Saw this over in "Copper" - Miracleman #15

[heartened]

Not sure why every thread about a high-priced sale has to devolve into a discussion on whether it was a "good investment" or not. Such a drag. This doesn't even enter into my thought process when I buy art, which remains a hobby to me. I know that in all likelihood the 80s art will only go down in price later on, as the people who collected/read books during that time move on in years. But, even if prices come down, there's no guarantee I'll have a shot at a particular piece down the line, and so I need to make choices all along the way. Some pieces I pass on, others I go for. And yes, price is a factor, but not whether it's a good investment, but rather whether I can afford to purchase it at a given time. If the purchase produces undue hardship (and that's a personal decision for each of us), then I pass on it.

 

I realize I'm in a bettter financial situation than many, but that's irrelevant. I'm not talking about what I can afford, but what I can afford to lose. We all have a limit. It's the folks who go beyond what they can truly afford to lose, who should be concentrating on the investment aspect. And I agree at best it's a break even hobby over the long-term, if not a loss (except perhaps for the most iconic of examples that represent the hobby overall). For the many more fiscally-responsible people who buy what they can afford to lose, these threads just seem perpetually morose when we should really be just taling about, I don't know, maybe the actual series, the beauty of Totleben's contributions, etc.

 

Just my 2 cents..

 

Hari

 

[delekkerste]

Shouldn't you be out eating some escargots or something?

 

Great post, BTW. (thumbs u

[Galactus]

RockMyAmadeus for instance makes some good points, however, what the MM cover sells for has absolutely nothing to do with what the cover to Dark Knight is worth for a number of reasons, the biggest one being that the buyer of the MM cover may not have one iota of interest in the DK cover. They might not even have any interest in any other MM cover

 

You misunderstand my comparison.

 

It has nothing to do with, and makes no assumption about, the buyer of the MM #15 cover, or his interest therein.

 

My comparison has to do with a market perception (and here's where I talk about the market as a living, breathing entity, which apparently drives some people batty.) That market perception looks at the sale price of an MM #15, gauges it's relative importance in "the Grand Scheme of 80's OA" and then makes judgements about the entire market that are completely erroneous, because they're based entirely on the intitial analysis of the one piece in question.

 

The thinking goes something like this:

 

Buyer: "Gosh, did you see how much that MM #15 cover sold for? It must really be important/valuable. I better go find a copy to see what all the fuss is about."

 

Seller: "Wow, man, cover sold for $53K?? My original Swamp Thing page from issue #42 must really be worth a lot, too! I better up my asking price!"

 

Buyers/Sellers: "Wow, that MM #15 cover sold for $53K. Someone must have really wanted it. I guess, since the cover to DKR #1 or Killing Joke or Watchmen #1 or Crisis on Infinite Earths #1 or Amazing Spiderman #300 or Wolverine #1 or Turtles #1, since they're more important covers than MM #15 (and they very much are), they must be worth much more than that!"

 

And thus...as Gene point out...perception becomes reality. Quod erat demonstrandum.

 

Also, buyers like to use some weird justifications for themselves as to why they bought something for a particular price and therefore why all other items must equally be high priced.

 

Sellers do the exact same thing. No one is immune to it.

 

"This copy of Avengers #1 in 9.4 just sold for umpteen million dollars. That must mean my 1.5 copy is worth more, too!"

 

Even more, what one buyer who has a mountain of jack pays for something means nothing to the entirety of the market as he may be out as a buyer the next minute while the folks with modest incomes continue on for decades. As a % of any market, the well-heeled buyer is less than 5% of the population.

 

It doesn't matter, because the market does not operate in a vacuum. If that buyer of the MM #15 cover had never bought anything even remotely comics related before, and never bought anything else ever again, his actions would STILL have ripple effects up and down the market, because the market is an entity. What affects one part, affects everything, to varying degrees (from the immediate and intense to the barely perceptible.)

 

Essentially, I agree with the rest of your points.

 

There seems to be an underlying tone of disapproval in your post as you're describing people using benchmarks to come up with values of other pieces of art. I mean, how else can people come up with values for art? It's not like there's some revenue stream to plug into a financial valuation model, or any intrinsic value. All you can do is see what others are willing to pay for a comparable piece of art and extrapolate from that.

 

TTH2 i read what RockMyAmadeus had to say differently from yourself. To me he is simply saying that you cannot compare one sale to another if, it is not the same artist.

 

OA Collectors of Miracleman might not necessarily be collectors of Dark Knight and therefore saying becasue this piece sold for X, that piece should sell for Y due to its historic position, is not true.

 

To give you an idea, me and Hari might go all out for the same Grendel piece at auction. If it sells for $30k, does it mean that Byrne X-Men covers should be worth 10 times as much due to their storytelling and larger reader base ? OA collectors are sometimes just into the story or the nostalgia element or even just the art itself, you cannot really get a correlation between genres and titles and artists going because of the historical importance of the comic.

[cheekyj2112]

Shouldn't you be out eating some escargots or something?

 

Great post, BTW. (thumbs u

 

Not Freedom Fries??

[heartened]

RockMyAmadeus for instance makes some good points, however, what the MM cover sells for has absolutely nothing to do with what the cover to Dark Knight is worth for a number of reasons, the biggest one being that the buyer of the MM cover may not have one iota of interest in the DK cover. They might not even have any interest in any other MM cover

 

You misunderstand my comparison.

 

It has nothing to do with, and makes no assumption about, the buyer of the MM #15 cover, or his interest therein.

 

My comparison has to do with a market perception (and here's where I talk about the market as a living, breathing entity, which apparently drives some people batty.) That market perception looks at the sale price of an MM #15, gauges it's relative importance in "the Grand Scheme of 80's OA" and then makes judgements about the entire market that are completely erroneous, because they're based entirely on the intitial analysis of the one piece in question.

 

The thinking goes something like this:

 

Buyer: "Gosh, did you see how much that MM #15 cover sold for? It must really be important/valuable. I better go find a copy to see what all the fuss is about."

 

Seller: "Wow, man, cover sold for $53K?? My original Swamp Thing page from issue #42 must really be worth a lot, too! I better up my asking price!"

 

Buyers/Sellers: "Wow, that MM #15 cover sold for $53K. Someone must have really wanted it. I guess, since the cover to DKR #1 or Killing Joke or Watchmen #1 or Crisis on Infinite Earths #1 or Amazing Spiderman #300 or Wolverine #1 or Turtles #1, since they're more important covers than MM #15 (and they very much are), they must be worth much more than that!"

 

And thus...as Gene point out...perception becomes reality. Quod erat demonstrandum.

 

Also, buyers like to use some weird justifications for themselves as to why they bought something for a particular price and therefore why all other items must equally be high priced.

 

Sellers do the exact same thing. No one is immune to it.

 

"This copy of Avengers #1 in 9.4 just sold for umpteen million dollars. That must mean my 1.5 copy is worth more, too!"

 

Even more, what one buyer who has a mountain of jack pays for something means nothing to the entirety of the market as he may be out as a buyer the next minute while the folks with modest incomes continue on for decades. As a % of any market, the well-heeled buyer is less than 5% of the population.

 

It doesn't matter, because the market does not operate in a vacuum. If that buyer of the MM #15 cover had never bought anything even remotely comics related before, and never bought anything else ever again, his actions would STILL have ripple effects up and down the market, because the market is an entity. What affects one part, affects everything, to varying degrees (from the immediate and intense to the barely perceptible.)

 

Essentially, I agree with the rest of your points.

 

There seems to be an underlying tone of disapproval in your post as you're describing people using benchmarks to come up with values of other pieces of art. I mean, how else can people come up with values for art? It's not like there's some revenue stream to plug into a financial valuation model, or any intrinsic value. All you can do is see what others are willing to pay for a comparable piece of art and extrapolate from that.

 

TTH2 i read what RockMyAmadeus had to say differently from yourself. To me he is simply saying that you cannot compare one sale to another if, it is not the same artist.

 

OA Collectors of Miracleman might not necessarily be collectors of Dark Knight and therefore saying becasue this piece sold for X, that piece should sell for Y due to its historic position, is not true.

 

To give you an idea, me and Hari might go all out for the same Grendel piece at auction. If it sells for $30k, does it mean that Byrne X-Men covers should be worth 10 times as much due to their storytelling and larger reader base ? OA collectors are sometimes just into the story or the nostalgia element or even just the art itself, you cannot really get a correlation between genres and titles and artists going because of the historical importance of the comic.

 

Hey there,

 

I completely agree you absolutely cannot compare values/prices across genres, and especially not across creators (artists/writers, etc.). There are distinctly different buyers in most of these cases.

 

As for Grendel, coincidentally, I have some nice pieces entering the collection soon. Will try to post scans when I get them.

 

Best,

 

Hari

 

[Eric Seffinga]

I too, would so love to see actual art discussions here actually fall into the realm of talking art. Instead it's always devolving into the usual chatter on finances, and prognosticating on who's going to get burned in the market of the future for buying bits of nostalgia, or (gasp) strictly for the love of the art itself.

 

Hell, I'd rather hear about people's personal experiences with reading the comics that the art under discussion came from. Or about the artist. Or technique. Or jeez, any one of a number of things.

 

>sigh<

 

-e.

[Nexus]

If I hadn't seen the post about the #15 cover, I would have been unaware of the other items being sold, not being a regular surfer of Heritage. There's only so much time in a day, after all. And I'm as much of a Moore/MM cultist as anyone else, I daresay.

 

So, in that sense, it did draw in at least one more pair of interested eyeballs. I can't be the only one...

 

I'm not disputing that the auction didn't bring more attention to the art. What I'm saying is that in this case, it didn't really matter as it appears the eventual buyers were the same usual suspects into Moore/MM OA.

 

Hari has already said that the seller would have done better privately with the cover. He likely would have done better privately with the pages, too. It's nice to get new interested eyeballs via an auction site, but it means nothing if they don't bid. Obviously, this is all in hindsight...it could have paid off if new money discovered these. I'm sure that's what they were hoping for. On the plus side, there is value in getting the deal done quickly and cleanly via a third-party. The seller doesn't have to deal with multiple individual buyers, time payments, etc. All-in-all, looks like a win-win for buyers and seller.

[RockMyAmadeus]

 

just curious... did you see it in person?

 

also, not that it really matters, but from my own vague memory (as I don't have my copy in front of me to look at) I'd venture the blue background is airbrushed acrylic as opposed to watercolor. you get a MUCH smoother tonal blend with the airbrush

 

No, no, I just saw it being discussed by folks that I felt were in a postiion to know. And my recollection could be totally off. It's been a long time.

 

At this point, I truly don't know.

[RockMyAmadeus]

 

 

There seems to be an underlying tone of disapproval in your post as you're describing people using benchmarks to come up with values of other pieces of art. I mean, how else can people come up with values for art? It's not like there's some revenue stream to plug into a financial valuation model, or any intrinsic value. All you can do is see what others are willing to pay for a comparable piece of art and extrapolate from that.

 

TTH2 i read what RockMyAmadeus had to say differently from yourself. To me he is simply saying that you cannot compare one sale to another if, it is not the same artist.

 

OA Collectors of Miracleman might not necessarily be collectors of Dark Knight and therefore saying becasue this piece sold for X, that piece should sell for Y due to its historic position, is not true.

 

To give you an idea, me and Hari might go all out for the same Grendel piece at auction. If it sells for $30k, does it mean that Byrne X-Men covers should be worth 10 times as much due to their storytelling and larger reader base ? OA collectors are sometimes just into the story or the nostalgia element or even just the art itself, you cannot really get a correlation between genres and titles and artists going because of the historical importance of the comic.

 

That's exactly correct. Thanks Galactus!

 

Comparison pricing is inevitable...it's human nature. But it's important to keep firmly in mind that, especially in a market of unique items, that each piece has to be valued, first and foremost, on the merits of itself, and then in comparison to similar pieces by the same artist, of the same character, and lastly in consideration of other pieces of similar importance.

 

And I believe this happens when pieces are sold in an open auction format...not so much when sellers set prices.

[lb jefferies]

Hell, I'd rather hear about people's personal experiences with reading the comics that the art under discussion came from. Or about the artist. Or technique. Or jeez, any one of a number of things.

 

Well said. For me I'd take this page of Hari's:

 

http://207.166.222.120/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=442812&GSub=57959

 

over any of the ones in the recent Heritage auction. Thisto me screams Miracleman and it really starts the ball rolling for the events to come in later issues (culminating in #15). I remember this scene was the first comics experience I had that actually scared the beejeebus out of me.

 

 

[Galactus]

 

That's exactly correct. Thanks Galactus!

 

Comparison pricing is inevitable...it's human nature. But it's important to keep firmly in mind that, especially in a market of unique items, that each piece has to be valued, first and foremost, on the merits of itself, and then in comparison to similar pieces by the same artist, of the same character, and lastly in consideration of other pieces of similar importance.

 

And I believe this happens when pieces are sold in an open auction format...not so much when sellers set prices.

 

When you say you believe this happens in an auction format but not so much on an open sale enviroment, does this mean that you believe that sellers disregard what similar pieces are selling for when picing their material or just that a lot of information may not be to hand when pricing and therefore people tend to price using material that might not necessarily be a direct comparsion ?

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

 

That's exactly correct. Thanks Galactus!

 

Comparison pricing is inevitable...it's human nature. But it's important to keep firmly in mind that, especially in a market of unique items, that each piece has to be valued, first and foremost, on the merits of itself, and then in comparison to similar pieces by the same artist, of the same character, and lastly in consideration of other pieces of similar importance.

 

And I believe this happens when pieces are sold in an open auction format...not so much when sellers set prices.

 

When you say you believe this happens in an auction format but not so much on an open sale enviroment, does this mean that you believe that sellers disregard what similar pieces are selling for when picing their material or just that a lot of information may not be to hand when pricing and therefore people tend to price using material that might not necessarily be a direct comparsion ?

 

The latter.

[pkveronese]

Anybody missing the anticipation you felt this time last week waiting on the Miracleman auctions? I know, I'm a dork. I just wish I would have bid on more pages - it's the OA fever! . - Keith Veronese

[Bronty]

I'm sorta there too. Wish I had bid more. Then again, not a great time spending-wise for me so probably the right thing, but bah. woulda been nice.

[heartened]

I'm sorta there too. Wish I had bid more. Then again, not a great time spending-wise for me so probably the right thing, but bah. woulda been nice.

 

This type of an auction was tough as a buyer. Most understand just how rare this art is, yet this particular auction made one feel like pages are readily available. That situation plays a bit of a mind game on buyers, as they hold off on pulling the trigger when perhaps they should have. I know I've done that in the past, only to kick myself later.

 

Hari

 

 

 

[pkveronese]

I'm sorta there too. Wish I had bid more. Then again, not a great time spending-wise for me so probably the right thing, but bah. woulda been nice.

 

This type of an auction was tough as a buyer. Most understand just how rare this art is, yet this particular auction made one feel like pages are readily available. That situation plays a bit of a mind game on buyers, as they hold off on pulling the trigger when perhaps they should have. I know I've done that in the past, only to kick myself later.

 

Hari

 

 

 

It sure was a tough auction as a buyer - the Heritage system is a difficult one to judge. I should be happy with what I got, but one week later you realize again that, like you said, these items just aren't readily available. I doubt we'll see anything like this again for Totleben or MM work. - Keith

[Bronty]

I don't know about you but the other thing I was oblivious to until Hari mentioned it was that its large art. Would have bid more based on that alone. Woulda shoulda coulda and probably would have been outbid anyways Just not in the mood to stretch financially right now

[heartened]

I don't know about you but the other thing I was oblivious to until Hari mentioned it was that its large art. Would have bid more based on that alone. Woulda shoulda coulda and probably would have been outbid anyways Just not in the mood to stretch financially right now

 

The entire Totleben interior pages are spectacular large art. All the covers are normal modern size, though, with the exception of the #13 which is larger than the large art interiors. They should have pushed/mentioned this in the auction for the pages, as it is indeed a selling point, and one of the main reasons the art blows you away when you see it.

 

Hari

 

[pkveronese]

Did anyone on list win (or know who won) the lot of three character studies from issue #15?

 

http://comics.ha.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=7021&Lot_No=92251&src=pr

 

If you do, could you shoot me a PM or an e-mail at veronesepk@gmail.com? Thanks! - Keith

[pkveronese]

I finally "manned up" and opened my package from Heritage this weekend (it's been sitting in my living room for two weeks since I've been in and out of town off an on). I've uploaded the three pages I got to my CAF this morning:

 

 

http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=646780&GSub=79729

 

http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=646773&GSub=79729

 

http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=646766&GSub=79729

 

 

Anybody willing to break-up the prelims they bought, let me know. Thanks! - Keith Veronese