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2015 May 28-30 Comics Signature Auction

Started by Brian Peck,

277 posts in this topic

ciorac

ciorac

Posted
Posted

What's most frustrating to me about OA collecting is the lack of price awareness that we enjoy with comics.

 

There is a page in this auction that I really want, and I think it has been sold in another venue before. But I can't find pricing data to assist me. I've bid what I believe to be a VERY aggressive price for the page, and yet keep getting outbid.

 

And buying pages from outside the auction format leaves you in the hand of the little cabal of dealers that control pricing.

 

Very hard segment of the hobby to crack into these days.

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alxjhnsn

alxjhnsn

Posted
Posted

FWIW, here's my standard answer to this problem (spoiler tag used because it's long and others may not want to see it again). There may be something here you haven't tried.

 

However, even if you find a comparable price, if the "other guy" really wants it, the comparison means nothing.

,

------------------------------

 

 

You might want to explore the following resources:

  • The OA auction archive at Heritage Auctions - This archive presents the results from all of their OA auctions.. Once you sign-up and get an id, you can search for pieces by your artist and see what they have sold for.
  • The CAF Market Data - More auction results (more than 1,000,000) are available if you join the Comic Art Fans site, pay for Market Data access, and access eBay and other auction sites as well as Heritage.
  • The Comic Art Database. It contains transaction records entered by the owners of Comic OA.
  • Dealer sites. Dealers, generally, post their art with fixed prices though there are exceptions. There is a list of dealers on CGC OA board and the Dragonberry site has a list as well. The CAF site will search the inventories of several dealers for you.
  • Blouin Art Info which tracks sales at major art auctions. It can turn up some Comic OA as well. Look for the “Art Prices” item on the top right of the screen
  • Jerry Weist's Comic Art Price Guide - Heritage published a third edition of it. In my opinion, it's a good history book and might be useful for comparison work, but it was out of date a year before it was printed.
  • A topic on these CGC OA boards, A-level panel page valuations by artist/run - thoughts/additions/changes?, holds a discussion that relates to your question. It provides some "generally agreed upon" ranges for popular runs by popular artists on popular characters.
  • The Biggest OA Prices thread tracked some of the largest sales in the OA space. While that particular thread has stopped; it's probably worth reading for the discussions. Meanwhile , the information is still being updated - just with a different mechanism.

New buyers and sellers often find that OA is too hard to price. I agree. However, I think that there is a valid reason. Each piece is unique. Uniqueness make art sales generally and OA specifically non-linear.

 

For example,

  • Consecutive pages could and do sell for radically different amounts.
  • Take page layout - In general, you might say:
    Covers > 1st Page Splash > Other Splash > 1/2 splash > panel pages
    However, that's not always true either. The right panel page can be much more compelling than a bland splash.
  • Take pencillers- There are "A-list" artists, but not all of their books/characters have the same value. Kirby FF pages generally go for more than JIM/Thor pages which go for more than Cap pages (2nd run) which go for more than ...
  • Take combinations of pencilers/inkers - Kirby/Sinnott FF pages rank above Kirby and anyone else on FF, but a Kirby/X FF page might be more or less than a Kirby/Stone Thor page. Hard to tell.

 

Finally, you should join the comic book OA community. The three main points of Internet contact are:

 

The main points of physical contact are probably:

 

One last comment, if you are looking to buy or sell, spend the time to learn the market. That might take 6 months, but it's worth the time.

 

 

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Bronty

Bronty

Posted
Posted
What's most frustrating to me about OA collecting is the lack of price awareness that we enjoy with comics.

 

There is a page in this auction that I really want, and I think it has been sold in another venue before. But I can't find pricing data to assist me. I've bid what I believe to be a VERY aggressive price for the page, and yet keep getting outbid.

 

And buying pages from outside the auction format leaves you in the hand of the little cabal of dealers that control pricing.

 

Very hard segment of the hobby to crack into these days.

 

Is price awareness the issue or just price? If you like the piece and want long term who cares if you have the prior data or not? Just bid what it's worth to you (shrug)

 

I agree with your conclusion though; it takes a lot of bucks these days if you're chasing popular pieces.

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suspense39

suspense39

Posted
Posted
What's most frustrating to me about OA collecting is the lack of price awareness that we enjoy with comics.

 

There is a page in this auction that I really want, and I think it has been sold in another venue before. But I can't find pricing data to assist me. I've bid what I believe to be a VERY aggressive price for the page, and yet keep getting outbid.

 

And buying pages from outside the auction format leaves you in the hand of the little cabal of dealers that control pricing.

 

Very hard segment of the hobby to crack into these days.

 

Is price awareness the issue or just price? If you like the piece and want long term who cares if you have the prior data or not? Just bid what it's worth to you (shrug)

 

I agree with your conclusion though; it takes a lot of bucks these days if you're chasing popular pieces.

 

I find the lack of clarity in pricing a bit annoying myself, but it also can work both ways......sometimes you over pay ( based on what the vague current rate is) and other times you under pay. In my experience it sort of averages out......paying what it's worth to you and what you can afford is the best advice.

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vodou

vodou

Posted
Posted
...but it also can work both ways...

The more efficient the data, the more efficient the market.

Nobody that knows what they're doing around here wants that. Trust me.

It's only the (typically new) guys that haven't put the time in that do.

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pinupcartoonguy

pinupcartoonguy

Posted
Posted
What's most frustrating to me about OA collecting is the lack of price awareness that we enjoy with comics.

 

There is a page in this auction that I really want, and I think it has been sold in another venue before. But I can't find pricing data to assist me. I've bid what I believe to be a VERY aggressive price for the page, and yet keep getting outbid.

 

And buying pages from outside the auction format leaves you in the hand of the little cabal of dealers that control pricing.

 

Very hard segment of the hobby to crack into these days.

 

Is price awareness the issue or just price? If you like the piece and want long term who cares if you have the prior data or not? Just bid what it's worth to you (shrug)

 

I agree with your conclusion though; it takes a lot of bucks these days if you're chasing popular pieces.

 

Man, I'm at that point in my life (3 kids and mortgage) where I can't buy something just because I want it and have the funds. I'd like to think whatever I buy I can get at least a reasonable amount back in a pinch, which is much less likely if I way over pay.

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Bronty

Bronty

Posted
Posted

I'm not saying to overpay. I'm saying to bid what its worth to you. Those are two very different ideas.

 

If its only worth 50% of FMV to you because X, Y, Z, or the kids and the mortgage, that's all you bid.

 

I didn't say BUY. I said BID what its worth to you. Not to overpay. Not to necessarily buy at all.

 

My point in all that was that even if you get the prior sale data, so what? The prior sale data has very limited bearing on what you would have to pay today, just like what you pay, if you do buy it, will effect only tangentially the price someone else pays in the future.

 

What Bill is looking for, what you say you are looking for, is comfort. Comfort that they aren't overpaying, comfort they can get the money back. Well art doesn't really work that way. Its one of a kind so if the conditions are right, you might get 50% of what you paid six months later. Or you might get 200%.

 

That data point is FALSE comfort. The true comfort comes from a greater understanding of the market, as vodou pointed out. What this particular piece sold for in the past has some bearing but is mostly irrelevant (well, depending on the piece and fifty other things). What you really want is to know the market for this artist, for this subject matter, for slightly better material, for slightly worse material, who this might appeal to, what the circumstances on the past sales were. But there's no shortcut for that.

 

 

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Nexus

Nexus

Posted
Posted
I'm not saying to overpay. I'm saying to bid what its worth to you. Those are two very different ideas.

 

If its only worth 50% of FMV to you because X, Y, Z, or the kids and the mortgage, that's all you bid.

 

I didn't say BUY. I said BID what its worth to you. Not to overpay. Not to necessarily buy at all.

 

My point in all that was that even if you get the prior sale data, so what? The prior sale data has very limited bearing on what you would have to pay today, just like what you pay, if you do buy it, will effect only tangentially the price someone else pays in the future.

 

What Bill is looking for, what you say you are looking for, is comfort. Comfort that they aren't overpaying, comfort they can get the money back. Well art doesn't really work that way. Its one of a kind so if the conditions are right, you might get 50% of what you paid six months later. Or you might get 200%.

 

That data point is FALSE comfort. The true comfort comes from a greater understanding of the market, as vodou pointed out. What this particular piece sold for in the past has some bearing but is mostly irrelevant (well, depending on the piece and fifty other things). What you really want is to know the market for this artist, for this subject matter, for slightly better material, for slightly worse material, who this might appeal to, what the circumstances on the past sales were. But there's no shortcut for that.

 

 

 

 

 

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ciorac

ciorac

Posted
Posted
FWIW, here's my standard answer to this problem (spoiler tag used because it's long and others may not want to see it again). There may be something here you haven't tried.

 

However, even if you find a comparable price, if the "other guy" really wants it, the comparison means nothing.

,

------------------------------

 

 

You might want to explore the following resources:

  • The OA auction archive at Heritage Auctions - This archive presents the results from all of their OA auctions.. Once you sign-up and get an id, you can search for pieces by your artist and see what they have sold for.
  • The CAF Market Data - More auction results (more than 1,000,000) are available if you join the Comic Art Fans site, pay for Market Data access, and access eBay and other auction sites as well as Heritage.
  • The Comic Art Database. It contains transaction records entered by the owners of Comic OA.
  • Dealer sites. Dealers, generally, post their art with fixed prices though there are exceptions. There is a list of dealers on CGC OA board and the Dragonberry site has a list as well. The CAF site will search the inventories of several dealers for you.
  • Blouin Art Info which tracks sales at major art auctions. It can turn up some Comic OA as well. Look for the “Art Prices” item on the top right of the screen
  • Jerry Weist's Comic Art Price Guide - Heritage published a third edition of it. In my opinion, it's a good history book and might be useful for comparison work, but it was out of date a year before it was printed.
  • A topic on these CGC OA boards, A-level panel page valuations by artist/run - thoughts/additions/changes?, holds a discussion that relates to your question. It provides some "generally agreed upon" ranges for popular runs by popular artists on popular characters.
  • The Biggest OA Prices thread tracked some of the largest sales in the OA space. While that particular thread has stopped; it's probably worth reading for the discussions. Meanwhile , the information is still being updated - just with a different mechanism.

New buyers and sellers often find that OA is too hard to price. I agree. However, I think that there is a valid reason. Each piece is unique. Uniqueness make art sales generally and OA specifically non-linear.

 

For example,

  • Consecutive pages could and do sell for radically different amounts.
  • Take page layout - In general, you might say:
    Covers > 1st Page Splash > Other Splash > 1/2 splash > panel pages
    However, that's not always true either. The right panel page can be much more compelling than a bland splash.
  • Take pencillers- There are "A-list" artists, but not all of their books/characters have the same value. Kirby FF pages generally go for more than JIM/Thor pages which go for more than Cap pages (2nd run) which go for more than ...
  • Take combinations of pencilers/inkers - Kirby/Sinnott FF pages rank above Kirby and anyone else on FF, but a Kirby/X FF page might be more or less than a Kirby/Stone Thor page. Hard to tell.

 

Finally, you should join the comic book OA community. The three main points of Internet contact are:

 

The main points of physical contact are probably:

 

One last comment, if you are looking to buy or sell, spend the time to learn the market. That might take 6 months, but it's worth the time.

 

 

(thumbs u

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ciorac

ciorac

Posted
Posted
I'm not saying to overpay. I'm saying to bid what its worth to you. Those are two very different ideas.

 

If its only worth 50% of FMV to you because X, Y, Z, or the kids and the mortgage, that's all you bid.

 

I didn't say BUY. I said BID what its worth to you. Not to overpay. Not to necessarily buy at all.

 

My point in all that was that even if you get the prior sale data, so what? The prior sale data has very limited bearing on what you would have to pay today, just like what you pay, if you do buy it, will effect only tangentially the price someone else pays in the future.

 

What Bill is looking for, what you say you are looking for, is comfort. Comfort that they aren't overpaying, comfort they can get the money back. Well art doesn't really work that way. Its one of a kind so if the conditions are right, you might get 50% of what you paid six months later. Or you might get 200%.

 

That data point is FALSE comfort. The true comfort comes from a greater understanding of the market, as vodou pointed out. What this particular piece sold for in the past has some bearing but is mostly irrelevant (well, depending on the piece and fifty other things). What you really want is to know the market for this artist, for this subject matter, for slightly better material, for slightly worse material, who this might appeal to, what the circumstances on the past sales were. But there's no shortcut for that.

 

 

All good points. But FMV is what we measure most things by. Not art. It's the FMV understanding I'm seeking.

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ciorac

ciorac

Posted
Posted
...but it also can work both ways...

The more efficient the data, the more efficient the market.

Nobody that knows what they're doing around here wants that. Trust me.

It's only the (typically new) guys that haven't put the time in that do.

 

Efficiency is always a good thing when it comes to money for me.

 

I'm hardly new. I was peddling original art decades ago with no takers. None

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malvin

malvin

Posted
Posted

 

 

errr.. is there a bid retraction feature in HA?

 

Malvin

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suspense39

suspense39

Posted
Posted

 

 

errr.. is there a bid retraction feature in HA?

 

Malvin

 

Kind of tongue and cheek on my part, the next bid lower would still be insane if they did have a retraction.

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batman_fan

batman_fan

Posted
Posted

 

:o two people must really love that page

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vodou

vodou

Posted
Posted
...but it also can work both ways...

The more efficient the data, the more efficient the market.

Nobody that knows what they're doing around here wants that. Trust me.

It's only the (typically new) guys that haven't put the time in that do.

 

Efficiency is always a good thing when it comes to money for me.

 

I'm hardly new. I was peddling original art decades ago with no takers. None

Oh yeah you had an efficient market then too. Nobody wanted the stuff, and everybody knew it. :baiting:

When I bought this Ghost Rider cover "out of category" on eBay for $250 in 2004 and sold it a month later for $1800 (to a dealer, no less), that was my exploiting one inefficient market (with my knowledge and expertise) and moving it upmarket to a more efficient one. All very efficient for my money.

:whee: :whee: :whee:

390B2DF4-E054-4F92-9A69-00D6EA49C796_zpsp7xeu5sb.jpg

 

Nice cover, wish I still had it, but what I did with the $1800 (story for another day), well it makes the ROI on the Ghost Rider cover look tame in comparison.

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delekkerste

delekkerste

Posted
Posted

 

Haven't you heard? All 5-panel TOS #94 pages are worth at least $45K these days. :whistle::banana:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:jokealert:

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suspense39

suspense39

Posted
Posted

 

Haven't you heard? All 5-panel TOS #94 pages are worth at least $45K these days. :whistle::banana:

 

I love that page Gene! I've visited it many times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:jokealert:

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