To all the folks complaining about the increase in OA prices this past year... 1 1

[filmboyuk]

I've entirely funded the purchase of several modern covers by selling high-ratio variants of those books once they got hot, which still feels a bit crazy. Currently taking advantage of the over-heated comic marketplace to sell a bunch of less key books from my collection, and so far this year (fingers crossed) the prices realised at auction keep surprising me (in a good way). Hard to imagine that there isn't some kind of a correction coming at some point, so moving into high value keys and original art is the plan - although I don't think the money surging into the comic market will continue on into the original art market, I'm just happy to be adding to my OA collection while I can.

[aokartman]

29 minutes ago, JadeGiant said:

This is interesting. I haven't followed comics much but it sounds like the tried and true logic that selling comics to fund art is always better from an appreciation perspective going forward has been flipped on its head? I haven't taken the (comics to art) conversion/leap myself but have considered many times over the years. Looks like I need to do a little homework first. Following. 

Sherlock by Herholz.

Dice by Schiavo.  Click to embiggen.  David

Edited May 26, 2021 by aokartman
text added

[jjonahjameson11]

I say this tongue-in-cheek...it's not them, its us.  OA collectors are slow on the uptick (with a few exceptions) and we have ourselves to blame.

Comic guys are after 1st appearances and keys, and they pounce as soon as there's even a rumor about a character being optioned for a TV show or movie. 

How do OA collectors react?  Well, they react very, very slowly by comparison and perhaps in a year or two the OA guys will start to collectively move on the characters' 1st appearance or OA containing subsequent appearances by that character.

I don't want to generalize, but this seems to be the well-established pattern of OA collectors over the 20 years I've collected OA.

[cloud cloddie]

32 minutes ago, jjonahjameson11 said:

I say this tongue-in-cheek...it's not them, its us.  OA collectors are slow on the uptick (with a few exceptions) and we have ourselves to blame.

Comic guys are after 1st appearances and keys, and they pounce as soon as there's even a rumor about a character being optioned for a TV show or movie. 

How do OA collectors react?  Well, they react very, very slowly by comparison and perhaps in a year or two the OA guys will start to collectively move on the characters' 1st appearance or OA containing subsequent appearances by that character.

I don't want to generalize, but this seems to be the well-established pattern of OA collectors over the 20 years I've collected OA.

I would argue that’s more of an effect of inventory over desire. In comics, it’s not too hard to find a first appearance book. For OA, I’m sure they’re plenty of people looking for those first appearance pages. It probably takes a year or two for something to surface, if you’re that lucky even. 

[zhamlau]

What makes me feel uneasy about these price increases is that it feels artificial or at least not very well thought out. For example I collect 35 cent price variants. They are actually rare when compared to normal print runs (lot of speculation as to how rare, lets just say i only find really them on eBay and hardly ever at shows after 30 years of looking).

Yet they haven't experienced much of a price increase over the last few years where as modern variants, printed in similar numbers and all 100 percent accounted for, have shot through the roof.

These are books from an era with strong collector interest, condition issues, and have managed to inspire many movies and TV shows....yet the prices on the hardest to find collectables from the era are stagnant to slightly elevating.

That's an issue to me, it tells me there is something not smart about these price increases. It helps me out to keep prices low since I'm not really a seller of variants just a hoarder...BUT it also makes little sense if I am to believe the overall market is full of well informed collectors/investors with realistic expectations and solid reasoning behind what they are willing to bid in auction for this material. Something doesn't add up (in general with a lot of the market reactions we are seeing in collectables and in specific with price variants).

[jjonahjameson11]

24 minutes ago, zhamlau said:

What makes me feel uneasy about these price increases is that it feels artificial or at least not very well thought out. For example I collect 35 cent price variants. They are actually rare when compared to normal print runs (lot of speculation as to how rare, lets just say i only find really them on eBay and hardly ever at shows after 30 years of looking).

Yet they haven't experienced much of a price increase over the last few years where as modern variants, printed in similar numbers and all 100 percent accounted for, have shot through the roof.

These are books from an era with strong collector interest, condition issues, and have managed to inspire many movies and TV shows....yet the prices on the hardest to find collectables from the era are stagnant to slightly elevating.

That's an issue to me, it tells me there is something not smart about these price increases. It helps me out to keep prices low since I'm not really a seller of variants just a hoarder...BUT it also makes little sense if I am to believe the overall market is full of well informed collectors/investors with realistic expectations and solid reasoning behind what they are willing to bid in auction for this material. Something doesn't add up (in general with a lot of the market reactions we are seeing in collectables and in specific with price variants).

The 35 cent price variants were the bees knees not too long ago, but collectors have shifted their focus instead to Newsstand comics from the mid 80s-mid 90's, give or take a year or two.

Good examples of the ever-growing price discrepancy between direct vs newsstand copies include ASM 194, 210, 238, 252, 298, 299, 300 (huge price differentials), 361, 365, and ann 16.  Hulk 340, Spawn 1, Thor 337, xmen 129, and many other examples illustrate this more recent development of collecting focus.

I won't even start on Canadian Price Variants since those are a separate discussion.

[Math Teacher]

Here's how I like to think about my original art. Amazing Fantasy #15 CGC 2.5 is one of the crown jewels of my collection, but there are plenty of other people that also have the same issue. However, I am the only person on Earth who owns this Joe Jusko painting.

    

[jjonahjameson11]

10 minutes ago, Math Teacher said:

Here's how I like to think about my original art. Amazing Fantasy #15 CGC 2.5 is one of the crown jewels of my collection, but there are plenty of other people that also have the same issue. However, I am the only person on Earth who owns this Joe Jusko painting.

    

Its a great Jusko tirbute to Ditko, and you are absolutely the only person in the world who owns it, but (and you knew it was coming) more collectors would rather have the AF15.  Sad, but true.  

[Sharkey]

1 hour ago, jjonahjameson11 said:

The 35 cent price variants were the bees knees not too long ago, but collectors have shifted their focus instead to Newsstand comics from the mid 80s-mid 90's, give or take a year or two.

Good examples of the ever-growing price discrepancy between direct vs newsstand copies include ASM 194, 210, 238, 252, 298, 299, 300 (huge price differentials), 361, 365, and ann 16.  Hulk 340, Spawn 1, Thor 337, xmen 129, and many other examples illustrate this more recent development of collecting focus.

I won't even start on Canadian Price Variants since those are a separate discussion.

Yes, an ASM 300 CGC 9.8 newsstand with Todd McFarlane sig sold for $25K on Comiclink last night!!! Crazy. And a regular 9.8 sold for like $7,000 and change. Hard to see in any version of the multiverse how a Todd signature and newsstand could make an $17-18K difference in hammer price.... 

[Math Teacher]

29 minutes ago, jjonahjameson11 said:

Its a great Jusko tirbute to Ditko, and you are absolutely the only person in the world who owns it, but (and you knew it was coming) more collectors would rather have the AF15.  Sad, but true.  

That is true, but how many people actually know about this painting? For a long time, it was only Joe Jusko and me.

[jjonahjameson11]

5 minutes ago, Sharkey said:

Yes, an ASM 300 CGC 9.8 newsstand with Todd McFarlane sig sold for $25K on Comiclink last night!!! Crazy. And a regular 9.8 sold for like $7,000 and change. Hard to see in any version of the multiverse how a Todd signature and newsstand could make an $17-18K difference in hammer price.... 

Tell me about it...I bid $20K on it, and if you take a look at the scan of the back cover that CLINK provided, you will see a small corner crease at the top left.  Definitely not a 'true' 9.8

ASM 300 is the most submitted/graded book in CGC's history.  There's a lot of direct 9.8's, but I've only seen a handful newsstand 9.8's sell, and this is a book I've been following for years. The value of Todd's signature added maybe $500 - $750 to the final sale price.  The craziness was mostly attributed to the scarcity of the newsstand version in this grade

[Grant Turner]

5 hours ago, rlextherobot said:

I remember joking to a friend that you could buy a page of art from a key book cheaper than CGC 9.8 copy of the same book, which while still an exaggeration is less of one than it was a year ago. 

I bought an Avengers 9 page for less than half the 9.4 price and an X-men 2 page for less than half the 9.6 price in the last year and 1/2...

these prices are insane 

[exitmusicblue]

4 hours ago, jjonahjameson11 said:

Tell me about it...I bid $20K on it, and if you take a look at the scan of the back cover that CLINK provided, you will see a small corner crease at the top left.  Definitely not a 'true' 9.8

ASM 300 is the most submitted/graded book in CGC's history.  There's a lot of direct 9.8's, but I've only seen a handful newsstand 9.8's sell, and this is a book I've been following for years. The value of Todd's signature added maybe $500 - $750 to the final sale price.  The craziness was mostly attributed to the scarcity of the newsstand version in this grade

Fascinating, as the owner of a slabbed Venom 1 Error newsstand... one of roughly 2-3 known to exist.  }:-)

[PhilipB2k17]

8 hours ago, zhamlau said:

What makes me feel uneasy about these price increases is that it feels artificial or at least not very well thought out. For example I collect 35 cent price variants. They are actually rare when compared to normal print runs (lot of speculation as to how rare, lets just say i only find really them on eBay and hardly ever at shows after 30 years of looking).

Yet they haven't experienced much of a price increase over the last few years where as modern variants, printed in similar numbers and all 100 percent accounted for, have shot through the roof.

These are books from an era with strong collector interest, condition issues, and have managed to inspire many movies and TV shows....yet the prices on the hardest to find collectables from the era are stagnant to slightly elevating.

That's an issue to me, it tells me there is something not smart about these price increases. It helps me out to keep prices low since I'm not really a seller of variants just a hoarder...BUT it also makes little sense if I am to believe the overall market is full of well informed collectors/investors with realistic expectations and solid reasoning behind what they are willing to bid in auction for this material. Something doesn't add up (in general with a lot of the market reactions we are seeing in collectables and in specific with price variants).

Respectfully, modern low print run variants have unique or cool covers different from the A cover. 35 cent variants are exactly the same…except the price tag. I never got the interest in those books, frankly. 

[PhilipB2k17]

Slabbed comic books are now commodities. 

[zhamlau]

3 hours ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

Respectfully, modern low print run variants have unique or cool covers different from the A cover. 35 cent variants are exactly the same…except the price tag. I never got the interest in those books, frankly. 

True, but at the same time these 35 variants have print runs in the low hundreds, and many got destroyed. Its like a Mark Jewelers variant only its actually rare. People are paying for the rarity of the book, its like card collecting mentality where everyone knows the gold is /10 so people pay stupid prices just based on known tiny print run. They aren't paying that huge price premium because the cover is just so awesome, its the rarity driving value.

 

It feels like uninformed people putting money where "expert-in-the-box" tells them to, that ends badly for all parties eventually because there is nothing permanent in that.

[underw0rld]

No conventions for artists to make their bread and butter. Artists have to make up for the loss of convention sales somehow.

[sfilosa]

11 hours ago, szav said:

will find their way to OA eventually.

Not sure. People who are speculating in comic books, will speculating in something else, but more likely something they feel they can gauge value more than OA. Collecting OA is not a commodity. There are great artist, who have great art, that just isn't available that often (at least in the open market). Comic books, cards, coins, etc. are increasingly available. And that's what is attractive to speculators.

[sfilosa]

46 minutes ago, szav said:

Totally.  I did attempt qualify if what we’re seeing is comics is not 100% speculative ... then I still think a degree of this will flow on over.  
 

Even if the speculators themselves dont come on over, collectors  like me who just cashed on comic out partially and reaped the windfall will move more into OA I think.  I think what’s going on in comics is good for OA long term .... if you like higher OA prices anyway.

That we agree on.

Prices don't necessarily have to go higher overall as supply is increasing everyday (new art produced). Of course, highly sought after artist, characters, story lines, etc. will likely increase and exponentially compared to lesser art.

Quick comic examples. Picked two issues that aren't keys (but very early in the title), high-grade copies, but nothing to make someone who isn't putting together a run to jump out and buy.

Avengers #2 in CGC 9.0  Heritage Auction - May 2008 $1,553      March 2020 $1,980

X-Men #3 in CGC 9.2 Heritage Auction -  September 2009 $2,270       May 2020   $2,640

These are really minimal increases for books that from a rarity standpoint are just as rare as the key issues right around the same time frame. The highly sought out key issues have skyrocketed, but probably 95% of all books have had minimal increases. I think art is somewhat the same thing (but that is not the sales we talk about).

   

 

 

 

 

[vodou]

14 hours ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

Slabbed comic books are now commodities. 

Always were. Same as trading futures contacts on COMEX.