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Started by exitmusicblue,

245 posts in this topic

cstojano

cstojano

Posted
Posted
On 12/1/2022 at 12:17 PM, comix4fun said:

True, it's the extreme cases where people keep throwing out numbers like the Caldwell and the Byrne. The guy is his own underbidder, bidding against himself. On the Caldwell, if I were the owner and had any inkling of not keeping it forever, I'd probably reconsider. At auction the mechanics won't work without someone equally rabid for the piece involved. 

Everyone I have spoken to who has sold TSR art in the last ten years has regretted it. You will never be able to replace this. 

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comix4fun

comix4fun

Posted
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On 12/1/2022 at 8:17 PM, cstojano said:

Everyone I have spoken to who has sold TSR art in the last ten years has regretted it. You will never be able to replace this. 

I would totally 100% agree on TSR artwork, especially pre-85 TSR artwork. 

 

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Bronty

Bronty

Posted
Posted
On 12/1/2022 at 9:17 PM, cstojano said:

Everyone I have spoken to who has sold TSR art in the last ten years has regretted it. You will never be able to replace this. 

Ehh.   They only regret it because they wish they had it back to sell again at a higher price.

They sold it for a reason at the time.

I sold a caldwell 10 or 12 years ago but I'm glad I did... great money at the time.    Not a good deal now, but it let me buy other things at 2010 prices.

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Pete Marino

Pete Marino

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Posted
On 12/2/2022 at 2:48 PM, Bronty said:

Ehh.   They only regret it because they wish they had it back to sell again at a higher price.

They sold it for a reason at the time.

I sold a caldwell 10 or 12 years ago but I'm glad I did... great money at the time.    Not a good deal now, but it let me buy other things at 2010 prices.

I think as a collector (of anything) this is really good perspective that I think everyone should have.  Regrets, we all have a few, but most of them let us get other things that we cherish today as well.

I think too many people forget they sold x that's worth 25 times more today, but it was to help them get that page in their collection that they love.

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vodou

vodou

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Posted
On 12/9/2022 at 11:01 AM, Pete Marino said:

I think too many people forget they sold x that's worth 25 times more today, but it was to help them get that page in their collection that they love.

About 20 years ago I realized that I was making the mistake of selling good art to buy other good art. That sounds fine but it wasn’t. I was sort of treading water but in actuality I was slowly losing ground, as better eyes than mine, at the time were “picking” me very specifically when they bought from me, lowering the average quality of my collection, while what I was using the funds to bring in wasn’t quite the same as what was going out. This will happen in the beginning of a bull market. I sort of figured that out and: just stopped selling, knowing I’d rather have two pieces and a lot less cash in that kind of situation over selling one to buying another.

Selling to buy here or there with maybe 10% slippage isn’t a big deal but it sure is when magnified by hundreds of transactions a year, across a 30 year collecting career. That very quickly becomes a huge unrecoverable from type mistake.

Stopping cold turkey worked out very well, it forced me to raise capital in ways other than cannibalizing my own collection, ending up 20 years later with much, much more art than I can handle and being impossibly happy too. No regrets, except that I didn’t stop selling even sooner!

This may come off as braggy but it’s not intended to; hopefully it will be instructive instead.

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cstojano

cstojano

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Curious if anyone picked up the Easley Gamma World just now. I was underbidder on it, I think. Never played Gamma World, not a huge fan of the cover given its non-fantasy focus but <5k for a vintage TSR Easley module cover seems quite fair. 

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Bronty

Bronty

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Posted
On 1/19/2023 at 1:39 PM, cstojano said:

Curious if anyone picked up the Easley Gamma World just now. I was underbidder on it, I think. Never played Gamma World, not a huge fan of the cover given its non-fantasy focus but <5k for a vintage TSR Easley module cover seems quite fair. 

link?   sounds cheap

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comix4fun

comix4fun

Posted
Posted
On 1/19/2023 at 1:30 PM, cstojano said:

4750 hammer. Like I said T-Rex and robots are not prime Easley art but still...

 

https://www.weissauctions.com/Online-Catalogs.aspx#/sales/102234/lots/20667388

I know I've been desperate and tempted by the old school TSR original artists on pieces that were later or a difference genre, just for their names. 

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gumbydarnit

gumbydarnit

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 12/9/2022 at 1:02 PM, vodou said:

Stopping cold turkey worked out very well, it forced me to raise capital in ways other than cannibalizing my own collection, ending up 20 years later with much, much more art than I can handle and being impossibly happy too. No regrets, except that I didn’t stop selling even sooner!

Good tip.
 

One thing that was a bit difficult to learn for me was - it is ok to gracefully exit long negotiations when you get the feeling your enthusiasm for piece in a deal is started to be taken advantage of a bit too much. When asked for “Just a little more” yet again that was my cue to gracefully part ways from a deal. I had a feeling that I had already given too much and I could have regrets if my previous offer was accepted. 

I was happy to give the other guy the better end of the deal. Especially, since I initiated the trade talks. Don’t let the fact you had invested so much time in negotiations cloud your judgement.  


Deal or no deal, always be pleasant during the course of trade talks, because for most of us, it is a hobby. 
 

End of thread drift…

D&D Art by Bill Willingham was insanely interesting to me… why didn’t someone have him draw a D&D comic?!? 

Edited by gumbydarnit
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comix4fun

comix4fun

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On 1/21/2023 at 10:09 AM, gumbydarnit said:


 

End of thread drift…

D&D Art by Bill Willingham was insanely interesting to me… why didn’t someone have him draw a D&D comic?!? 

I actually really overpaid ( I think ) at auction for an 11x17 commission piece he completed in the 90's simply because I love his D&D work and this is the closest I've ever come to finding him working in this subject matter that reminded me even a little of those glorious early years.  I have to find a scan of it.....even the art folders on my hard drive are in disarray. 

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cstojano

cstojano

Posted
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On 1/23/2023 at 9:52 PM, comix4fun said:

I actually really overpaid ( I think ) at auction for an 11x17 commission piece he completed in the 90's simply because I love his D&D work and this is the closest I've ever come to finding him working in this subject matter that reminded me even a little of those glorious early years.  I have to find a scan of it.....even the art folders on my hard drive are in disarray. 

I hear you, his interiors were penetrating in those old DnD books.

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tth2

tth2

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It wasn't just that the Willingham drawings were good (which they were), but how poor a lot of the other art in the books was (I'm referring to the 1st ed. books).  Even in high school, I was struck by how mediocre to poor the art was, although I thought the cover to the Player's Handbook wasn't bad. 

I seem to recall the Fiend Folio being the first book from the 1st editions that had consistently decent art.

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comix4fun

comix4fun

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On 1/25/2023 at 10:10 AM, tth2 said:

It wasn't just that the Willingham drawings were good (which they were), but how poor a lot of the other art in the books was (I'm referring to the 1st ed. books).  Even in high school, I was struck by how mediocre to poor the art was, although I thought the cover to the Player's Handbook wasn't bad. 

I seem to recall the Fiend Folio being the first book from the 1st editions that had consistently decent art.

True. '83 was the dividing line, but Fiend Folio was a step up in art. That was likely due to the fact it was compiled from issues of White Dwarf as submissions of new monsters and they could be a little more choosy. 

Also that was 1981. D&D was rolling by then. The comparison between their first HC cover art, Monster Manual and everything that came after was really noticeable. 
For me all of that '75-'82 artwork has so much more charm of a place in my heart than the '83 and after (Red Box as the dividing line) when D&D had become a machine printing cash and got "respectable" with all the higher end fantasy artists coming on line. 

For my nostalgia-driven-dollars....I'll take Trampier, Otus, Easley, Willingham, Roslof and Dee all day long. 

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