Congrats 4 4

[Rick2you2]

On 1/27/2022 at 1:41 AM, thethedew said:

I concede that bit above is snipped from the overall post (which is never completely fair), but in or out of context it still pretty much says the same thing. 

Are Dealers unhappy with the Hobby's willingness (or lack thereof) to go along with current pricing? 

Despite some grumbling, I was under the impression that buyers were still being found with little difficulty. 

A contraction in the hobby (while a consummation devoutly to be wished) is clearly NOT imminent.

A fool and his money are soon parted.

[gumbydarnit]

A great man once said...

Edited January 27, 2022 by gumbydarnit

[kbmcvay]

On 1/26/2022 at 11:52 AM, aqn83 said:

It really makes zero sense to me. He's had that Batman 98 cover by Finch for a LONG time priced at 17k IIRC and it wouldn't move.

 

This doesn't make sense to me either. Most of these dealers will sit on a piece for years and not lower the price ever (even behind closed doors and off the record). If you've had a page for 3+ years and it never sells it's because it is priced too high and not because buyers' pockets aren't deep enough. There are a some dealers out there that want to make deals, move product and make some profit on the stuff and others that are basically smarmy used car salesmen. I'm not naming names but I think people that have bought/inquired about art from enough dealers know which are which. Note: I'm actually excluding the Donnellys as "dealers" because I don't think they are dealers in a real sense, but collectors that will sell stuff at very high prices if somebody is willing to pay them.

Edited January 27, 2022 by kbmcvay

[artdealer]

On 1/26/2022 at 6:46 PM, jjonahjameson11 said:

I nominate this for the dumbest post of the year.

I’ll second that.

[Twanj]

On 1/27/2022 at 8:46 AM, kbmcvay said:

This doesn't make sense to me either.

I think it's been discussed but...

Some people bought crypto at a time where this would only be a couple hundred $. If they're art fans, it's pretty convenient.

[aqn83]

On 1/27/2022 at 7:46 AM, kbmcvay said:

This doesn't make sense to me either. Most of these dealers will sit on a piece for years and not lower the price ever (even behind closed doors and off the record). If you've had a page for 3+ years and it never sells it's because it is priced too high and not because buyers' pockets aren't deep enough. There are a some dealers out there that want to make deals, move product and make some profit on the stuff and others that are basically smarmy used car salesmen. I'm not naming names but I think people that have bought/inquired about art from enough dealers know which are which. Note: I'm actually excluding the Donnellys as "dealers" because I don't think they are dealers in a real sense, but collectors that will sell stuff at very high prices if somebody is willing to pay them.

Something similar happened Paolo and Cadence. He had a large amount of art by Rafael Albuquerque, maybe a cover here and there I had my eye on if the price was right. These covers sat for a couple of years, and then all of a sudden all of Rafael's prices get raised by about 25%. 

Maybe it was a directive from Rafael himself. I just don't see why you'd raise the price on something stale.

[aqn83]

On 1/27/2022 at 9:24 AM, Twanj said:

I think it's been discussed but...

Some people bought crypto at a time where this would only be a couple hundred $. If they're art fans, it's pretty convenient.

There is still some type of equivalence between how much crypto you have and what it's currently worth.

I was lucky enough to buy into crypto and had more than enough to cash out a portion of it to buy that cover (had I wanted it). It would have cost me about 3.5 ETH a few months ago (equivalent of $17k, the old asking). But now it was listed for 10 ETH and it is on hold? Still, makes no sense.

[Twanj]

On 1/27/2022 at 10:33 AM, aqn83 said:

There is still some type of equivalence between how much crypto you have and what it's currently worth.

I was lucky enough to buy into crypto and had more than enough to cash out a portion of it to buy that cover (had I wanted it). It would have cost me about 3.5 ETH a few months ago (equivalent of $17k, the old asking). But now it was listed for 10 ETH and it is on hold? Still, makes no sense.

You're comparing something at an all time high to a current price. I'm just saying compare it to an earlier price. It's higher cash value at around $25k right now, but if they're only in it for a few hundred (and I assume not going to pay taxes), why not?

But if it's not that, then I really don't get it either!

[aqn83]

On 1/27/2022 at 9:43 AM, Twanj said:

You're comparing something at an all time high to a current price. I'm just saying compare it to an earlier price. It's higher cash value at around $25k right now, but if they're only in it for a few hundred (and I assume not going to pay taxes), why not?

But if it's not that, then I really don't get it either!

Well, even at the low point right now, it still would have been less expensive to cash out what they needed to buy it at the original 17k asking price.

[vodou]

On 1/27/2022 at 10:33 AM, aqn83 said:

But now it was listed for 10 ETH and it is on hold?

Who knows? Really and truly. That's a broad statement on the entire hobby from dealers to auction houses, not specifically Glen, there is just so much recycling. These are unique items, most of these games can be easily sniffed out and even if not...eventually unravel on their own. The new or otherwise naïve collector with an open wallet...should learn how to be careful, or find a mentor that will assist with this.

I've always posited that the big daddy Fine Art world tells us everything we need to know about (and be wary of) in our Mini Me corner of the art (and comics) world.

 

Art World

Turns Out the Diamond Skull That Damien Hirst and White Cube Said They Sold for $100 Million in 2007 Still Belongs to Them

The work appears to have been inside a storage facility in London for 15 years.

Artnet News, January 26, 2022

Damien Hirst's For the Love of God, which the artist claimed to have sold for $100 million to a group of investors in 2007. He recently admitted that the piece was never sold.

Damien Hirst, who in 2007 claimed to have sold a diamond-studded skull for £50 million ($100 million) to a group of anonymous investors, has officially admitted that the deal never actually happened.

In a profile published in the New York Times on the occasion of his first New York show in four years, Hirst said the work, titled For the Love of God and allegedly made from more than 8,600 diamonds, was sitting in a storage facility in Hatton Garden, London’s jewelry district.

According to Hirst, he still owns the bauble in partnership with his gallery, White Cube, and a group of unnamed investors.

 

The splashy sale, which White Cube announced in August 2007, was covered by reputable news sources at the time as a done deal.

But considering the hype behind the skull, and the fact that the gallery offered no concrete evidence about the sale, there was always doubt as to whether it had actually traded hands.

Inconsistencies in Hirst’s story didn’t help. When the work was revealed in 2006, he claimed to have financed the full £8 million ($16 million) to create the skull himself. But when it finally went on view at White Cube, he said the real figure was £15 million ($30 million).

When White Cube announced the sale, Cristina Ruiz, then editor of the Art Newspaper, wondered why the news was being revealed just after she had reported that Hirst and the gallery had tried to offload the work at a severely discounted price of £38 million ($76 million).

“On the day we said they were negotiating a discount for buyers, suddenly, miraculously, it has been sold for £50 million, cash,” she told London’s Evening Standard at the time. “How likely is that? Cash is convenient because there is no paper trail.”

Others, including professional jewelers, wondered how the work could possibly have cost £15 million to make.

“I would estimate the true worth of the skull as somewhere between £7 million and £10 million,” Harry Levy, then the vice-chairman of the London Diamond Bourse & Club, told the Evening Standard.

Along with the sale announcement, White Cube said that Hirst would keep a “share” of the work “in order that he can oversee a global tour of the work that is currently being planned.”

That share, it seems, is just a bit bigger than implied.

Back in 2007, Hirst’s market was exploding. The same year he said he sold For the Love of God, his work made a total of $86.3 million at auction, according to the Artnet Price Database. The following year, he notoriously sold his work directly through Sotheby’s for a whopping $201 million. But his auction sales never approached those heights again. (Last year, his work generated $38 million, a 13-year high.)

More than anything, Hirst’s admission pulls back the curtain on an industry in which hype often appears to be plain fact.

In the recent Hirst New York Times profile, the newspaper took at face value the artist’s claim that he sold around 80 new works for between $750,000 and $3.5 million each.

“We could have sold many, many more,” Larry Gagosian told the Times. “People were literally begging to buy these paintings.”

 

Neither White Cube, nor Science Ltd., Hirst’s production company, responded to requests for comment.

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/damien-hirst-skull-storage-2064567?utm_content=from_&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=US News Morning 1/27/22&utm_term=US Daily Newsletter [MORNING]

[kbmcvay]

On 1/27/2022 at 10:24 AM, Twanj said:

I think it's been discussed but...

Some people bought crypto at a time where this would only be a couple hundred $. If they're art fans, it's pretty convenient.

I understand the crypto part that it could theoretically be had by somebody with crypto who bought in early at a cheaper price than the cash price. I was commenting on pieces sitting on dealer sites for years and either them keeping the price the same or raising it factoring in what Glen said about how his clientele needed "deeper pockets" to afford his stuff. 

[Rick2you2]

On 1/27/2022 at 8:46 AM, kbmcvay said:

This doesn't make sense to me either. Most of these dealers will sit on a piece for years and not lower the price ever (even behind closed doors and off the record). If you've had a page for 3+ years and it never sells it's because it is priced too high and not because buyers' pockets aren't deep enough. There are a some dealers out there that want to make deals, move product and make some profit on the stuff and others that are basically smarmy used car salesmen. I'm not naming names but I think people that have bought/inquired about art from enough dealers know which are which. Note: I'm actually excluding the Donnellys as "dealers" because I don't think they are dealers in a real sense, but collectors that will sell stuff at very high prices if somebody is willing to pay them.

I have wondered about that, and I came to the conclusion that some dealers are concerned they can’t get good product at a good price in the future to make an easy profit. Let’s say a dealer has a nice piece which cost him $50, and he decides to list it at $125. If he accepts, say $80 for it, he has made $30, but he then needs to find inventory which will earn him the “lost” $45. You may say, wait a minute, he never lost the $45. But, with the history of rising prices of art, he has good reason to think it will eventually sell for the $125, particularly as so much of this stuff is bought on impulse, or non-rational thought. And he doesn’t have to do anymore work to earn it. So, if he doesn’t need to sell it, let it ride. The fly in the ointment, however, is that aging will reduce demand for non-classic pieces, of which there are a lot, and the dealer will get stuck. Which is one reason why, if you get off the escalator and look for unpopular artists or works that you like, you can make deals and build up a nice collection—not a valuable one, but nice.

[batman_fan]

On 1/27/2022 at 8:55 AM, vodou said:

Who knows? Really and truly. That's a broad statement on the entire hobby from dealers to auction houses, not specifically Glen, there is just so much recycling. These are unique items, most of these games can be easily sniffed out and even if not...eventually unravel on their own. The new or otherwise naïve collector with an open wallet...should learn how to be careful, or find a mentor that will assist with this.

I've always posited that the big daddy Fine Art world tells us everything we need to know about (and be wary of) in our Mini Me corner of the art (and comics) world.

 

Art World

Turns Out the Diamond Skull That Damien Hirst and White Cube Said They Sold for $100 Million in 2007 Still Belongs to Them

The work appears to have been inside a storage facility in London for 15 years.

Artnet News, January 26, 2022

Damien Hirst's For the Love of God, which the artist claimed to have sold for $100 million to a group of investors in 2007. He recently admitted that the piece was never sold.

Damien Hirst, who in 2007 claimed to have sold a diamond-studded skull for £50 million ($100 million) to a group of anonymous investors, has officially admitted that the deal never actually happened.

In a profile published in the New York Times on the occasion of his first New York show in four years, Hirst said the work, titled For the Love of God and allegedly made from more than 8,600 diamonds, was sitting in a storage facility in Hatton Garden, London’s jewelry district.

According to Hirst, he still owns the bauble in partnership with his gallery, White Cube, and a group of unnamed investors.

 

The splashy sale, which White Cube announced in August 2007, was covered by reputable news sources at the time as a done deal.

But considering the hype behind the skull, and the fact that the gallery offered no concrete evidence about the sale, there was always doubt as to whether it had actually traded hands.

Inconsistencies in Hirst’s story didn’t help. When the work was revealed in 2006, he claimed to have financed the full £8 million ($16 million) to create the skull himself. But when it finally went on view at White Cube, he said the real figure was £15 million ($30 million).

When White Cube announced the sale, Cristina Ruiz, then editor of the Art Newspaper, wondered why the news was being revealed just after she had reported that Hirst and the gallery had tried to offload the work at a severely discounted price of £38 million ($76 million).

“On the day we said they were negotiating a discount for buyers, suddenly, miraculously, it has been sold for £50 million, cash,” she told London’s Evening Standard at the time. “How likely is that? Cash is convenient because there is no paper trail.”

Others, including professional jewelers, wondered how the work could possibly have cost £15 million to make.

“I would estimate the true worth of the skull as somewhere between £7 million and £10 million,” Harry Levy, then the vice-chairman of the London Diamond Bourse & Club, told the Evening Standard.

Along with the sale announcement, White Cube said that Hirst would keep a “share” of the work “in order that he can oversee a global tour of the work that is currently being planned.”

That share, it seems, is just a bit bigger than implied.

Back in 2007, Hirst’s market was exploding. The same year he said he sold For the Love of God, his work made a total of $86.3 million at auction, according to the Artnet Price Database. The following year, he notoriously sold his work directly through Sotheby’s for a whopping $201 million. But his auction sales never approached those heights again. (Last year, his work generated $38 million, a 13-year high.)

More than anything, Hirst’s admission pulls back the curtain on an industry in which hype often appears to be plain fact.

In the recent Hirst New York Times profile, the newspaper took at face value the artist’s claim that he sold around 80 new works for between $750,000 and $3.5 million each.

“We could have sold many, many more,” Larry Gagosian told the Times. “People were literally begging to buy these paintings.”

 

Neither White Cube, nor Science Ltd., Hirst’s production company, responded to requests for comment.

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/damien-hirst-skull-storage-2064567?utm_content=from_&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=US News Morning 1/27/22&utm_term=US Daily Newsletter [MORNING]

Boy am I glad that could never happen in our hobby 

[AnkurJ]

The title is inaccurate so it stops right there. There is no “customer service” in comic art.

[gumbydarnit]

Is it official? Are Crypto millionaire kids replacing the Russian oligarchs?

Are the Hollywood movie star collectors still a thing?

Who are todays deep pocketed guys… what is it now? its not investors, it’s investor groups… give me an 1/8 of that page please.

What is BSW’s contract going to look like when it involves an investor group reselling a his page to a larger investor group? Do they all have to pay BWS again? Does he take ripple coin… does he drink Ripple seems a bit low brow for BWS.

Do the investor groups have to be odd numbers so that there can be no deadlocked decision to sell a page?

Could someone email me 2022 Comic Art Collecting manual… I’m soooo lost!

Edited January 28, 2022 by gumbydarnit

[vodou]

On 1/27/2022 at 5:52 PM, gumbydarnit said:

Who are todays deep pocketed guys…

Eight figure fine art wants to know too 

Despite Drawing Measured Interest From Only Three Bidders, Sandro Botticelli’s ‘Man of Sorrows’ Sells for $45 Million

The work, long believed to be by assistants in the artist's studio, was reattributed to Botticelli in 2009.

Eileen Kinsella, January 27, 2022

https://news.artnet.com/market/botticelli-man-of-sorrows-sothebys-2064982?utm_content=from_&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=US PM 1%2F27&utm_term=US Daily Newsletter [AFTERNOON]

[Rick2you2]

On 1/27/2022 at 5:56 PM, vodou said:

Eight figure fine art wants to know too 

Despite Drawing Measured Interest From Only Three Bidders, Sandro Botticelli’s ‘Man of Sorrows’ Sells for $45 Million

The work, long believed to be by assistants in the artist's studio, was reattributed to Botticelli in 2009.

Eileen Kinsella, January 27, 2022

https://news.artnet.com/market/botticelli-man-of-sorrows-sothebys-2064982?utm_content=from_&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=US PM 1%2F27&utm_term=US Daily Newsletter [AFTERNOON]

It never fails to frighten me how the name of the artist triumphs over the quality of the art.

[Peter L]

On 1/26/2022 at 11:02 AM, glenbru said:

“Congrats Glen! You just won the prize for Stupidest Customer Service Move of 2022”

 

Race!  It feels like you have a personal axe to grind with me. Or you’re just an angry guy in general.

The 11 pieces I offered to crypto buyers have been on my site for over a month at a lower price. Anyone who wanted to buy them in dollars could have done so. I’m not depriving anyone. There are still 350 items on the site that anyone can buy in dollars.

Given the current state of the crypto market, I decided to take 11 pieces and offer them up to those crypto owners who might want to get out of their crypto. They are at a higher price since crypto is so volatile. It’s an experimental outreach. We’ll see how it goes.

If taking these pieces off the table are so upsetting to you — I will happily sell any one of them to you in dollars at last week’s price. Just let me know which one you want.

That offer holds for anyone else here as well who responds within a reasonable time frame.

Thanks!

Glen

I think any opportunity to think out of the box is a good thing.  

Why did you pick ETH rather than other crypto options?

[MAR1979]

Cypto the preferred, if not only accepted "currency's" of Drug Dealers, ARMS Dealers, Income Tax Avoid-ers, Fugitives, Human Traffickers, and Terrorists {These are facts folks easy enough to look up} .  Do we now add OCA dealers to that list?

 

 

Edited January 28, 2022 by MAR1979

[aqn83]

On 1/27/2022 at 8:18 PM, Peter L said:

I think any opportunity to think out of the box is a good thing.  

Why did you pick ETH rather than other crypto options?

What would he opt for? Doge coin? Polka dot? Shina inu?

Bitcoin has a ceiling, ETH has a better future and is much more accessible.