Dragon's Lair & Space Ace Original Poster Artwork on Heritage 0

[Bronty]

not sure why that showed up with strike through... I tried to remove it.

[delekkerste]

8 minutes ago, Bronty said:

The biggest weakness and biggest strength of comic art is that the supply is endless.     The biggest weakness and biggest strength of published gaming art is that the supply is incredibly restricted.

I have found, at least within the comic art hobby, that an incredibly restricted supply often does not allow a healthy market to develop and flourish, as people gravitate towards artists/runs where supply is more plentiful and they have a better chance of snagging something they like.  

[Bronty]

9 hours ago, ShallowDan said:

Well this particular piece obviously has tons of crossover appeal due to the Don Bluth connection, and I would imagine it has to be considered a top tier piece as far as gaming art goes. 

 

Does anyone give a sh*t about Don Bluth when there isn't a 50k auction?    

TBH its not a piece I would have thought twice about prior to the auction so while its a nice piece and known property it was also a short lived one-off as a gaming property.   

In terms of getting a decent price on the market, I think it was the right venue, and a piece from the right date... 1983... a date where someone on heritage with money who doesn't normally collect game art could come along and buy it just on the basis they thought it was cool.   The crowd for the slightly later stuff where most of the interest and activity is wouldn't have been as interested in this piece and the crossover folks from that time frame are 10 years younger and 10 years less flush as a result. 

 

Edited July 6, 2020 by Bronty

[Bronty]

1 hour ago, delekkerste said:

I have found, at least within the comic art hobby, that an incredibly restricted supply often does not allow a healthy market to develop and flourish, as people gravitate towards artists/runs where supply is more plentiful and they have a better chance of snagging something they like.  

Yeah maybe, definitely a potential issue.   But I tend to think along Michael's lines that the big talismans will carry the big prices whether they are in short supply or not.  

For example, I don't think the person that offered 29,500 for this (frankly awful IMO) promotional piece purchased for 286 ten year ago stopped to think about your point.  https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/don-punchatz-doom-gaming-magazine-cover-illustration-original-art-undated-/a/829-42402.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515 Nor do I think the person that offered 61,000 for this sega mickey cover purchased as a book illustration for 2,629 stopped to think about your point.   https://comics.ha.com/itm/animation-art/mickey-mouse-and-castle-illustration-original-art-walt-disney-c-1990s-/a/7142-97220.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515     They didn't care.   They just remember those games and want a slice.   Remember that 29,500 doom offer is for a magazine cover FFS.   Like 8 steps down in desirability from the actual cover... but due to that scarcity you mentioned, all that a fan with a few bucks in their pocket has a shot at easily acquiring without knowing the right people and/or paying a lot more money.

I could list other private examples but the ones I presented are a couple pieces of low hanging publicly viewable fruit.   At the end of the day I think a lot of the 'reasons' we come up with as pros and cons post auction day are BS.    If people like something and can afford they will generally pay for it (or try to).   In the case of this DL it was a great image, somewhat memorable in the grand scheme of things, and quite memorable to those that were kids of a very specific age in a very specific window of time.    That's enough for 50k these days.

Heck you yourself have made the point that as comic collectors grew older and amassed wealth due to career advancement and the increase in the value of their collections, they had money to spend more on comic art or other things they cared about.    Obviously, that's happening as we speak.    Stuff I used to buy sealed for three figures when I started is five figures.    I overpaid at $300 for one of these 17 years ago, now $44k.    https://www.ebay.com/itm/MIKE-TYSON-039-S-PUNCH-OUT-Unopened-Sealed-Seal-Rating-A-1987-NES-Nintendo-WATA-9-4-/383597838671?epid=56209434&hash=item595036814f%3Ag%3AUwwAAOSwMyBe7Tto&nma=true&si=80qIoRLTBNhYBqw6DDVMJRxb2Ho%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557 

If someone wants anything good art wise, the people who have some of this art, including me, need to be paid more to let it go because why TF would they otherwise bother?    If they have some kind of life event where they need 50k or 100k they can sell something else.

 

Edited July 6, 2020 by Bronty

[delekkerste]

42 minutes ago, Bronty said:

Yeah maybe, definitely a potential issue.   But I tend to think along Michael's lines that the big talismans will carry the big prices whether they are in short supply or not.  

I would agree with the point about "talismans" or other marquee/iconic pieces.  

[JadeGiant]

What was the hammer on the DL piece?

[cstojano]

Is that 44k Punchout sustainable? The price appreciation on these games seem insane to me as an outsider. One wonders if there aren't case finds ready to be made for some of these titles.

That Mickey Mouse HA listing is insane. From 3k to a 60k offer in 4 years. I assume it wasn't accepted though am not sure HA indicates such.

[vodou]

3 hours ago, Bronty said:

I overpaid at $300 for one of these 17 years ago, now $44k.    https://www.ebay.com/itm/MIKE-TYSON-039-S-PUNCH-OUT-Unopened-Sealed-Seal-Rating-A-1987-NES-Nintendo-WATA-9-4-/383597838671?epid=56209434&hash=item595036814f%3Ag%3AUwwAAOSwMyBe7Tto&nma=true&si=80qIoRLTBNhYBqw6DDVMJRxb2Ho%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557 

Cripes. Killah ROI. Good for you.

3 hours ago, Bronty said:

If someone wants anything good art wise, the people who have some of this art, including me, need to be paid more to let it go because why TF would they otherwise bother?    If they have some kind of life event where they need 50k or 100k they can sell something else.

Solid truth.

[Bronty]

2 hours ago, JadeGiant said:

What was the hammer on the DL piece?

50k or so all in - 54k I think?

[Bronty]

1 hour ago, cstojano said:

Is that 44k Punchout sustainable? The price appreciation on these games seem insane to me as an outsider. One wonders if there aren't case finds ready to be made for some of these titles.

That Mickey Mouse HA listing is insane. From 3k to a 60k offer in 4 years. I assume it wasn't accepted though am not sure HA indicates such.

44k is high.   We will see.   It’s certainly a great game and one everyone wants to own.  I think 25 would make more sense but it’s hot hot hot right now and just keeps going up up up each sale.   More than anything I think the upcoming Tyson documentary will keep it high for a while.   Maybe it dips down after that or at least plateaus. 

As for the Mickey, I’m aware of the person that made the offer - it was not accepted.  No idea who the owner is.

 

Edited July 6, 2020 by Bronty

[JadeGiant]

3 minutes ago, Bronty said:

50k or so all in - 54k I think?

Thanks Bronty! 

[Bronty]

Welcome 

[GeneticNinja]

On 7/5/2020 at 10:39 AM, Bronty said:

I’m doubtful it mattered much.   I think the price was healthy but not at all cray cray.    Now I suppose I’m biased since I collect this type of material , but I wonder if comic only collectors ever step back and look at their own hobby through unbiased eyes.   What does 50 grand buy you in comics and comic art?   Frankly, not a hell of a lot, which should be a sobering thought.   That priciest things in games and game art are six figures, the priciest things in comics and comic art are seven figures.   That doesn’t seem out of line given comics having been around longer etc.

I wasn’t sure how this piece would or wouldn’t do at open auction but the price isn’t hard to justify IMO.   And I do know that at least one serious bidder missed the auction. 

With video game original artwork, what would be the top 5 or 10 priced pieces that you've seen?

Perhaps I need to look into more video game art listings. I think that Castle of Illusion was the first original cover that I remember seeing for sale. We talked about it some time ago when Heritage didn't mention that it was used for the cover. That is one of my favorite Genesis games though. Perhaps I should have tried to win it a bit more considering the offers that people are making now.

[ShallowDan]

14 hours ago, Bronty said:

TBH its not a piece I would have thought twice about prior to the auction so while its a nice piece and known property it was also a short lived one-off as a gaming property.   

In terms of getting a decent price on the market, I think it was the right venue, and a piece from the right date... 1983... a date where someone on heritage with money who doesn't normally collect game art could come along and buy it just on the basis they thought it was cool.   The crowd for the slightly later stuff where most of the interest and activity is wouldn't have been as interested in this piece and the crossover folks from that time frame are 10 years younger and 10 years less flush as a result. 

 

With regards to the bolded, do you mind elaborating on the type stuff you're referring to?  I'm curious if you're talking about mid-late 80s western PC games or Japanese NES/SNES era stuff.

And changing the subject slightly, delekkerste's comment about market supply has me wondering about something you might have some knowledge of: is there an over-sized percentage of the desirable/high-profile/recognizable gaming art held by a few key individuals, or is it spread around fairly well?  I've always had a gut-feeling that most everything was scooped up long ago and have always imagined it being held by a small handful of collectors, but that's admittedly based on nothing at all..  

 

[cstojano]

15 minutes ago, ShallowDan said:

With regards to the bolded, do you mind elaborating on the type stuff you're referring to?  I'm curious if you're talking about mid-late 80s western PC games or Japanese NES/SNES era stuff.

And changing the subject slightly, delekkerste's comment about market supply has me wondering about something you might have some knowledge of: is there an over-sized percentage of the desirable/high-profile/recognizable gaming art held by a few key individuals, or is it spread around fairly well?  I've always had a gut-feeling that most everything was scooped up long ago and have always imagined it being held by a small handful of collectors, but that's admittedly based on nothing at all..  

 

Bronty will know better than I, but my sense is that "a long time ago" wasn't that long ago with video game art.

I also wonder if a non quantitative metric of "the boat hasn't sailed yet" is being able to buy originals from the artists themselves. 

Edited July 7, 2020 by cstojano

[ShallowDan]

2 minutes ago, cstojano said:

Bronty will know better than I, but my sense is that "a long time ago" wasn't that long ago with video game art.

I also wonder if a non quantitative metric of "the boat hasn't sailed yet" is being able to buy originals from the artists themselves. 

Yeah, that definitely could've been more accurately said as years ago, but regardless I've always had an impression it was a gold rush situation where a few key collectors pretty much took an "I'll take it all" approach when buying stuff up from the artists, but as I said that's based on nothing in the way of direct knowledge.

[Bronty]

Mostly with a few collectors is accurate .   But the majority is corporately owned and/or destroyed.   Particularly the Japanese stuff and early on a lot of western games recycled Japanese art.   It was until about 1988 that some began to be done in the US and really it wasn’t until 1990 that most all of it for the domestic market was domestically created.   
 

Nice exhibit of a few corporate originals here .   There have been others including Amano’s Square material, Ohrai’s Koei material, and others.   https://www.siliconera.com/a-tour-through-square-enixs-chrono-trigger-museum/

Edited July 7, 2020 by Bronty

[Bronty]

6 hours ago, cstojano said:

Bronty will know better than I, but my sense is that "a long time ago" wasn't that long ago with video game art.

It wasn’t yesterday.   10 years plus minus

[Bronty]

6 hours ago, ShallowDan said:

With regards to the bolded, do you mind elaborating on the type stuff you're referring to?  I'm curious if you're talking about mid-late 80s western PC games or Japanese NES/SNES era stuff.

 

More like western nes/snes/genesis etc... which is where the heat is on games themselves 

[Bronty]

9 hours ago, GeneticNinja said:

With video game original artwork, what would be the top 5 or 10 priced pieces that you've seen?

Perhaps I need to look into more video game art listings. I think that Castle of Illusion was the first original cover that I remember seeing for sale. We talked about it some time ago when Heritage didn't mention that it was used for the cover. That is one of my favorite Genesis games though. Perhaps I should have tried to win it a bit more considering the offers that people are making now.

350 is the most any one piece has sold for.   

Edited July 7, 2020 by Bronty