Heritage September 2022 comic and art auction 3 3

[delekkerste]

On 8/19/2022 at 11:46 AM, Heidjer Staecker said:

Only my opinion, and I collect because I love the stuff ... not because of opportunity.

Leaving aside price, comic art is not comic books, sports cards, beanie babies.  It is combination of words and art ... one moment in a story and one of a kind ... regardless of popularity or quality.  If you destroy a published piece, there will not be another.  If there are enough people that enjoy this (for whatever reason), the price will maintain.  Not that it is a perfect comparable, but Picasso was very prolific, creating an estimated 50,000 original artworks.  Prices have not gone down.  Now not everyone artist is a Picasso, but there is an appetite and market for his works and the prices maintain.  Unless people decide that there is no value in this as art, the prices will maintain and maybe continue to rise.

And yet prices of Picassos tanked between 1990 and 1996 along with the rest of the fine art market. 

A while ago, I saw a couple of old Sotheby's catalogs for sale at The Strand bookstore in NYC. One was from 1989. The other was from 1991. The previous owner had written the realized prices in the two catalogs. The 1989 catalog was full of numbers that were above estimates. The 1991 catalog was only partially filled with numbers because so many lots had passed (i.e., reserve not met). Of those that sold, only a tiny number had beaten the estimate. 

Seeing the greatest works of Western civilization plummet in price in the 1990s taught me that nothing is inherently immune to larger economic and market considerations. Some things may be more insulated, but, nothing is so inherently awesome that it can't lose money if valued too highly under a different market regime.  

[comix4fun]

On 8/19/2022 at 10:46 AM, Heidjer Staecker said:

Only my opinion, and I collect because I love the stuff ... not because of opportunity.

Leaving aside price, comic art is not comic books, sports cards, beanie babies.  It is combination of words and art ... one moment in a story and one of a kind ... regardless of popularity or quality.  If you destroy a published piece, there will not be another.  If there are enough people that enjoy this (for whatever reason), the price will maintain.  Not that it is a perfect comparable, but Picasso was very prolific, creating an estimated 50,000 original artworks.  Prices have not gone down.  Now not everyone artist is a Picasso, but there is an appetite and market for his works and the prices maintain.  Unless people decide that there is no value in this as art, the prices will maintain and maybe continue to rise.

I totally agree about collecting the art for the combination of story, nostalgia, artist, quality, etc. If ALL collectors shared that sort of in depth appreciation I think we'd remain more insulated as we have been in the past. 

The thing I've noticed that worries me a bit is collectors who are immune, unaware, or uncaring about the quality of the piece or (just for example) the artist AND inker team on a particular title or run of issues that elevates it above other issues or teams. In some cases it seems folks are throwing around giant sums of money without a thought (or inkling) of who the inker is on a page, much less why that's important. The quality of the piece, or where it fits in an artist's career, or if the artwork is actually any good (even relatively) at all, has taken a back seat to other concerns. That's worrisome. 

[Aahz]

On 8/19/2022 at 10:54 AM, delekkerste said:

And yet prices of Picassos tanked between 1990 and 1996 along with the rest of the fine art market. 

A while ago, I saw a couple of old Sotheby's catalogs for sale at The Strand bookstore in NYC. One was from 1989. The other was from 1991. The previous owner had written the realized prices in the two catalogs. The 1989 catalog was full of numbers that were above estimates. The 1991 catalog was only partially filled with numbers because so many lots had passed (i.e., reserve not met). Of those that sold, only a tiny number had beaten the estimate. 

Seeing the greatest works of Western civilization plummet in price in the 1990s taught me that nothing is inherently immune to larger economic and market considerations. Some things may be more insulated, but, nothing is so inherently awesome that it can't lose money if valued too highly under a different market regime.  

It's a fair point, and I agree that nothing is immune when you have a significant economic/political event.  However, that also indicates that people won't have the time/appetite for a hobby ... there are bigger issues. I'm not an economist (although I'm not sure that anyone seems to have a bead on what the hell is going on), but assuming that there is no precipitous drop that would cause people to re-evaluate how they are spending money, I'm not sure that you will see much price softness.  All that being said, I'm prefer finding material that I like that is under $1000 that I enjoy.  I can see that stuff just sticking there ... which is fine for me.  The 5 figure panel pages ... I think they would have to be something special.

[jjonahjameson11]

On 8/19/2022 at 11:54 AM, delekkerste said:

And yet prices of Picassos tanked between 1990 and 1996 along with the rest of the fine art market. 

A while ago, I saw a couple of old Sotheby's catalogs for sale at The Strand bookstore in NYC. One was from 1989. The other was from 1991. The previous owner had written the realized prices in the two catalogs. The 1989 catalog was full of numbers that were above estimates. The 1991 catalog was only partially filled with numbers because so many lots had passed (i.e., reserve not met). Of those that sold, only a tiny number had beaten the estimate. 

Seeing the greatest works of Western civilization plummet in price in the 1990s taught me that nothing is inherently immune to larger economic and market considerations. Some things may be more insulated, but, nothing is so inherently awesome that it can't lose money if valued too highly under a different market regime.  

But, but, but…1991 was a global recession, right?  So we would expect less lots to sell/decline in prices?  

[delekkerste]

On 8/19/2022 at 1:22 PM, jjonahjameson11 said:

But, but, but…1991 was a global recession, right?  So we would expect less lots to sell/decline in prices?  

Sure, but, in the Bizarro World of the OA hobby, as Felix quite rightly noted to Halperin on his latest podcast, the consensus is that things like global recessions and stock market crashes don't have much of an impact on the OA market. And there are some who are already spiking the football that OA has emerged unscathed from the recent economic and market weakness when it may be that we're still only in the very early innings of a more prolonged downturn. Not saying we definitely are, but, there is no shortage of pundits these days who are arguing that the recent rebound in markets has been a huge fake-out and that the Fed has already done enough to put the economy on a course for recession (and Europe is a total disaster right now).  

Edited August 19, 2022 by delekkerste

[Varanis]

On 8/19/2022 at 9:20 AM, jjonahjameson11 said:

Repeatedly.  Do it once per year for 10 years and you have a very nice collection.

$10k for a luxury purchase is a staggering amount of money of many people who are generally doing very well in life. While many of us on these forums may be able to make that sort of purchase repeatedly, I think it's important to put in perspective that such a thing is very much not the norm for 99% of people.

[jjonahjameson11]

On 8/19/2022 at 5:42 PM, Varanis said:

$10k for a luxury purchase is a staggering amount of money of many people who are generally doing very well in life. While many of us on these forums may be able to make that sort of purchase repeatedly, I think it's important to put in perspective that such a thing is very much not the norm for 99% of people.

Luxury purchase?

[Grant Turner]

On 8/18/2022 at 11:31 AM, Xatari said:

The sub $10k pieces did well last night at Heritage. Market is 💪 

The Sal Buscema market continues to be on fire!

[comix4fun]

On 8/19/2022 at 5:09 PM, jjonahjameson11 said:

Luxury purchase?

I took that to mean non-essential, non-utilitarian, non-basic living expense purchase. 

[tth2]

On 8/19/2022 at 10:44 PM, delekkerste said:

It's a total revisionist fantasy to say that the OA market wasn't impacted during the last downturn - it was, but, basically the market froze up and most were able to wait out what turned out to be a relatively brief downturn.

If there were no public sales at materially lower prices, then there is no objective data to support your thesis.  It is just speculation/theorizing on your part.

At least in the comics side, we had real objective data to point to in the form of Gary Keller books that he was forced to sell at around 50% below what he paid because of the implosion of the real estate market.

On 8/19/2022 at 10:44 PM, delekkerste said:

IF we're going to see the market rolling over, we'll see it happen across a series of steps. First, you'll see a slowdown in the rate of price escalation (second derivative inflection). Next, you'll see supply increasing but transaction volumes decreasing (as the auction block supply is managed, I'm talking about across the whole of the hobby - auctions, dealers, collector-to-collector). You'll then probably see what we saw in late 2008/early 2009 - supply shrinking, volumes shrinking, and the market freezing up as people try to wait out a downturn. But, unlike 2008/09, which was really a very brief dip (6 months between the fall of Lehman Bros until the beginning of the Great Reflation), a more prolonged downturn will cause more supply to come back out and valuations to reset.

This "crash" that you're theorizing is going to be so slo-mo that by the time it's time for prices to finally reset under your time frames, the economy and asset prices will have picked up again and the reasons for OA to crash will be gone.

In other words, we will never see any appreciable dip in public prices.  I concede that we might not see a lot of supply (although the ongoing Heritage auction would seem to belie that), but that won't translate into new pieces at bargain prices for my collection.

[tth2]

On 8/19/2022 at 11:11 PM, delekkerste said:

Serious question: without the sports card market paving the way to heretofore undreamed of levels of collectibles valuations by early 2021, do you think the OA market would have reached the levels it has? I don't (eventually, maybe, but, almost certainly not in the timeframe it has). Oh, sure, it would have caught a tailwind from the general pandemic wave higher, but, let's face it - what happened in sports cards paved the way for what happened in comics and OA over the past 16 months. Before the sports card market went parabolic/vertical, comics and OA were climbing at a strong, but steady rate, but, after the Goldin sale at the end of January 2021, well, comics and OA followed with their own hockey-stick like advances soon after to play catch-up.

Now that the sports card market has gone into reverse, it's not unfathomable to think that, just as comics/OA caught up to sports cards on the upside with a pronounced lag, maybe the same will happen on the downside in the fullness of time if the economic and market weakness we've seen in recent months continues. As Jim H. noted on the latest Felix Comic Art podcast, asset prices have rebounded strongly of late, but, it's starting to look like it was "buy the rumor of a Fed pivot and sell the fact" with markets reversing hard off of recent highs. He also noted in the podcast that it's basically settled science that crypto money has seeped into a lot of collectibles verticals - not necessarily used to make payments, but, the wealth effect has definitely had a strong linkage to the rise in collectibles prices. Well, now Bitcoin and Ethereum have reversed 15%+ from recent highs in the blink of an eye, while other popular tokens have shed 20-30%. 

Regardless of how things eventually pan out for the OA market, it does seem to be very premature at this time to be spiking the football and sounding the all-clear when the bigger macro picture is still looking very uncertain. 

Maybe comics and OA wouldn't have shot up so much without sports cards resetting the benchmarks for where assets could potentially appreciate to, but you still have to look at the source/quality of the funds that drove prices up. 

It appears clear now that the sports cards were purchased directly by Crypto Bros--the backward cap correlation between Crypto Bros and sports card buyers is extremely high.   

Were many comics and OA similarly purchased directly by Crypto Bros?  A 9.6 AF 15 or high grade mega-key like Action 1/Tec 27/Batman 1/Captain America 1, possibly.  But I'm still skeptical that some backward cap-wearing Bro would be interested in buying some mid-run book from some obscure Timely title that would be unknown and of no interest to anyone except a hardcore GA collector. 

It seems more likely that these items were purchased by "real" comic/OA collectors who were more willing to open up their wallets because of general euphoria from climbs in asset prices, including perhaps because of the price action they were seeing in sports cards, but not so much because of direct competition from Crypto Bros.  

I also think that you underestimate how hyper-plugged in you are to all news of all investment assets and collectible assets compared to most normal people, and thus how much more aware of what's going on in other markets you are than many other collectors.  For example, but for reading the occasional post on these Boards about sports cards sales, or some headline in mainstream media about some earthshattering sports card sale (which I tend to read and then immediately dismiss as the craziness of a bunch of backward-cap wearing maroons), I would've been completely unaware of what was going on in that market.

Which is a long way of saying that in my opinion, the funding for the comics/OA purchases were more real and less speculative, and probably much less leveraged, so there will be much less pressure to sell in a panic as opposed to the Crypto/Sports Card Bros who can fund their multiple speculative purchases only so long as prices continue to rise.  

Edited August 20, 2022 by tth2

[tth2]

On 8/19/2022 at 11:31 PM, delekkerste said:

But, in any case, it's not just about sports cards - sports cards are going down due to a combination of hobby-specific and macro factors. OA is probably more insulated on the macro front given its wealthier clientele

Okay, I'm glad to see you acknowledging this very important distinction.

On 8/19/2022 at 11:31 PM, delekkerste said:

but, "more insulated" does not mean "immune". If we get a more prolonged downturn in the economy and markets (again, not saying it's going to happen, just that it's way premature to be taking that scenario off the table and spiking the football), it will eventually start to impact our hobby.

If an economic downturn starts to run for years, then sure, all bets are off as even financially solid collectors might decide to sell some of the family silver for various reasons.  Although if I look at the one large economy that has been mired in recession/no growth for several decades (Japan), there has not been a massive flood of family jewels into the market.

In any event, what's the longest economic downturn the US has had in the past few decades?  The post-Dotcom Bubble period?  If I recall, comics and OA moved up quite well during that period.  I wasn't following OA at that time, but comics were making quantum moves up during that period.

[tth2]

On 8/19/2022 at 11:31 PM, delekkerste said:

And, hell, if no less than an authority as Jim Halperin says that our hobby is affected by these macro factors, well, who am I to disagree? Felix specifically pointed out on the podcast that the consensus in our hobby is that OA prices are not affected by what happens in external markets, something Jim disagreed with in his telling of how the DKR #1 cover sale went down. So, put that in your pipe and smoke it @tth2!  

The irony is that Jim actually helped to mask how dependent our hobby might be on macro factors by swooping in to buy the DKR #1 cover at $2m, instead of letting it sell at whatever market-joltingly low price it might actually have sold at.  

Even then, whatever price the DKR #1 cover sold at would only have been considered to be disappointing because of the crazy $3.6m Secret Wars sale.  In a world without that sale, expectations for the DKR sale would've been much lower.  

[Rick2you2]

On 8/19/2022 at 11:25 PM, tth2 said:

If there were no public sales at materially lower prices, then there is no objective data to support your thesis.  It is just speculation/theorizing on your part.

At least in the comics side, we had real objective data to point to in the form of Gary Keller books that he was forced to sell at around 50% below what he paid because of the implosion of the real estate market.

***

On 8/19/2022 at 11:25 PM, tth2 said:

This "crash" that you're theorizing is going to be so slo-mo that by the time it's time for prices to finally reset under your time frames, the economy and asset prices will have picked up again and the reasons for OA to crash will be gone.

In other words, we will never see any appreciable dip in public prices.  I concede that we might not see a lot of supply (although the ongoing Heritage auction would seem to belie that), but that won't translate into new pieces at bargain prices for my collection.

Which is where the much despised subject of “market support” bidding by dealers and auction houses, among others, comes into play. They can act to prevent any dip in public auction prices, and given the number of pieces up for auction this time, I would be a bit concerned about the higher end (or if known, any known owner concentrations of an artist’s art). 
 

Something funky may be happening, for example, with Amy Reeder’s Madam Xanadu art, not a high subject of demand. There have been a number of interior pages for sale for years and they remained unsold (not very interesting ones). Then, Heritage posts 2 covers at this auction and then a third cover for sale at a later one. Now, all the interior pages are off the market. Probably not a coincidence, but why? Did a mysterious collector get religion and buy them all? Or perhaps, an effort was taken to reduce cheap competition to the pieces being auctioned? Will they mysteriously reappear when the covers are all sold? All curious.

[tth2]

On 8/19/2022 at 11:10 PM, comix4fun said:

The sports card market has crashed more times in the last 30 years than Ricky Bobby did in the second act of Talladega Nights.

Although I'm still not clear whether we're talking about sports cards or sports cars. 

[tth2]

On 8/20/2022 at 1:57 AM, delekkerste said:

And there are some who are already spiking the football that OA has emerged unscathed from the recent economic and market weakness when it may be that we're still only in the very early innings of a more prolonged downturn.

All I'm saying is that you've been reporting about crashing card prices for about a year now, and we all know that Crypto has crashed from its peaks for quite a while now, so it would seem there's been a long enough time lag for comics and OA to start crashing too. 

Between Heritage, CC, Comiclink and Hake's, there are plenty of auctions going on regularly (not to mention Heritage's weekly auctions), so plenty of opportunities to see weakness in the market.  But I'm not seeing it. 

And an area that I follow particularly closely--vintage comic strips--is not only not crashing or merely stabilizing, but it's been going up!  In the case of Milton Caniff's strips, they're up exponentially.

[tth2]

On 8/20/2022 at 6:09 AM, Grant Turner said:

The Sal Buscema market continues to be on fire!

As well it should be! 

[Humpty-Dumpty]

It probably will not be a gradual decline. Maybe from the outset, yes, yet as downward momentum increases, it will pick up speed. Think 2008/2009 declines, but most likely quite a bit more dramatic. The light at the end of the tunnel may be that while the turn down will not be as brief as that 2008/2009 period, the market could begin a slow rebound within around one to one and a half years. The fed and politicians have caused a situation where nothing they or the treasury can do can save this economy. How can any collectibles not suffer from such a calamity?  If the market really tightens up, even dealers will not be able to prop it up for long. Furthermore, I suspect they may not have the will to.

Edited August 20, 2022 by Humpty-Dumpty
Edited

[Humpty-Dumpty]

On 8/19/2022 at 8:11 AM, delekkerste said:

Serious question: without the sports card market paving the way to heretofore undreamed of levels of collectibles valuations by early 2021, do you think the OA market would have reached the levels it has? I don't (eventually, maybe, but, almost certainly not in the timeframe it has). Oh, sure, it would have caught a tailwind from the general pandemic wave higher, but, let's face it - what happened in sports cards paved the way for what happened in comics and OA over the past 16 months. Before the sports card market went parabolic/vertical, comics and OA were climbing at a strong, but steady rate, but, after the Goldin sale at the end of January 2021, well, comics and OA followed with their own hockey-stick like advances soon after to play catch-up.

Now that the sports card market has gone into reverse, it's not unfathomable to think that, just as comics/OA caught up to sports cards on the upside with a pronounced lag, maybe the same will happen on the downside in the fullness of time if the economic and market weakness we've seen in recent months continues. As Jim H. noted on the latest Felix Comic Art podcast, asset prices have rebounded strongly of late, but, it's starting to look like it was "buy the rumor of a Fed pivot and sell the fact" with markets reversing hard off of recent highs. He also noted in the podcast that it's basically settled science that crypto money has seeped into a lot of collectibles verticals - not necessarily used to make payments, but, the wealth effect has definitely had a strong linkage to the rise in collectibles prices. Well, now Bitcoin and Ethereum have reversed 15%+ from recent highs in the blink of an eye, while other popular tokens have shed 20-30%. 

Regardless of how things eventually pan out for the OA market, it does seem to be very premature at this time to be spiking the football and sounding the all-clear when the bigger macro picture is still looking very uncertain. 

Well since usually nothing occurs in a vacuum...

 

As far as Jim H or anyone having optimism for this economy, I don't see how. The fundamental elements of this economy point to nothing but Armagedón. 

[Bronty]

On 8/20/2022 at 12:09 AM, tth2 said:

The irony is that Jim actually helped to mask how dependent our hobby might be on macro factors by swooping in to buy the DKR #1 cover at $2m, instead of letting it sell at whatever market-joltingly low price it might actually have sold at.  

Even then, whatever price the DKR #1 cover sold at would only have been considered to be disappointing because of the crazy $3.6m Secret Wars sale.  In a world without that sale, expectations for the DKR sale would've been much lower.  

I suspect the only way DKR goes on the block first place is subject to a guarantee, so it was never going to sell for less, IMO.