more often that I was originally thinking. It would be interesting to know how often a six-figure final hammer price is followed up with a handful of five-figure consignments from the buyer in the next auction. At times, the O/A game at these levels seems like a table of guys playing poker with everyone wanting to play as long as possible, but worried about who is going to try and cash out first.

The on-going thread concerning ASM 299 has prompted me to ask something I've wondered about for quite a while: how many folks in the world are bidding on and buying pieces at these price levels? I ask this because it's always felt as if O/A collecting is a relatively niche hobby, and I've always assumed that most collectors fall somewhere towards the upper side of the middle class, as far as income goes. Just looking at my self, everything I've ever bought has been in the three or four-figure range. While I could swing something in the low to mid five-figures, my lifestyle is such that my mind always reminds me of what else money buys at those levels, so it's a relatively easy pass when something I like comes along in that range. Many of the collectors I've seen with really impressive collections bought the bulk of their collections back when prices were much lower than they are now. So I'm left wondering exactly how many people are bidding against each other when you're looking at something like ASM 299. At this end of the market does Bidder A know that he's up against Bidder B and C (which is to say is everyone in this market aware of each other and who they are bidding against?) or is it like me going for a low four-figure piece, where I've absolutely no idea who I'm bidding against? Hoping Gene and some of you other guys can shed some light on how the other half lives (and bids).

I've seen this Theo Holstein ad before and have always wondered about it. Are we sure this isn't all a bunch of 70s-era gay lingo being used that just got confused for comic stuff over time: Silver Streak? Daring Mystery? Action? Human Torch? Sub-Mariner? All Winners? Young Allies? More Fun? Tough Kid Squad? Boy Commandos?

Beats the pants off of the $12 it was at when OP made the post yesterday, that's for sure! I'd say that's fairly strong, all things considered.

I'm being really nosy here, but I'm curious so I have to ask: was it very obviously him when you received payment, or at what point did you figure out that it was him? I've always imagined that one of the downsides of having any level of fame/notoriety is that you might not always want to buy stuff in your own name and have it shipped to your home address.

Best of luck with the final hammer tonight, but I'm guessing that the bolded may be at play here. I suspect that this is one of those things where there's a small number/narrow pool of collectors, but very deep interest with the right crowd. So, this might be a grail piece for a small handful of people, but it's a matter of getting the right eyes looking at it. It's possibly the sort of thing that might've done better sitting as a buy-it-now on ebay for a few months, waiting to the right person to come across the listing. I know a guy who used to collect illustration art from model cars and planes (50s/60s era kits), and will try to shoot him a message in case he knows anyone with crossover interest here.

Well, technically he can now claim that the piece has received considerable attention from several Spidey collectors, including Mike Burkey...

Brian's post piqued my curiosity enough that I looked up images of the final statue for which this piece was used. I'm awed at how talented some sculptors are at capturing a 2D drawing and translating it into a 3D design. They really nailed Timm's Wonder Woman with this one.

Ha! Funny that you should ask about that. Interestingly enough, without going too deep into the details, I do know the other bidder. I thought it might be him at the time, but wasn't 100% certain. Later on I confirmed it was him. I don't think he knew that it was me going against him for these pieces, but I'd say we've been friendly rivals on other auctions in the past and he has much deeper pockets than I do, so I'll figure that I just kept him honest on those particular ones.

I had the joy of pulling off such a feat on eBay a couple of years ago when bidding on some pieces that had a relatively shallow pool of collectors. They were being trickled out over the course of several weeks and for the bulk of the items I realized that the significant interest was from me and one other rival (ebay makes an effort to hide bidder IDs these days, but they still shows a feedback score for the person, so I knew it was the same guy every time), with no one else willing to spend as much as either of of would. He was definitely interested in all of the items being offered up, while I was mainly just trying to get a handful of the best ones. I quickly realized that the items I didn't bid on would be won by him, usually for a price just over $200 ea. For the items I did bid on, he would win whenever my max was less than $500, and I would win whenever my bid was over $500. He was basically bidding a $501 max on all of them. As you can guess, I made sure he won more than a dozen of these at $500 with my $495 bid, while I took most of the ones I wanted at $506. Towards the end he bumped up his max and took a few from me, but having forced him into shelling about $3K or so more for the others than he would have otherwise paid, I figured I had still won the war.

This one is going to be tough to top. She might should've saved it for the 50th! Congratulations (on both the piece and your anniversary).

Obviously his finished work is great, but there's something equally nice about this. Even as a "rough" it's a testament to how confident and economic Timm's line is.

I've always been curious how Heritage determines what ends up as "weekend filler" for the Signature auctions, versus a top piece during a weekly auction. I'm guessing it at least sometimes depends on who the consignor is, but I've often wondered if it's better for certain pieces to be in the weekly where they have a chance to stand out. Either way, I try to make it a habit to take a look at the OA offerings every week. It's rare for them not to have a handful of things I'm at least tracking if not bidding on.

This auction had a king's ransom of Alex Raymond Rip Kirby dailies to choose from. I had my eye on this one in particular, but unfortunately I wasn't the only one. If I ever needed a reminder that nice GGA pieces command a premium, this was it. This particular lot went for $12K. The next highest Rip Kirby hammered at $3K.

That's the thing. You could look at someone like Scholastic Publishing or Penguin/Random House, but they just feel like a temporary stop on the way to eventual Disney ownership. I'm not sure if Amazon has ever expressed interest in buying up IPs, but between Comixology and their Prime streaming service, I could potentially see them being interested, but my gut says that they wouldn't be as good long-term for the health of the brand as Disney might be.

I'll own up to being guilty of having done this before. Obviously not early on with a bid, but just once it's down to me and one other bidder. To the degree that there's any strategy or logic behind it, it would be a matter of snatching away what the other guy thought was a win, where the price of his victory unexpectedly jumps two increments. As malvin says, the idea being to demoralize the other party, since when you feel like something was yours at $xxx, paying another two increments more suddenly makes the item feel that much more expensive. I'll note that off the top of my head I can only think of three occasions where I've done this, with two wins and one loss. All three situations were for items where I was willing to go above what I perceived FMV to be, so outside of an alternate universe where I just pounded the bid button with different results, there's no way to say whether I won because of the technique or in spite of it.

It's interesting when I try to think of who would be a good steward of the DC legacy, assuming it has to be some mega-sized conglomerate media behemoth. On general principle, part of me would hope for it to be anyone but Disney. But admittedly, there's an argument that they would be best for the brand's long-term survival.

Wish I had any leads for this, but I wanted to say good luck with the search. It's a sentimental favorite of mine, as Night Force #9 was the very first comic I ever bought as a kid. My mom was waiting for a prescription at the local drugstore and I was browsing the magazine rack where they also kept the comics. I see this cover with a dracula-looking guy and a tentacled monster on it and just had to buy it. After that first buy, almost all of my allowance went towards comics for the next couple of years. The art doesn't seem to pop up all that often, but hopefully you do manage to get a lead.

I was surprised by this one as well. I'm guessing it was a similar situation to what I mentioned with the Herriman pieces, where there were more available in a single auction than is the norm.

Same here. It seemed like a good buying opportunity, due to the fact that there were three nice Sundays up for grabs, as well as the two dailies. I'm bummed out to have missed an opportunity today, but congrats to the winners all the same.

As someone with a big soft spot for kitsch, I've been tempted on more than one occasion but have never pulled the trigger on any of his eBay listings. Having said that, as far as bang-for-the-buck goes, they seem very fairly priced. I'm always holding out for one that really ticks off all the right boxes for me and with him always having multiple pieces available at any given time, I figure it's safe to wait for the right one to come along. But if you're looking for big-boobied broads punching Nazi werewolves, you can do much worse than Landgraf.

I ended up falling victim to real life interfering with bidding (resulting in a me being away from home and with a lagging connection on the phone) and missed out on a Krazy Kat daily that suffered a similar fate to the Sugar and Spike pieces you were following. I had my eye on the 9-5-32 daily which had previously sold in 2014 for just shy of $5,400. It went for $4,080 today, which seems like a steal to me, especially when compared to the other daily which I didn't like nearly as much and which sold for $5,500. I'll comfort myself with the thought that the winner was probably willing to go much higher than I could have / would have....

I'm always curious how other folks handle anonymous bidding in a live setting and whether any techniques ever actually work better than others. I've used both the "wait for it" countdown, pulling the trigger at the very last moment each time, as well as the "I'll pound the bid button and up you instantly with each of your bids" techniques. I really don't think either makes a difference, but in the moment it can be nice to think that somehow you're getting in the headspace of a rival.