To Go Big or Not to Go Big?

[Panelfan1]

Though I have the funds, it is difficult for me to rationalize spending 10K on a piece of comic artwork. That said, I spend quite a bit on the hobby annually.

 

the 10k was a made up number for example only. it could be 1k or 50k. it just seems that sometimes after a while you add up everything and you realize that all those 'little' pieces add up to as much as one 'big' piece.

[Fred Chamberlain]

I hadn't even consciously seen the "10K' number and chose it as an arbitrary number for my point.

[Panelfan1]

Not sure if this is a cop-out answer. But buy what means the most to you.

 

Right. We all agree on this point. But you know, I love my Terry Dodson cover as much as I love Dave Mandel's secret wars cover. There are those comics that are meaningful, even if you no longer love them (insert badly drawn/badly written comic you read as a kid that you are nostalgic for here.)

 

For this discussion I was looking at price vs quantity, with the assumption that you only buy things you like/love.

[Panelfan1]

Unfortunately, these types of questions have no one-size-fits-all answer because the answer always is: "it depends." Artist(s) involved, specific 10K level piece, specific smaller pieces, cost/value of everything, modern vs bronze age, etc. Not to mention specifics about you, your risk tolerance, nostalgic connection to the piece or pieces (even presuming you "love" everything, there are still degrees of "love" that can differentiate between pieces, including how much you'll miss a particular piece if you end up selling/trading it), what the rest of your collection looks like, where you want your collection to go in the next few years, etc.

 

All of us can think of examples when trading/selling smaller pieces (or not buying them) in order to obtain and hold one larger piece is better as well as examples when holding a number of smaller pieces that are appreciating well is better than one larger piece that may not appreciate as well (or that one overpays for and may not appreciate at all for a time).

 

well stated

 

so both of you are right -but hey - I was hoping for opinions and personal stories. what do you guys do? or think about when you do art buys? As collectors on CAF we often get comments like 'nice art' etc.. but truly we are not responsible for making it. So the interesting part for me, is hearing opinions and stories from others.

[Will_K]

I think another issue is...

 

If you spend X dollars to get a single piece or 2 pieces, how long will it be before you have another X dollars to spend.

 

If it took a year to save X dollars and ended up buying 2 pieces, in 6 months would you spend 1/2 X to get 1 piece ? Or do you have the fortitude to save for another year before shopping for art ?

 

It's almost impossible to actually plan your spending on this hobby. Should you avoid ebay, ComicLink, Heritage, CAF and all the other dealer websites while you save $$$ for a year ?

 

I'd say for a big ticket item (let's say over 10K), either you've been saving a long time for the perfect piece. Or you've been waiting for the perfect piece, you just happen to have the 10K to spare.

 

Another option is to buy art with time payments. That way you know exactly what piece of art you'll end up with after a certain period of time.

 

 

 

 

[vodou]

It's almost impossible to actually plan your spending on this hobby. Should you avoid ebay, ComicLink, Heritage, CAF and all the other dealer websites while you save $$$ for a year ?

- too true. This is why some certain same-every-time folks run emergency grail sales every other month for that shiny new thing they must have, typically trying to offload at breakeven their previous grail from just three months prior.

 

Others exhibit restraint and self-control.

[John E.]

Would love to hear your purchasing philosophy in regards to getting one 'big/expensive' piece vs several less expensive items.

 

When I started collecting, I asked several dealers what they thought - if you have $x (for example $10,000) - is it better to spend that on one item, or several? (example 1 item $10k, or 5 - 2k items) Assuming that either way you are only buying items you like. The dealers I asked were wishy washy on their answers -so I am coming to you, the collecting community for your feelings on the matter.

 

To be clear, let me repeat, Before all other considerations - lets assume that you love all the art you are buying. You love the cheap stuff and the expensive stuff in your collection. its all stuff you love/like.

 

If you had X dollars, do you wait for that big piece to come along and spend the whole X amount, or do you prefer to buy several less expensive pieces with your funds?

 

If I found myself in the position where I wasn't finding art that I wanted to buy and suddenly I found myself with a war chest of $3,000, I'd certainly start looking for art that I could buy at that price range. Certainly, in the end, I might end up buying a $2,000 piece and a $1,000 piece. Recently, I found my comic fund at $1000 and ended up buying a $550 page and a $450 page in the same week.

 

If you feel that getting the one big piece is better than several less expensive pieces is the way to go; have you sold off a chunk of your collection to get those more expensive pieces?

 

I haven't had to, yet, but I would. Unfortunately, in most cases, you already have to have the money or close to it, to make a purchase that's up there in price. Case in point, Anthony Snyder posted an Alex Ross piece for $2500 that I would've certainly have sold everything I had to buy it. (Truth is, all I had to do was sell some slabs and some art, not everything I own amounts to $2500). Snyder posted this about a week before SDCC and you all know how he travels across states, setting up at small shows, until he gets to SDCC. I knew that piece would get snatched up during the trip, and it did. Had it not, I would've hopefully worked a time payment with him and sold what I had to get it. I think most people would do this.

 

Would also love to know your opinion from an investment angle. Is it better to buy one expensive piece vs several less expensive ones? again -all of which feature characters/creators you like.

 

Someone on these Boards said it best that if you're looking for investment purpose, then stick with the blue chips, like Kirby, Ditko, hell, Byrne Fantastic Four or X-Men. If that's the case, then yeah, save up all your dimes and forego all the economically priced artwork. But I think certain principles should remain the same, like "buy low, sell high" or buy when the market has cooled off.

 

One thing I noticed, is the higher the X, the more options you got -and often before making a purchase of X dollars, I look to see if there is something I like more on the market in that amount. Does anyone else do that?

 

Yes, as my war chest swells, my options get better. If I find myself with a nice windfall selling on eBay, then I start thinking, hmmm....maybe I can afford to by an Artist X piece now. Let's see what's out there.

 

 

I do want to add that the longer I've been collecting, the better I understand my tastes, what's out there & for how much, and how to filter the pyrite from the gold. In doing so, I tend to naturally escalate my budget for "better" pieces, which means that I am forgoing a lot of the economically priced work. But this doesn't necessarily mean I am choosing price over quantity. I mean if a $1000 worth of art on the open market landed on my lap for $250, I'd snatch it up.

 

[tth2]

2. When I got started in this hobby a friend told me "quality over quantity". I have been happy with that decision.

[batman_fan]

2. When I got started in this hobby a friend told me "quality over quantity". I have been happy with that decision.

 

+1, learn it, live it

[Lee B.]

I can certainly understand and admire the "quality over quantity" sentiment, but I have been more of a quantity guy myself. (Although I like to think that I have mixed in some quality pieces here and there.)

 

I just enjoy buying art on a regular basis. It's always fun to find an affordable piece of art that also fits my standards for good-quality art. Getting an art package in the mail makes me happy.

 

I have made some purchases recently that have gotten closer and closer to the five-figure mark, but I generally am more content to buy ten $500.00 pages over the course of six months than one $5,000.00 page over the course of six months. Best, Lee

[AKA Rick]

...also, if you're investing, it's easier for a $300 piece to go to $600 than a $30,000 piece to go to $60,000 on the ROI %.

 

I'm personally a "quality over quantity" collector 'tho, so I'd rather buy what I like (and can afford) more than just pick up cheap material that's okay or good, but not satisfying or great. I think we (collectors) all went through the early stages in the hobby of toe dipping with stuff we subsequently regretted picking up out of either impulse, boredom or because it was affordable.

 

It is true to a degree that the more expensive the piece, the harder it may be to get rid of (sell off), but in the same breath, if it's a solid piece by a sustainable artist (Neal Adams, Steve Ditko, Jim Lee, Jack Kirby, Frank Miller, Todd McFarlane, etc.), it's easy to jettison the piece off to an auction house like ComicLink and they'll take care of it all for you, finding the audience of buyers to bid on it and garner you the highest dollar, often times beyond what's perceived as FMV. Mediocre material usually becomes bargain hunter fodder at auctions, and even more so, most auction houses will decline material that's substandard as consignments for their signature or featured auctions which are the high profile arenas you want to be in.

[batman_fan]

When I first started buying art, I picked up pretty much anything that caught my fancy and was cheap. Fortunately I saw a splash page early on and fell in love with the large image and quickly moved to buying splashes which tended to be more expensive. I later migrated to covers and now I mostly buy covers and splashes. Given the price delta against most panel pages, I now buy maybe one to two pieces a year, although I have gone years not buying anything. I have been really happy with that decision because I have less overall artwork making it possible to actually display.

[Bronty]

Regarding the 300 to 600 being easier to double up. That's true, but if you ever need to sell either to buy something else or just because something happens in life, it's sure easier to raise the money when you only have to make two sales instead of twenty, all other things (such as saleability!) being equal

[vodou]

Regarding the 300 to 600 being easier to double up. That's true, but if you ever need to sell either to buy something else or just because something happens in life, it's sure easier to raise the money when you only have to make two sales instead of twenty, all other things (such as saleability!) being equal

Those that move volume know (if they want to be successful as to ROI and maintain liquidity) that the timing is the market's not your own. You don't wait to sell when you need the money, you're always selling (and always buying too for that matter). And you have the discipline to pull to the side what you need to when you need to from any transaction, so you're not 'all in' at all times and unable to take advantage of opportunity (or make the best of disaster).

 

I tend to think the above (market's timing) is true whether you collect/work volume or a handful of trophies, either way, waiting to sell until you need the money is short-term fire-selling...which typically does not produce the best result, the highest ROI.

 

Further just like you can't sell 1/2 a house for liquidity*, or 1/2 a car, you can't sell 1/2 a major Frazetta oil either. That's always the problem with under-diversification in an asset class. And there's no change back in original art. OA is not fungible. What you give up is gone. To be prepared to win at auction, you generally have to oversell too. Alternatively one can peel off x15 Sal Buscema and x15 Trimpe Hulk pages and keep on steppin' (if you've got 250 still in the back room!) And if that's the sort of thing you're doing regularly, just divert some/all of the proceeds toward the new shiny instead of whatever you normally do with the income stream!

 

*Forget HELOC unless you can point me to a lender that also does AELOC

[Mighty Hal]

I can certainly understand and admire the "quality over quantity" sentiment, but I have been more of a quantity guy myself. (Although I like to think that I have mixed in some quality pieces here and there.)

 

I just enjoy buying art on a regular basis. It's always fun to find an affordable piece of art that also fits my standards for good-quality art. Getting an art package in the mail makes me happy.

 

I have made some purchases recently that have gotten closer and closer to the five-figure mark, but I generally am more content to buy ten $500.00 pages over the course of six months than one $5,000.00 page over the course of six months. Best, Lee

 

I'm with you on this, Lee. Not for investment reasons but for the joy of collecting.

 

The main reason I'm with you is because the OP stated that the collector is getting pieces that he loves. Why limit the amount of love in your life? Embrace the hunt, find ten of those pieces, and celebrate.

[Raymondb0]

Here is my view...

 

Often ones tastes change over time. There will always be a core but things on the periphery move in and out. When I got back into collecting I would target pieces that meant something to me. I veered away from that a bit but I keep coming back to it. Sentiment and Love are powerful things.

 

In this addictive hobby if you can have some discipline/patience I think it is helpful as well. As a mere mortal in this game of titans I pick my spots. I like what Alex B is doing in terms of focus and am going in that direction. When I am done I plan on having 25 pieces that I completely adore. Some will continue to move in and out as tastes change but there will always be a core.

 

So I look at my collecting as a pyramid and as I upgrade I move closer and closer to the top with fewer pieces but ones that truly hit all the marks for me.

 

It will be a long climb with many stops but a great one none the less...

 

[Doc McCoy]

mother @!#$@$!, just responded to a post and had put a decent amount of time into it, clicking post..... to find that it had been deleted.

 

Now I feel like I've missed out on some life changing words of wisdom here, Fred.

 

As for my thoughts on the OP. If you plan to spend big and you're looking at resale value down the road keep in mind that certain characters and creators have stood the test of time and will more than likely always be valued above others. It's also important to note that even these 10K pieces were once sold for a pittance, so if you find the right pieces and artists early enough, they may one day appreciate to higher levels, but as the majority have stated: Always buy what you like and can afford.

[Fred Chamberlain]

100% agreed on that, Josh.