PITT #1 cover by Dale Keown for sale

[Dumur]

Yeah, though $50K is obviously very high and a bit of a reach (most Romitaman consignments are, but sometimes the right buyer comes along at the right time...), I think it went pretty low. If I was feeling just a little more liberal with my money these days, I would have been VERY HAPPY to get that cover for $10K... not to mention that Pitt Malibu cover. I may regret not going after that one.

[jjonahjameson1]

Yeah, though $50K is obviously very high and a bit of a reach (most Romitaman consignments are, but sometimes the right buyer comes along at the right time...), I think it went pretty low. If I was feeling just a little more liberal with my money these days, I would have been VERY HAPPY to get that cover for $10K... not to mention that Pitt Malibu cover. I may regret not going after that one.

 

I'm pleased to see folks chiming in with their thoughts on the PITT 1 cover, the Malibu Sun cover, and Keown artwork in general. I'm a fan of his work and I'd welcome any and all discussions on this subject so let me provide some additional information to the context of this thread, and elaborate on some of the content.

 

I did indeed list this cover with Romitaman prior to the Heritage auction, and yes, Mike did feel it was a very high price. My rationale being it was the only major Image #1 cover available on the market ever, plus the fact that some Keown Hulk covers have crossed lofty thresholds in cash-only deals. I knew it was priced very aggressively at $35K, but I was willing to entertain offers. Not sure where the $50K prictag cited in some previous emails came from, but it wasn't from me.

 

I did receive offers on the piece for less than $35K, but substantially more that the $6K sale price on Heritage. When I agreed to the offer presented to me, the purchaser suddenly became unreachable and that's fine. It happens on occasion (in fact, it also happened on the Keown Malibu Sun #19 cover...buyer wanted 6 months before sending 1st payment, but suddenly became unreachable)

 

Anyhow, to make a long story short, HA had something I wanted and I needed to raise funds so I put the PITT #1 cover for sale along with several other Keown pieces.

 

I must give kudos to Heritage for giving my consignments good facetime in their catalog and their live auction environment. I think they did a fantastic job with marketing the pieces, but at the end of the day, the pieces sold for a substantial loss.

 

Did the market dictate the price, as a poster mentioned earlier? Certainly not. The segment of the market that views and bids on Heritage auctions spoke, but there is a significant portion of buyers that do not do business with auction houses, or require extended time payment plans or prefer to conduct part cash/part trade deals.

 

Did Heritage get me the most money for my pieces? Absolutely not. Not even close. I could have sold the pieces individually over time for multiples of what they went for on Heritage. The benefit of selling via Heritage was the ability to raise funds quickly in a single auction to offset another major purchase.

 

Lessons Learned:

 

What have I learned from this experience?

 

1. Always have a cash reserve to tap into for that must-have piece. You never know when its going to be available, but you should always be prepared

 

2. In my situation explained above, I will forego the Heritage experience and tap into a Line of Credit, especially considering the current interest rates would far offset the loss I took on sale prices

 

3. Let people know that you have stuff for sale. So I'm letting everyone know here and now that I have more Keown art for sale, including lots of stuff that's not on my CAF. Feel free to contact me via CAF and let me know what you're looking for. (thumbs u

[eewwnuk]

Good post. Keown to me is the definitive hulk artist. While his run was short the art was the best that character has had.

[mister_not_so_nice]

Known may be the definitive HULK artist, but I still love my DARKNESS cover (purchased from JJJ)

 

[jjonahjameson1]

Known may be the definitive HULK artist, but I still love my DARKNESS cover (purchased from JJJ)

 

 

Oh, I remember this cover well!