To post or not to post on CAF

[alxjhnsn]

Way before we had Alex Johnson's values post...

That made me laugh.

 

I made an embarrassing low offer to Will at comicartpage. I was a newbie and didn't know any better. He was polite and helped me understand values.

I know the feeling. Will helped explain the facts of life to me as well. My offer wasn't off the wall low, but it was low. We worked it out and my wife gave me a great b'day present - a page from my very first comic!

 

Re: Low ball offers

When you get those, give them this:

 

 

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 In my opinion, it's a good history book and might be useful for comparison work, but it was out of date a year before it was printed.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.
  • The price information moved to The OA Elite blog. Click on the categories on the top of the page to see the updated list.
  • The discussion moved to Biggest OA Prices: The Blog

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:

• Yahoo's comicart-l mailing list
  
• The Comic Art Fans website
  
• The CGC OA Board

 

The main points of physical contact are probably:

• San Diego Comic Con
  
• New York City Comic Con
  
• Comic Art Con
  
• Heroes Comic Con

 

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.

 

 

[malvin]

Never experienced that before

 

Malvin

[Mr. Machismo]

I find values for modern art pretty tricky in some scenarios. And I do check Heritage, ComicLink, etc. I find those typically contain older works of modern artists that go for far below what current work sells for. An old Bermejo cover ≠ a recent one, for instance.

 

The best way I have gathered values of the artists I follow is through conversations on CAF, typically stemmed from wanting to buy a piece and the owner telling me what they paid or what someone offered them. This, of course, after they reject wanting to sell altogether (understandably.)

 

It's also tough when many sales are done through e-mail to private collectors. I'm a subscriber to some of those lists, and the prices can be absolutely absurd and 5x+ what I've seen tracked elsewhere. But this ties back to recent work vs. past work (with the recent work typically being much stronger.)

[Weird Paper]

I once had Keif Fromm (a mutually disliked name between myself and Mitch Itkowitz . . . and probably others) approach me over wanting to buy my Ditko Captain Atom 80 cover. Told him (at the time) it wasn't for sale, but his e-mail enquiry was still attached to the thumbnail on my CAF. Some years later, I was toying with the idea of releasing it, so I reminded Keif of his enquiry and told him I might now consider selling it. Response I received went into a long spiel of why I shouldn't expect too high an offer on the cover . . . at which point I told Keiff to forget it.

 

So, yeah, you'll also get the low-ball offers, but you quickly learn to develop a thick-skin.

Man, but ask KF for a price on something from his collection and you get a number resembling the national debt.

 

ALL CAPS.

 

With your name in the email used 47 times as a macro, with the remains of one non-printing character stuck to the first letter.

 

He emailed me once to say he was getting out of the hobby, I still have the price list he sent me of the things I told him I might be interested in......

1) “Frankenstein #5” page 4 artwork by Briefer (from the 2nd story entitled: "How I Had (and Lost) a Pet Dinosaur") (CRESTWOOD PUBLICATIONS) (NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1946) -- $7,500 USD

2) “PAUL GUSTAVSON's THE HUMAN BOMB” World War 2 Battle Page from Police Comics #4 page 62 (QUALITY COMICS) (NOVEMBER 1941) -- $15K USD

3) “Powerhouse Pepper” page 1 splash page art by Basil Wolverton (TIMELY COMICS/HUMORAMA) (CIRCA 1945 to 1948) -- $50K USD

He quoted me those same prices on the Briefer and Wolverton. The discussion proceeded no further.

[Weird Paper]

I once had Keif Fromm (a mutually disliked name between myself and Mitch Itkowitz . . . and probably others) approach me over wanting to buy my Ditko Captain Atom 80 cover. Told him (at the time) it wasn't for sale, but his e-mail enquiry was still attached to the thumbnail on my CAF. Some years later, I was toying with the idea of releasing it, so I reminded Keif of his enquiry and told him I might now consider selling it. Response I received went into a long spiel of why I shouldn't expect too high an offer on the cover . . . at which point I told Keiff to forget it.

 

So, yeah, you'll also get the low-ball offers, but you quickly learn to develop a thick-skin.

Man, but ask KF for a price on something from his collection and you get a number resembling the national debt.

 

I know. Doc Joe had his own KF story along those lines.

 

Actually I have done numerous deals with Keif . . .

 

 

You had me worried there, for about a second or two, then . . .

 

 

Didnt he have a CAF page at one point recently? I seem to remember him owning the cover to Flash 135

It seems to be on and off. He does (or did?) have some amazing pieces like the Hit 5 cover and the Jack Cole Daredevil splash. He also had the best (IMHO) Superman daily of all time. Oh well.

[Fred Chamberlain]

I am a dinosaur, when it comes to my understanding of computers, tech, etc and so, while I've had a few people tell me to get watermarks, I have no clue as to how to do it and the single time I looked up the process.... my head hurt.

[JadeGiant]

I am a dinosaur, when it comes to my understanding of computers, tech, etc and so, while I've had a few people tell me to get watermarks, I have no clue as to how to do it and the single time I looked up the process.... my head hurt.

 

Hey Fred, if you send me your Hulk 227 and Pelletier pages I will watermark them for you. Note – to do it right, I will need the original pages.

[chrisco37]

Some guy made me an offer on a Walking Dead page. It was probably 1.5 times what it was worth and I accepted. He then proceeded to tell me that he wasn't going to buy it because the price was too high.

 

 

 

[comix4fun]

Some guy made me an offer on a Walking Dead page. It was probably 1.5 times what it was worth and I accepted. He then proceeded to tell me that he wasn't going to buy it because the price was too high.

 

 

 

 

That's awesome!

 

I can think of 5 guys in the hobby right now that would have head-up-keister disease severe enough to try and pull something like that.

 

There are probably more but some just immediately pop into my head.

[Fred Chamberlain]

I am a dinosaur, when it comes to my understanding of computers, tech, etc and so, while I've had a few people tell me to get watermarks, I have no clue as to how to do it and the single time I looked up the process.... my head hurt.

 

Hey Fred, if you send me your Hulk 227 and Pelletier pages I will watermark them for you. Note – to do it right, I will need the original pages.

 

On the way. I'll make sure to send them media mail, in order to save money. Cardboard is expensive too, so I'll make sure to put them in a padded envelope.

 

I actually have had some fun experiences with people initiating attempts to purchase art from me. The last stand-out was a guy contacting me soon after I bought and posted a romita Jr/Jansen Spidey page. I stated that I liked the page, had just picked it up and had no plans to sell it. He was persistent and so I finally threw out a price. He immediately countered with a ridiculously low offer. We went back and forth multiple times, before he insinuated that I was trying to rip him off. He added that he had found comparable pages for lower than I had set my "price". I encouraged him to get the page and said I was happy for him.

 

The compulsive behaviors that come with this hobby are fascinating to me.

 

 

[alxjhnsn]

Fred,

 

If you are a CAF premium member, you can add a watermark to your displayed pieces easily.

 

From the CAF home page, click on Your Account & Collection. Then in the menu, click on Edit Premium Preferences. On the page that comes up, click on "My Watermark." You can then upload a file to serve as your Watermark.

 

If you want one, I can create it for you. Just give me the label that you want.

[fsumavila]

I sometimes wonder about whether posting my collection on CAF can actually hurt the longterm value of some pieces, because of that whole 'fresh to market' thing. But ultimately, I collect comic art because I enjoy the hobby and I like displaying the art. Whether it's the pieces I have hanging in my house or in my CAF gallery.

 

Like others have mentioned, CAF has led me to some great conversations about the hobby with some very interesting guys. A few I met when they have sent the 'Is this piece for sale?' email.

 

Hell, I get an inquiry or an offer about my Dazzler #1 just about every two weeks. They don't bother me in the least, because it's flattering that people enjoy one of the pieces in my collection.

 

It also takes me all of about 30 seconds to write back with a polite, 'sorry, its not for sale' reply. So what's the big deal?

 

I inquire about NFS pieces all the time, but I tend to avoid throwing out a price because I worry about offering an insultingly low offer. Would it be better to throw out a price than just a general inquiry? Curious what others think.

 

[mister_not_so_nice]

I have "most" of my collection on CAF.

 

Some of the reasons I don't keep everything up there all of the time are:

 

- I don't display all of my pages from a couple of titles because I think when I piece from that title goes to auction some people will see some jerk is hoarding a bulk of the pages creating an unnecessary fervor for the one on auction.

 

- I think some CAFs (mine included) can be overwhelming when there is just too much on display. I think those CAFs actually get less views than a CAF with less pieces on display. Someone browsing will go through all of the pages in a folder if there are 18 (one page worth), but will only view 3 or 4 if there are 80 pieces in a folder.

 

- With that same philosophy, if there are 40 folders they may only view 3. If there are 15 folders they may view half of them.

 

Now, when I say "they" I am really going by my own experience. If you have a CAF with a folder for each artist and each folder has one piece, I'm probably not checking out many folders.

 

Now, I'm not one that needs to make the most viewed list or anything, but I do like to know that the effort taken to post th pieces gets seen by a few other like minded collectors.

 

[Bill C]

Hell, I get an inquiry or an offer about my Dazzler #1 just about every two weeks. They don't bother me in the least, because it's flattering that people enjoy one of the pieces in my collection.

 

It also takes me all of about 30 seconds to write back with a polite, 'sorry, its not for sale' reply. So what's the big deal?

 

 

 

Any chance of a larger scan of Dazzler #1 going up?

[jbud73]

Art is meant to be appreciated. I mean sure you own it and its your choice, but I'd argue that appreciation extends to more than one person, as the artists of comic OA created their pieces for public consumption did they not?

 

[Solar]

I inquire about NFS pieces all the time, but I tend to avoid throwing out a price because I worry about offering an insultingly low offer. Would it be better to throw out a price than just a general inquiry? Curious what others think.

 

On art marked NFS, I've had my best results with really strong offers right out of the gate.

[suspense39]

I inquire about NFS pieces all the time, but I tend to avoid throwing out a price because I worry about offering an insultingly low offer. Would it be better to throw out a price than just a general inquiry? Curious what others think.

 

On art marked NFS, I've had my best results with really strong offers right out of the gate.

 

I only bought one that way, I offered 30-40% over FMV, and it worked, still love the piece!

[fmaz]

I love using CAF for my pieces (not that I've got a lot... 5 and counting). But it's a great way to share with the community, also I like being able to, on my phone or iPad, show friends what I'm talking about quickly when I am explaining the hobby if they don't happen to be standing in my home.

And I love using it to browse for particular pages I'm looking for... and that people are selling.

 

As for getting a bunch of requests? Wasn't happening at first but has started to happen more and more lately with my last few pieces (even be marked NFS) but like many others have said... I don't mind. The ones who are respectful, I reply to and I've had some great conversations back and forth about OA. The ones who are crazy low-ballers I just ignore.

[Buzzetta]

I really do not have anything for sale so I do not mind using it to showcase my collection. I would like to get more animation up and finish uploading some things.

[CartoonFanboy]

I inquire about NFS pieces all the time, but I tend to avoid throwing out a price because I worry about offering an insultingly low offer. Would it be better to throw out a price than just a general inquiry? Curious what others think.

 

On art marked NFS, I've had my best results with really strong offers right out of the gate.

 

Same here. I've found that making a polite first contact - along with a good offer - goes a long way towards getting someone to part with art marked as NFS. This has been true for me both as a buyer and a seller.