Spidey #50 Splash

[markseifert]

Huh. Given that, why do you participate in CAF?

 

people have asked me stuff like this before because they think that I am too critical of the comic hobby. I am critical - yes, however, the answer to such questions is this:

 

everybody has their reasons for being involved in something.. do they have to be the same reasons as yours??

 

Nope, that too is a fair point! I found his comment puzzling given the givens, so I thought I'd ask. Any response he might choose to make or no response at all is good with me.

[CollectingFool]

Huh. Given that, why do you participate in CAF?

(edited to add -- love the Raboy, and the Toth, and Hughes, and Bolland

 

I've had a website showing my artwork years before CAF existed. I've "shared information" helping people find coveted pieces more times than I can count. That is a far cry from believing every detail of every deal and the location of every piece should be laid out for the hobby in a database on the internet. What information exactly do you get from my CAF? You see what I like, you see what I own. You see a list of what I want to buy and that if I like something I'm willing to pony up the cash. In other words you see what I want you to see and it gives the impression of open information. It's not. Here's what you don't see:

 

Where the hell did I get so many Salinas pieces?

 

Toth is easy to forge. How do I authenticate my pieces?

 

Some of those strips are 100 years old but they look great. Who do I use to do museum quality restoration?

 

With some pieces, they look incomplete without the stats. How do I get stats that look exactly like the originals and you wouldn't be able to detect the difference unless I told you?

 

Some artists are incredibly difficult to get pieces from. How do I manage to get them from just about anyone I put my mind to without forking over my wallet?

 

This is the stuff I don't mind talking about here. There are thousands of little tidbits of information that either lead to getting artwork or selling artwork and any established collector has a personal database of information they keep for themselves and share with very few.

 

I'll try to make this as simple as possible. We collect unique items and compete with each other for them. Doesn't sound friendly but thats reality. If all information was available to all collectors then the only way to get something someone else wants is to be willing to pay more. Unless you have unlimited funds or are going after artwork no one else cares about you can't compete in that environment. The only people an environment like that benefits are those that have piles of money or have a large stockpile of artwork and they want to maximize their profit on every single piece. As attention is brought to the hobby things will swing in that direction anyway. Those that want to keep collecting and don't have a few secrets to help them will be left on the sidelines or broke.

 

The funniest thing is THIS is the most important information any hobby "insider" can tell you. I'm not an "insider". At best I'm insider-adjacent. You don't have to agree with me but there aren't many collectors I know with what I consider GREAT collections that would disagree.

[markseifert]

Excellent answer, thank you.

 

I don't need to know all your secrets. What set me off about this thread is this: A hobbyist (and I'm not needling anyone specifically here, but an aspect of the hobby culture as a whole) can't very well sit back and harrumph about a tv show calling FF #12 or a splash from ASM #50 the greatest OA find ever, when a culture exists that creates disincentive for bringing true authoritative information to light.

 

As I've been told a bunch of times in this thread, a bunch of money is at stake, knowledge is power, and competition at the top is fierce. I get that, and perhaps there's no way around it. But forget about the money and who owns what. When an atmosphere exists that sometimes relegates the very existence of important pieces to whispered rumor, I think that harms the study and preservation of the history that we hold dear.

 

You are free to disagree, but when you do someone else is going to go on tv and amaze the masses with their own story about the history, and the audience will accept it unless another authority is willing to stand up and say "well wait a minute, I disagree and here's why. This piece is out there, and so is that, and so is this. And I think this other particular piece is considered the most important OA in this particular area for these reasons."

 

(and I actually don't mean to pick on the show either, which I think is an interesting thing)

 

All that said, thank you for the thoughtful answer, and for the scans in your CAF. I think we are probably much less at odds on some aspects of this issue than it seems.

 

 

 

Huh. Given that, why do you participate in CAF?

(edited to add -- love the Raboy, and the Toth, and Hughes, and Bolland

 

I've had a website showing my artwork years before CAF existed. I've "shared information" helping people find coveted pieces more times than I can count. That is a far cry from believing every detail of every deal and the location of every piece should be laid out for the hobby in a database on the internet. What information exactly do you get from my CAF? You see what I like, you see what I own. You see a list of what I want to buy and that if I like something I'm willing to pony up the cash. In other words you see what I want you to see and it gives the impression of open information. It's not. Here's what you don't see:

 

Where the hell did I get so many Salinas pieces?

 

Toth is easy to forge. How do I authenticate my pieces?

 

Some of those strips are 100 years old but they look great. Who do I use to do museum quality restoration?

 

With some pieces, they look incomplete without the stats. How do I get stats that look exactly like the originals and you wouldn't be able to detect the difference unless I told you?

 

Some artists are incredibly difficult to get pieces from. How do I manage to get them from just about anyone I put my mind to without forking over my wallet?

 

This is the stuff I don't mind talking about here. There are thousands of little tidbits of information that either lead to getting artwork or selling artwork and any established collector has a personal database of information they keep for themselves and share with very few.

 

I'll try to make this as simple as possible. We collect unique items and compete with each other for them. Doesn't sound friendly but thats reality. If all information was available to all collectors then the only way to get something someone else wants is to be willing to pay more. Unless you have unlimited funds or are going after artwork no one else cares about you can't compete in that environment. The only people an environment like that benefits are those that have piles of money or have a large stockpile of artwork and they want to maximize their profit on every single piece. As attention is brought to the hobby things will swing in that direction anyway. Those that want to keep collecting and don't have a few secrets to help them will be left on the sidelines or broke.

 

The funniest thing is THIS is the most important information any hobby "insider" can tell you. I'm not an "insider". At best I'm insider-adjacent. You don't have to agree with me but there aren't many collectors I know with what I consider GREAT collections that would disagree.

[ShaneTurgeon]

As I've been told a bunch of times in this thread, a bunch of money is at stake, knowledge is power, and competition at the top is fierce. I get that, and perhaps there's no way around it. But forget about the money and who owns what. When an atmosphere exists that sometimes relegates the very existence of important pieces to whispered rumor, I think that harms the study and preservation of the history that we hold dear.

 

FWIW, i'm a big fan of sharing - but like many here, i feel that sharing *everything* can be dangerous and is not necessary for the overall benefit of the hobby. The prototype toy collecting hobby is *very* similar to the world of high end OA collecting. Granted, the money isn't *as* high, but it's high enough and the secrecy is just as intense. I've seen your argument taken to such an extreme by a rabid "fan" of GI Joe history that his public persistence of the issue drove most preproduction collectors in that hobby underground and they now only share amongst a select few, which has totally damaged the health of that part of the hobby, IMO (and it also got the poster banned from every known GI Joe collecting board. His threads would make the most seasoned message board users' heads spin and he makes KK look like a cat).

 

So, in saying all that, i feel that some secrets are OK. Guarding sources, prices paid, keeping certain pieces of information quite to avoid counterfeits, etc.

 

But let's not kid ourselves, too much secrecy is a double edged sword. Because of people's desire to keep too much information secret, the worlds of Star Wars prototype collecting and the high end movie poster hobbies have both been rocked by major fraud scandals. That's the last thing we need to experience in any hobby.

 

I think sharing and secrets are a fine balance but a balance that nonetheless needs to be maintained for the health of every hobby and it's up to the individual to decide what they're comfortable with; not anyone else who thinks they have a sense of entitlement as a fan of the medium, hobby or history.

[comix4fun]

Excellent answer, thank you.

 

I don't need to know all your secrets. What set me off about this thread is this: A hobbyist (and I'm not needling anyone specifically here, but an aspect of the hobby culture as a whole) can't very well sit back and harrumph about a tv show calling FF #12 or a splash from ASM #50 the greatest OA find ever, when a culture exists that creates disincentive for bringing true authoritative information to light.

 

 

 

Actually, in this case, the harrumphing is entirely justified.

 

So many pieces have been publicly displayed, brought to market, auction, sold or traded over the last decade that the statement that the FF12 art is the "GREATEST OA OF ALL TIME!!!" is false without even getting into the skull and bones discussion of the cult of secret OA.

 

Cases in point (just off the top of my head) of artwork either as significant or MORE significant than the FF 12 artwork:

 

The complete artwork for X-men #1 has been in the public eye and the complete story and, after the break up, individual pages have been marketed, sold and discussed at length.

 

The complete AF #15 Spidey Story was very publicly donated to the library of congress.

 

Several of Frazetta's very best comic pieces have sold in the last 10 years either publicly or subsequent to their sale have been publicly displayed.

 

The Avengers #1 page 1 splash, Tec #69 cover, Superman #14 cover, Batman #11 cover, and several other Golden Age greats have been publicly marketed and sold.

 

There are several other very public examples out there, but I think I proved my point. The harrumphing wasn't brought on by all the secret stuff that a few people know it was brought on by the very public and well known items that have been out there that expose the FF 12 as more rating hyperbole than factual analysis.

 

Best,

Chris

 

[markseifert]

There are several other very public examples out there, but I think I proved my point. The harrumphing wasn't brought on by all the secret stuff that a few people know it was brought on by the very public and well known items that have been out there that expose the FF 12 as more rating hyperbole than factual analysis.

 

Best,

Chris

 

Fair point. , I think there's going to be an article emerging from all of this eventually.