sfilosa

Compared to most everything else in the auction, they feel like a bargain. But if they are only go up 25-35% over four to five years, in today's market, that's an underperformer. Almost anything with a half good reason to buy is just going crazy.

I plan on retiring in 6-8 years, and a lot of my art will be sold to travel the world (assuming no pandemic).

I thought the Pollard Super-Villain cover was excellent. But over $30k with no super-heroes and really only one good villain (Red Skull) seemed pretty high.

Nice piece. Yes, you should be happy with that as it is really the "first" cover version. I thought it would go for around $15k. The last one that sold on HA went for $11k+ and it was over a decade later and no where near as interesting. Any higher and I would have lost....but I didn't.

It went for around $4k more than I wanted to pay. But I bought it anyway. I'm playing the dealer's game... it makes the other ones I own worth more, right.

It is amazing. It kind of tells you if you see something on a dealer's site that looks 20-30% more than you want to pay.........buy it!!!

Everyone's in debt already. Until people see prices going down, no need to get off the train. I really wanted the Golden X-Men page. I thought it would go high but it went more than I wanted to pay. Key piece! The Larsen page didn't surprise me. Basically a cover without all the stats.

Are you a GM for a football team right before the draft?

Most of the stuff that I plan on bidding on today better not even double or I will lose out. Tomorrow is different. No reason to bid high (IMO) on those at all until I see what, if anything, I win today. Said differently, Saturday is in general a consolation prize day. Not that there aren't good piece on Saturdays, there are, but most of the time I will get more aggressive on those pieces only if I "failed" to win anything the days before. Would love to know a few of the pieces you think are in today's auction that need to hit a 4x-5x increase to hit FMV. If you don't want to tip your hand, then mark down what it was now, and then tells us where it ended.

Little kids question everything also......"why", "why", "why". But a very good question. That said, for me, if the "art" feels like a great representation of the artist work, I'm more inclined to assume that the art was more "defined" by the main artist. That said, from a "pure" investment point of view or even from a "purest" collecting point of view (as in I want to own at lease one "Starlin" page), I really have to exclude only layouts/breakdowns (regardless on how good the page looks). Now if I'm buying it for the content (this is a significant page in comic book lore), than the artist doesn't really matter that much anyway. Point, the first appearance of Wolverine page. Artist, irrelevant.

Yes, Robert, I know the feeling. The wives usually say "sell it" so we can renovate the house. They don't understand that when I want to retire, I can't just sell the upgraded bathroom right for a profit. And yes Robert has an awesome collection.

On January 1, 2000 Apple stock was valued at .......$.93 cents. It's $123 today (taken into considering all stock splits). If that piece was really $3k back on January 1, 2000 and it went up the same multiple as Apple stock it should have sold for ....$396,000. Now clearly most stocks have not performed as well as Apple. But guess what, I bet there are tens of thousands of art pages that have barely doubled in 20 years. Obviously not the popular characters and artist, but plenty of non descript pages. My point is that it isn't like comic art is the only thing in this world soaring in price. Quality (be it stocks or art) is always going to increase much faster than the norm.

Didn't hit the triple (a little less than a double). It was still a healthy price but do you think the Starlin "layout" penalized it?

And that would be? Tomorrow will be the day for me. If I win one thing, good, more than one, awesome. Might need to clarify that as I would like to win at a reasonable price, not because I got stupid!

Twiddling my CAF art gallery is how I keep interested when I am not buying anything (usually waiting for the next Heritage or ComicLink auction). If you are not, become a "Premium Member". It's not that expensive and getting email or text when certain want list items become available, will pay back any annual member fee you pay. That said, the most fun you will have is managing your member gallery because.....premium member galleries are the ones shown on the left hand side once you open CAF. Therefore, your twelve pieces in your member gallery will be actively shown to all. I tweak my member gallery at least once a week to have different pieces shown. I have also got interested in other artist, because I saw it pop up on a premium members gallery. Have fun with CAF as it is an awesome resource and as I said, can keep you interested when you aren't actively purchasing.

Or as Woody Allen would say in his movies..... "Yeah, I said that many times".

So a couple of points: 1) My blind spot in collecting comic art (especially since I have and will pay five figures for a piece) is the significance of a page. Some pages/issues I know (e.g. Death of Gwen Stacy, 1st appearances of characters, etc.) but not really story lines. There is a lot of hype when these are sold in auctions and I don't know which ones are "really significant" and which are just mostly hype). 2) Ignore 1) for a second. Albert Moy has had this page on his website for five years at a price of $13,000. I inquired about it several years ago but never pulled the trigger because.....Starlin only did the layouts. From the same issue I originally posted about, really nice action scene with Warlock and Thanos. My assumption was the reason it never sold for what appears to be a really good price was .........Starlin only did the layouts. So what am I missing?

So, looking for some thoughts on this art, but could be any art... Jim Starlin and Steve Leialoha Warlock #11 Story Page 16 Original | Lot #91017 | Heritage Auctions Wonderful Warlock page for sure. But it is only Starlin layouts with Leialoha finishing and inking. The question is, what category do you fall in: 1) Wouldn't want to buy, at least not as a Starlin page. If owned, would look at how great the page is but always feel that it isn't a true Starlin page and doesn't fit my need to own one. 2) Don't care that Starlin just did the layouts. Great page and would be willing to pay the same amount for a similar page that Starlin did the full pencils. 3) Would want to own, but would need to pay significantly less (say 20% or more) than a comparable Starlin page. And to add to it, if you would want to own, would it matter if you already had a "full" Starlin page in your collection. Understand, question is not necessarily specific to this page, but more to "great pages", where an "A" artist only did the layouts. As a touch of background, I was able to get a very nice Warlock Starlin page, but it took a long time because I wanted one that wasn't just layouts. So prior to that, I was in category #1, but maybe, I would be in #3 now (maybe). Thoughts?

As someone who owns a Steranko X-Men page, I can say I was probably more thrilled to win that page (several years ago at HA) than anything else I own. I know at the time I paid around fair value, but with the limited supply of his art, I knew it could be many years before another piece came available. And with limited supply means just one other person who has more cash to spend than me, can beat me out every time. Now if you just want to own a sketch or commission, those come available a lot more often. That said, almost none of those (IMO) exhibit trademarks of his art. When I buy page/cover of art from an artist that I want (Steranko, Adams, Starlin, Wrightson, etc.), the page has to easily be identifiable as a page by that artist. If it just looks like someone else could have drawn it, I'm not interested (regardless of the price).

Not sure if there will be "bargains" but at least I still have a shot for a number of pieces I want. Several of the pieces I really wanted in the last auction were already 20-50% higher than I was willing to pay at this point (and ended up nada).

Exactly. Especially in an auction. I might see three pieces I really want, and expect to get at least one. More than not, I walk away empty handed. If I actually sell something before the auction to have the funds, two "bad" things can happen: * I truly overbid because I feel I need to replace what I sold (either from an investment point of view or collector point of view). * I probably sold without trying to maximize the value. Maybe I put it on CAF at a price I felt comfortable it would sell, and sell fairly quickly. Instead, I might have maximized value at an auction but knew I would not receive full cash value until sometime after the auction (probably several months).

Two comments on that: * Almost every purchase is discretionary. Most of us probably own a better house, better car, go on better vacations, better everything than we actually need to survive. Some of those purchases "can" increase in value and some definitely don't. * I also sell items (e.g. sell something that no longer interest me as much as something else), but I don't want to sell until I have something new in my hands. Home Line of Credit is definitely the way to go for that concept. No guarantee that I win anything in an auction.

I was thinking I might add a Cockrum page to my collection, but prices are already pretty high. I had my eye on a other pages that are still reasonable so we will see. One thing (and I asked today) is if Heritage had a better payment plan. They said they don't. Three months is not long enough and a 1% interest rate per month is pretty darn high in today's environment. Considering they are keeping your purchase as collateral, I wish they had long terms and more like a 5-6% annual interest rate. As invariably happens, a page that I want comes up early, and I stop bidding when it gets too high. I then wait for other pages I want, they get way too high and I wish I had bid more on the first page. If they had a better payment plan, I would be more aggressive early on, but I don't want to overbid too early in the auction, in case something later on feels like a really good deal. I will say this auction has some really good stuff (or at least stuff I like).

Wasn't planning on discussing this topic, but assuming I had a "true cover" and the stats were loose or nasty, sent it out to a "restorer" to replace, would we/the collecting community have an issue with that? As long as they are just adding stats that should (or could have been there), I'm not sure I have an issue. If they are taking a non-cover, putting stats on it and calling it some type of "variant", that is totally wrong.

The main thing for me is for several pieces that I could be interested in to be way over what I would want to pay. Therefore, I can focus on the one or two items that look like I still have a shot. About every other auction I walk away with something I really wanted. I'm focusing on buying one or two quality pieces this time and hopefully not settling for pieces that catch my eye but really aren't a high priority. We will see if that works.