Buying OA on Auction sites vs dealers, ebay or CAF 2 2

[Grendel72]

I rem buying decent pieces on ebay or even making deals on CAF. Ebay dried up for me eons ago. Now I almost always buy OA exclusively in auctions. Hate paying the commission fees but there is a level of assurance you get with auction sites. Is it the same with the rest ? I'm still a fan of trading art but it's just gotten  far more difficult to do. Maybe I'm just getting old. 

[gumbydarnit]

With the current state of the hobby, I find many of the old guard collectors winding down and they let the young enthusiastic pups fight it out at these price levels. Then there is the difficulty in trading, because who knows where values are?!? Finding two collectors that agree on valuations is becoming more and more difficult and as soon as you trade there is a new movie/tv show announced staring a character that you just traded. Feels like the hobby's landscape is constantly shifting and people don't want to be on the wrong side of the shift  (i.e. 90's art was ho hum... now it's gold.)

Yeah its a bit of a drag, but we are seeing more new pieces surface and at least they are fun to look at.

"Learn to be happy with what you have" seems to be the new mantra of the hobby. 

Edited February 4, 2022 by gumbydarnit

[Rick2you2]

I buy most things, like you these days, from auction sites, but also, private artists. I find most of the stuff on eBay are things I don’t want, and the prices from dealers are too much. Artists, however, tend to price fairly, sometimes low, and I like a lot of the newer work. I also think there is a bunch of material out there held by older collectors who are probably going to start, or continue, to sell off, and they will mostly land with an auction house.

[The Voord]

I think that collectors nowadays prefer the buzz generated by competing for pieces offered in auction.  Dealers inventory can be jaw-droppingly over-priced (fresh-to-market will generate interest while older stock sits there indefinitely).  I used to sell a lot of comic art privately over the years but find nowadays that would-be-buyers are probably saving their pennies for whatever's turning up in auction.  Private sales, for me, lie mostly in movie poster paintings.  I run a successful movie art FB group that's corralled-together collectors, some with deep pockets, so have created a marketplace.

[Terry E. Gibbs]

Several times I have found artist's agents for content I chase and when I see it, even if in just "solicitations", I have contacted them and bought the cover before the book hits the stands. Then found some agents who started to offer me art before the book had even reached solicitations stage. Prices never cheap, but always was going to be more expensive later, or after the book went on sale. Anything over a few years old, is either through a dealer if priced right, or at auction. Important if buying from a dealer to know your "interest". Sometimes a dealer may not.