Do you guys find there is less material to purchase these days?

[Overthetopinc]

Hey guys,

I noticed that many dealers dont have those huge updates that were common in yesteryears. Also many websites dont get updated nearly as often. I talked with one dealer who went to a big show some months back and he said there was nothing to get there art wise. It seems to me with ebay not having much these days that Heritage and comic link are the main sources to satisfy our hunger. Do other people see it this way. This is just what I noticed in the last 12 months of collecting. I also wonder how this will effect prices. I guess people will be saving for HA and comic link auctions which means many pieces might end up getting more bidders then they would have had some years back. Maybe I am off...Just wondering what you guys think.

thanks,

Matthew

[Bronty]

it does kinda seem that way, at least to me.

[suspense39]

I guess it depends what you're looking for.....I'm definitely not seeing as much of the stuff I'm interested in.

[J.Sid]

You are right.

 

Back when I started (2002) there was a Bolland three out of every four weeks on eBay (despite him having switched to digitals years prior) and if you searched "Byrne" you got a page-and-a-half of results (not "production art"). It's s-s-s-slowly dwindled down to what we have today.

 

Romitaman is pretty good for updating his site regularly.

[Terry Doyle]

The Donnelly brothers are always adding stuff . . .

 

[AKA Rick]

I have to agree in that there's not so many dealer website updates, less quantity, quality and frequency as years in the past, even some going silent/dark where I'm not sure if they're actively in business or it's more of a passive hobby side business. I've not seen an emergence of new dealers either for the most part.

 

The most active sites with updates seems to be Anthony Snyder, Cadence, More Great Art, Splash Page Art, Romitaman and Kwan Chang.

 

eBay's not been a great source for finding art, for the most part. Once in a while there's something good but I usually find out after the auction ends since it's sort of like with Comic Connect, it's riddled with so much material I'm not interested in as much that I don't bother hunting there too often and inherently miss out due to my own lack of attention.

 

I'll say Heritage is always good, but the material his higher tiered. ComicLink has increasingly grown and has a good solid middle layer of material 'tho, as well as some higher end pieces.

 

The conventions are sometimes a good source to find art directly from the artists, but that's for new/modern material more so than anything aged for the most part.

 

 

[Brian Peck]

All depends, on ebay, yes there is less and less of interest to me. Heritage does have some really nice artwork some I go after and win. I have found in the last couple of years Comiclink has more of the higher end art I want than Heritage. But I have found either thru collectors, artist or dealers more art has come on the market that I want. IN the last few years I have been finding alot of great examples by artists I like or series I used to read and want examples from. Its not that there is less art out there, its just getting harder to find. Patience is the name of the game, you have to work for it.

[Mephisto]

I was thinking of posting this but I find myself rarely checking dealer updates. Where once I checed daily, I check once every few months and have not once kicked myself for missing anything. I am finding things in my wheel house GROSSLY over priced. However, they are less desirable pieces to begin with further making the prices more absurd. People complain about the Donnelly Brother pricing but I am finding multiple other dealers have things over priced so far off the cuff it's laughable. On the other hand I find more interesting things in Comiclink auctions and HA auctions. I have better comparable pieces significantly cheaper on EBay than on dealer sites and even thn they had not been snatched up immediately. If I'm going to grossly overpay for something than I'm more likely to offer insane money for soemthig that isn't for sale than something that is available but middle to lower tier.

[DJRome]

Oh man, I have had this conversation at least a dozen times over the last couple of years. On one hand, there is still plenty of decent material out there. A quick search for Kirby or Byrne will turn up a lot of results. Most of it won't be stuff that you want or can afford, but there is material that you can get if you're looking. And if you collect artists or titles that are currently active, then you'll find new pages coming to market every month. (Unless they've gone digital, of course.)

 

On the other hand, the field is getting crowded for the stuff that most of us collect/covet. There are more people building oa collections these days who are chasing the superhero books from the 60's thru the 90's. Unlike modern books (like Walking Dead), there isn't much fresh art from that era to be found. So the supply is divvied up between a greater number of active acquirers, hurting supply and driving up prices.

 

One thing that I got wrong in the hobby was thinking that higher prices would bring more good art to market. If a collector bought 10 nice ASM covers from the 80's for 2-4k a piece ten years ago, you'd think a current market price of 10-20k+ would encourage him to sell a decent chunk of it and make a juicy profit. Nope! It turns out that the guys buying ten years ago really like this stuff and mostly sell when they need the money. With the higher values, they only need to sell a little to raise funds when needed. Compounded with the modest influx of serious collectors, this really reduces the amount of good oa that you get to purchase.

 

This could very well change a few years down the road, when the current collectors stop spending and the older collectors get out of the hobby. But for the near future, good oa will continue to be hard to get.

 

 

[malvin]

hmm.. I haven't been giving this much thought, I "feel" that there is less, but I was quite busy the past few months so I have not been looking as much. Also, my collection has grown considerably and most of my want list has been fulfilled, so if it is something I already have an example of, I won't be interested unless it is cheap or it is an upgrade from what I have.

 

It does sound like others are looking at it more rigorously and have data points saying there is less, and that is believable.

 

malvin

[suspense39]

I thought higher prices would bring more to the market as well, and to a small degree it has. It's possible that if you spend a premium for something you may not want to risk it at auction for fear of a large loss. I've noticed many collectors just offering things themselves with a fixed price.

Also, yes ebay has dwindled, there used to be great stuff not that long ago

[NelsonAI]

I was one of the guys that spoke with DJ recently and agree with his post 100%.

 

However, as others have stated, it all depends on what you collect.

 

If anyone was tracking Scot Eder's auctions on eBay this week, IMO there were some nice pieces being offered:

 

- if you appreciate underground art ( Kim Deitch, Gary Panter ).

- fan favorites: McKean MirrorMask, Glen Fabry Lot 13 splash ( a steal at $159 ).

- for bronze age fans: 2 Marvel Team Up panel pages with active bidding.

 

It should also be noted that collectors are selling directly to other collectors and bypassing the marketplace.

 

Cheers!

N.

 

 

 

[Bronty]

I thought higher prices would bring more to the market as well, and to a small degree it has. It's possible that if you spend a premium for something you may not want to risk it at auction for fear of a large loss. I've noticed many collectors just offering things themselves with a fixed price.

Also, yes ebay has dwindled, there used to be great stuff not that long ago

 

eBay dwindling makes sense to me as comiclink pretty much takes the same fee, and they do the work and take the eBay non-payment risk out of the equation for the seller. For the same fee you get the same fee and more service

[Jesusjon]

I agree with the OP to an extent, but it is still well worth paying attention. In my limited opinion I am observing:

 

Fewer "finds" where dealers turn up a ton of vintage pages that were hidden away. I think that is mostly tapped although there are exceptions. Last year saw a nice treasure trove of Sandman pages unearthed, from which I was able to obtain a nice two page sequence that was "fresh to market".

 

Less volume and velocity of fresh pages popping up on eBay though there are exceptions to that as well. One of my favorite fresh to market covers last year started out on eBay before going in a private sale.

 

More of a funneling of fresh to market art through the auction houses or going in a private sale. I think collectors at the high end are pretty sophisticated at this point. They know who is holding the art they want and try to let their interest be known and get a deal done out of the public eye. Heritage and clink have both done good jobs in their respective spaces getting more to funnel through them.

 

To the above, I think aside from private deals, we often sit around waiting to see who will let what go from their collections at auction. I know that I would prefer to do a private deal if it's convenient and available but if I have a handful of pieces to part with, I would rather just put them in the mail to clink all together. Just look at how Jim Lee fueled multiple Heritage auctions with offerings from his own collection.

 

Just one mans .02.

[Bronty]

Good points

[suspense39]

I thought higher prices would bring more to the market as well, and to a small degree it has. It's possible that if you spend a premium for something you may not want to risk it at auction for fear of a large loss. I've noticed many collectors just offering things themselves with a fixed price.

Also, yes ebay has dwindled, there used to be great stuff not that long ago

 

eBay dwindling makes sense to me as comiclink pretty much takes the same fee, and they do the work and take the eBay non-payment risk out of the equation for the seller. For the same fee you get the same fee and more service

Good point!

[mister_not_so_nice]

I notice most of the replies (if not all) are from collectors that have been around for a few years. I think this plays a big part in the "less material around to purchase" mentality. By this stage of collecting we've seen A LOT of art and passed on it. Our collecting tastes/criteria have changed (admit it, you bought anything you thought was "cool" when you began) and we know that one of a kind may just come around the block again (sometimes sooner rather than later depending on whose collection it is sitting in now). Subsequently, purchases are mulled over bit longer and that piece that was "awesome" when you began is just "eh, I've seen(own) better"

 

Anyone here collecting for less than 5 years think the OA supply is running dry?

[Jesusjon]

I notice most of the replies (if not all) are from collectors that have been around for a few years. I think this plays a big part in the "less material around to purchase" mentality. By this stage of collecting we've seen A LOT of art and passed on it. Our collecting tastes/criteria have changed (admit it, you bought anything you thought was "cool" when you began) and we know that one of a kind may just come around the block again (sometimes sooner rather than later depending on whose collection it is sitting in now). Subsequently, purchases are mulled over bit longer and that piece that was "awesome" when you began is just "eh, I've seen(own) better"

 

Anyone here collecting for less than 5 years think the OA supply is running dry?

 

Great point, but I will say this:

 

When I first started collecting (2005) there was a much larger availability of pages and at lower prices, of the art I collect. If I started collecting today, I would not have access to that art at entry point pricing, and I rarely see it now on eBay.

 

My first OA purchase was a Sandman page off eBay in 2005. It was $1000 and was a nice Thompson page featuring Morpheus prominently. Recently a comparable kind of a page went up on Heritage. Wish I still saw those pages on eBay but nice, and more expensive, art tends to bypass eBay.

[Eric Seffinga]

Anyone here collecting for less than 5 years think the OA supply is running dry?

 

It's a different spin on the question. Has supply really shrunk in 5 years, vs 20? I think it's a matter of semantics.

 

Personally, I think J's more right when he mentions more sophisticated buyers/sellers and the jump to private sales, and Heritage and cLink doing a good job of prying loose what they do. I see the venues as having changed and rather than content and volume of what is out there.

 

The days of getting regular monthly catalogs in the mail are a distant memory for the old vets, and a war story to be shared the new. The early days of Monthly and even Weekly web updates while 8-bit interpretations of music played at you and a cheesey graphic scrolled the bottom of a black screen with christmas light colored text & underlined links are also a thing of the past. But I don't see any of that as the end of supply.

 

In fact, I think there is more out there than ever before, and that is part of the problem.

 

I see a sort of parallel between OA and the music business (and a lot of other things) impacted by the advent and growth of the internet. It's been a game changer.

 

Just like when music made the jump from vinyl, to CD to iTunes. Original art sales went from Dealer's with catalogs, to Dealers with websites, to everyone having direct sales access via eBay. And the last several years, the explosion of CAF in size breadth and volume, not to mention people's ability to broadcast and share what they have. It has, I believe, led to a much easier method of contact and person to person sales. This has in turn shrunk those dealer's sites, and robbed eBay of much of the more desirable items it once housed.

 

In the 60s - 80s, when the masses heard and were aware of the same music, it was because it is what was promoted and played on the radio. People grew up with that as their nostalgia touchstone. It was a smaller pool of original choices, and everyone knew all the bands and picked and chose what suited them. There were big machines behind it pushing that product.

 

The 90s was a bit of a transformative period.

 

Now, fully in the internet age, music is as fractured and subdivided as can be. Anyone can take any piece of gold/ straight to the masses. Some connect with it and some don't. I regularly hear people make the same complaints on music centered discussion boards, that there's not great bands like the Beatles or Led Zep anymore. They were the Frazettas and Kirbys of their day.

 

The truth is I believe there is MORE art out there now, with more people making it, publishing it and selling it than ever before. Some nuggets of gold scattered among piles of garbage. Like independent musicians, artists and writers can take their work direct to audiences. They can grow a fanbase. And just like the music industry, the comics industry has shrunk and subdivided massively. It's not just Marvel and DC, and one or two indie labels any more. Some people still milk the system (Beiber, Kanye, etc.) and some have forged whole new carreers beholden to no one.

 

So the real question to be asked is what "material to purchase" are you looking for? If you answer "the good stuff", well that's a subjective term. If you answer Silver Age Kirby, or Romita, or Modern Walking Dead, Sex Criminals, etc., well those are more direct.

 

And I think the reason it has become harder to find popular items for sale are numerous. A big one being the sheer volume of material for sale on the internet. eBay has become a cesspool of content. Totally flooded, and many prices are so trumped up it makes sifting through it all a chore. Once upon a time, I could go to the Comic Book Original Art section and there were only 1-3 pages of OA listings. All really art. For the whole section. Now it is cluttered with detritus, wannabe artists doing low quality sketches, intentionally placing items in the wrong categories in an attempt to get better views of an item and so on. So it's harder to find worthwhile items buried in the mountain. It involves more legwork. Coupled with ever increasing fees and rules that side with buyers, over sellers rights. These have pushed a lot of would-be art sellers to find other venues for their art. eBay still has a ton of eyes on it, but it's as bad as I've ever seen it for ease of sorting through. People seem to have less and less patience and expect more organization these days, but eBay doesn't offer it.

 

CAF coupled with Auction House past auction histories, give people access to ready values for recent sales to track and make note of. People can do a little digging on their own and formulate roughly what a given piece should sell for. They can bypass the old route of taking a fair market loss on work in order to consign with a dealer. Like eBay, Dealers have always offered a focal point. A gathering place of eyes looking for art, and that's always been their primary benefits. But it comes at a cost. Either you sell less than full street value (to leave them room for markup) for a quick sale, or you consign and lose a chunk to that.

 

If a seller is willing to do their own legwork and hit a variety of sources or venues, they can shop pieces around. I've seen work on Craigslist. On Facebook. On non-OA comic related discussion boards. Twitter. And of course CAF. Tons of work on CAF. Unfortunately not everyone is a paid member and their piece for sale can be harder to stumble across.

 

I have to think some just do what I've done the last several years.

I keep the PMs that are sent to me via CAF. Every time someone asks me to sell them a piece of art that isn't for sale on my CAF, I keep their contact info. On those rare occasions that I do decide to sell something, I look through for contacts on the piece in question, and 7 times out of 10 I have a buyer already lined up. Private sale. Full street value. And sometimes more. No eBay fees, and as often as not, they'll pay with a wire, or MO or check. There's a trust that sometimes comes selling collector to collector that isn't there when selling to an unknown party via eBay. So often PayPal fees are avoided as well. That is win/win.

 

Especially when you have "the good stuff". There are generally speaking, no shortage of buyers for that. I've had CAF offers dating back years from the same guys for the same pieces. They know they are on my list of contacts, and they stick their heads in the virtual door every so often to make themselves known again. And I've done the same with folks who have pieces I have longed for. And sometimes I'll sell something and I can go surfing CAF looking for collectors of that time of material. I've PMed folks when I was selling a piece I thought would fit their collections. Folks are always polite and excited to be thought of. It's worked for me selling in the past.

 

I'd be surprised if that isn't the way a LOT of deals are done now. Sure if you've got Dark Knight Returns splash pages and you know there's a ton of interest, you auction that mess off. You get those guys pitted against each other and you squeeze out every ounce of bank. But if you've got good pieces, and have an idea of what auction is likely to bring, you can make some painless quick sales direct and save yourself the worry of where it ends up. Maybe leave a bit of money on the table, but sometimes it's nice to put a piece in a particular collectors hands. And sometimes they pay that back in other intangible ways. Top dollar isn't always everything.

 

Sorry for the minor dissertation on what is probably somewhat obvious.

 

-e.

 

I should add that I feel like CAF is sliding towards eBay in the way it is becoming flooded by low quality sketches by unknown artists hoping to make a name for themselves. For every 1 really talented contributor, there are a hundred guys tracing porn mags and drawing the same big tittied heroine in the same pose with various costumes hastily traced over it with inexplicable dreams of making a sale or hitting it big. That is stuff I wish Bill could help us filter out. I really wish there was an pro/amateur designation required when posting work so it can be semi-policed.

[heartened]

The vintage quality art - key art from key runs by key artists - has by this point mostly found its way into "black hole" collections, mine being one of them. So, although I agree that in general there is a ton of art out there, the art that "many" people seem to congregate around seems to have dried up. Every once in a while a big sale will pull some out - like the Ditko ASM page for over 100K, etc. - but for the most part I would agree that we won't see as many of the key examples circulating unless big money or big trades are thrown their way. This is way, in general, I have always purchased from other collectors (or auction houses) and rarely from other dealers. The best art is in collections, and you have to be creative, persistent or go at least 20-40% above market price to pry them loose.