Baker Romance 43 43

[comicnoir]

3 hours ago, lhcomics said:

Here is a small Baker group shot. These are from an original owner collection I picked up some time back and I have them set to auction on eBay under Lhcomics starting Sunday evening.

 

They look nice. What are the average grades?

[lhcomics]

VG range on average.

[Sqeggs]

The Flamingo OA piece hammered at $3,585.  I think it would have gone significantly higher if it could have been clearly attributed to Baker. 

[Yorick]

On 11/16/2017 at 1:02 PM, N e r V said:

So I know for a lot of people this is a classic cover so anyone want to guess the final price at auction over at ComicConnect? It’s a solid grade number but I have to admit I’m used to seeing copies from other collectors with cleaner whites and brighter colours than this copy. 

I can’t tell if that’s foxing or some general browning at the very top either. It looks to have some tanning on the cover edges inward too. 

 

Guesses in today’s market???

The 6.5 that sold on Comiclink in September went for $4,766 (if you were not watching that auction...)

My copies are all beat.  Maybe I'll get one back from Sarasota today?  Tracking seems to say it will be so.

[N e r V]

7 minutes ago, Yorick said:

The 6.5 that sold on Comiclink in September went for $4,766 (if you were not watching that auction...)

My copies are all beat.  Maybe I'll get one back from Sarasota today?  Tracking seems to say it will be so.

Missed that. Wow.

[Ricksneatstuff]

2 hours ago, Sqeggs said:

The Flamingo OA piece hammered at $3,585.  I think it would have gone significantly higher if it could have been clearly attributed to Baker. 

I know that I would have paid $6000 for it if it were definitively Baker. 

 I know that it’s been derailed here on this forum but I still think it’s a very nice piece Baker or not. Thornton was solid as well. 

[RareHighGrade]

1 hour ago, szavisca said:

TAR 25 cgc 6.0 $3585....ties the flamingo OA on HA...that a tough issue or something?

Baker romance knows no bounds.

And Diary Secrets 21 6.0 went for over $2800, what the heck's going on?

[MB1952]

3 hours ago, Ricksneatstuff said:

I know that I would have paid $6000 for it if it were definitively Baker. 

 I know that it’s been derailed here on this forum but I still think it’s a very nice piece Baker or not. Thornton was solid as well. 

Thornton did some Beautiful Flamingos too.

 

[Ricksneatstuff]

I attended a show recently and there were dealers who had low grade Baker books (just a few) up on their “showcase walls”. I asked one of them to see a Diary Secrets he had and he took it down and said “This is by MIKE Baker. Real hot golden age artist.  They didn’t make a lot of these romance comics and so they are valuable.”

It will be interesting watching more of these books become slabbed and come to market over the next couple of years. 

Edited November 19, 2017 by Ricksneatstuff

[Sqeggs]

38 minutes ago, szavisca said:

Dunno guess we'll see where the market settles... could be outliers like the Diary Secrets 14 cgc 6.0 that went for $2,270 a year and a half ago... that one seems to have since spiraled back down since then.  Or maybe these prices will hold.

Where's all the Long time Baker experts? Surprised there's not much commentary in this thread after these results...

I think the price volatility comes from a (still) relatively small number of buyers chasing a (still) small number of copies of these books in mid-grade and above.  When there aren't all that many buyers, you can get what I think of as "third bidder syndrome":  Two bidders push the price of a book way up, but the third bidder would only have been willing to pay significantly less.  So the next time a copy of that book in about that grade gets auctioned, the price can fall to an increment above what the third bidder is willing to pay.

Either that or a lot of random stuff happens in our hobby! 

[Ricksneatstuff]

5 minutes ago, Sqeggs said:

I think the price volatility comes from a (still) relatively small number of buyers chasing a (still) small number of copies of these books in mid-grade and above.  When there aren't all that many buyers, you can get what I think of as "third bidder syndrome":  Two bidders push the price of a book way up, but the third bidder would only have been willing to pay significantly less.  So the next time a copy of that book in about that grade gets auctioned, the price can fall to an increment above what the third bidder is willing to pay.

Either that or a lot of random stuff happens in our hobby! 

...or this. I will go with Tony’s explanation.  

[Sqeggs]

5 hours ago, Ricksneatstuff said:

I know that I would have paid $6000 for it if it were definitively Baker. 

 I know that it’s been derailed here on this forum but I still think it’s a very nice piece Baker or not. Thornton was solid as well. 

Yeah, I think we may have seen the power of the boards on this one if only because I think with Bakers a pretty significant fraction of collectors participate in (or at least read) this thread.

I'm still agnostic about this one but I lean towards it's being Baker.  I don't know much about the market for fine art, but my impression (reinforced by reading some of the discussion about the record-breaking auction of a Leonardo a few days ago) is that there are two main factors involved in authentication:  1) Assessment by experts as to whether the painting appears to be by the artist, and 2) provenance.

Wrt 1), the majority of boardies who commented made some good points about the figures seeming more like the Thornton rendering of Flamingo than Baker's rendering.  Wrt 2), Heritage says the piece was from Phoenix Features, which was the company distributing Flamingo.  We also know that other OA from Phoenix has surfaced, including original art from the Seven Seas books, which Phoenix published. The piece does seem to be the sort of thing that was used to sell strips to newspapers.  My understanding is that Thornton wasn't involved with the strip during the period before syndication began.

With the Leonardo there were a number of (but not all) knowledgeable people saying that for various reasons the painting didn't resemble Leonardo's other work.  But there did seem to be a chain of ownership dating back to the time of composition (although some people also dispute this).  I guess we have something similar here with doubts being raised about the whether the drawings resemble Baker's other work, while Heritage thinks the provenance is right.  The provenance would be clearer, I think, if we knew more about the when, why, and how of the Phoenix OA surfacing. 

 

Edited November 19, 2017 by Sqeggs
Typo fixes

[comicnoir]

5 minutes ago, szavisca said:

Yeah, I suspect theres equal jubilation amongst those who have most of the books now, and consternation among those who don't.  But this is a classy crowd in the Baker room, won't be a ton of high fives from those who have, or a ton of crying from those who as of yet have not.

Just surprised to see it quiet overall is all.

I have to go out, but I'm working on my thesis.

[Ricksneatstuff]

 I definitely agree this is a classy crowd.  I feel like the guy that came with blue jeans to a black tie affair. 

 

[Yorick]

4 hours ago, szavisca said:

TAR 25 cgc 6.0 $3585....ties the flamingo OA on HA...that a tough issue or something?

Baker romance knows no bounds.

That was the second copy I've seen for sale (been at this for about ten years).  I think the sale price is high, but the historical "norm" for me would put that book around $125.  The good ole' days are gone...  I'm not sure I'll be able to finish my sets at this rate.

 

3 hours ago, RareHighGrade said:

And Diary Secrets 21 6.0 went for over $2800, what the heck's going on?

We were just talking about that one being pretty scarce (on some page in this thread...).  I need a copy.  Anyone want to help me out?

[Yorick]

My books arrived!!!  I suppose I'll start with my lowest grade.  Amazing that CGC fit this oversized issue into that case.

 

[jimjum12]

1 hour ago, Ricksneatstuff said:

 I definitely agree this is a classy crowd.  I feel like the guy that came with blue jeans to a black tie affair. 

 

...... you say that like it's a bad thing  GOD BLESS....

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[Ricksneatstuff]

15 minutes ago, Yorick said:

My books arrived!!!  I suppose I'll start with my lowest grade.  Amazing that CGC fit this oversized issue into that case.

 

[Yorick]

9 minutes ago, Ricksneatstuff said:

Does that mean you want more?!

Here's the second worst grade.  Not happy with that "brittle" notation, but it looks good in the case.

 

[N e r V]

1 hour ago, Sqeggs said:

Yeah, I think we may have seen the power of the boards on this one if only because I think with Bakers a pretty significant fraction of collectors participate in (or at least read) this thread.

I'm still agnostic about this one but I lean towards it's being Baker.  I don't know much about the market for fine art, but my impression (reinforced by reading some of the discussion about the record-breaking auction of a Leonardo a few days ago) is that there are two main factors involved in authentication:  1) Assessment by experts as to whether the painting appears to be by the artist, and 2) provenance.

Wrt 1), the majority of boardies who commented made some good points about the figures seeming more like the Thornton rendering of Flamingo than Baker's rendering.  Wrt 2), Heritage says the piece was from Phoenix Features, which was the company distributing Flamingo.  We also know that other OA from Phoenix has surfaced, including original art from the Seven Seas books, which Phoenix published. The piece does seem to be the sort of thing that was used to sell strips to newspapers.  My understanding is that Thornton wasn't involved with the strip during the period before syndication began.

With the Leonardo there were a number of (but not all) knowledgeable people saying that for various reasons the painting didn't resemble Leonardo's other work.  But there did seem to be a chain of ownership dating back to the time of composition (although some people also dispute this).  I guess we have something similar here with doubts being raised about the whether the drawings resemble Baker's other work, while Heritage thinks the provenance is right.  The provenance would be clearer, I think, if we knew more about the when, why, and how of the Phoenix OA surfacing. 

 

It’s not a perfect science but what comics probably could use is real art experts with bachelors or masters in something equal to  art History like you find in the fine arts fields.

 

Sadly I don’t believe the overall value of comic art is high enough to draw that type of professional so we are left with what we have which isn’t much at times with people’s best guesses.