Does paying overvalue for a piece of art change the way you view that art 1 1

[delekkerste]

1. No one builds a great collection without overpaying for art - it's often the only way you're going to get great pieces.

2. That said, I do believe you can pay so much for a piece that it can affect the way you view it. I have overpaid (at the time) for many pieces in my collection. And have done trade deals where the other party made out better. Most of the time, the market bails you out over time; yesterday's overpay has become today's bargain. That said - without naming the pieces in question - I have made some bad buys where the market hasn't bailed me out over time and which has affected the way I see the art. Not that I was buying for investment, but, no one wants to feel like they made a bad purchase decision or think about what else that money could have bought instead.  

[stinkininkin]

For me, it used to be easier to know what to overpay for. I happened to covet A list artists (I usually collect artists, not titles/characters). So overpaying for art like Kirby, J Buscema, Adams, Miller, BWS, Wood, Wrightson, Frazetta, Starlin, Mignola, Bolland, Sienkiewicz and the like seemed like a relatively low risk/high reward gamble in terms of enjoyment and yes, protecting my "investment". Not to sound like the old guy here, but today there are prices paid for artist's that IMHO are C level artists or worse, that are commanding insane prices (again, IMHO). Nostalgia, movie tie-ins, and first appearance concerns seem to be the engine that drive the prices higher, rather than pure excellence. Overpaying for this type of material feels like playing on shaky ground to me, but maybe the hobby and how to determine relative worth has permanently passed me by? I hope not. People should collect whatever they want and pay whatever yields enjoyment, but old man Williams wishes that artistic merit mattered more in the hobby today.

Edited December 16, 2022 by stinkininkin

[RBerman]

On 12/16/2022 at 7:38 AM, delekkerste said:

1. No one builds a great collection without overpaying for art - it's often the only way you're going to get great pieces.

Which means it's not overpaying compared to the actual market; it's just overpaying compared to what would be comfortable for me.

[jjonahjameson11]

On 12/16/2022 at 12:20 PM, stinkininkin said:

For me, it used to be easier to know what to overpay for. I happened to covet A list artists (I usually collect artists, not titles/characters). So overpaying for art like Kirby, J Buscema, Adams, Miller, BWS, Wood, Wrightson, Frazetta, Starlin, Mignola, Bolland, Sienkiewicz and the like seemed like a relatively low risk/high reward gamble in terms of enjoyment and yes, protecting my "investment". Not to sound like the old guy here, but today there are prices paid for artist's that IMHO are C level artists or worse, that are commanding insane prices (again, IMHO). Nostalgia, movie tie-ins, and first appearance concerns seem to be the engine that drive the prices higher, rather than pure excellence. Overpaying for this type of material feels like playing on shaky ground to me, but maybe the hobby and how to determine relative worth has permanently passed me by? I hope not. People should collect whatever they want and pay whatever yields enjoyment, but old man Williams wishes that artistic merit mattered more in the hobby today.

Artistic merit means different things to individuals.  There are some artists whose artwork you collect and are willing to pay a lot for a page or a cover or what have you.  Some of those same artists from your list do absolutely nothing for me, and I have no interest in spending even 1 cent for an example of their work.

[delekkerste]

On 12/16/2022 at 12:56 PM, RBerman said:

Which means it's not overpaying compared to the actual market; it's just overpaying compared to what would be comfortable for me.

Well, let's rewind 10 years ago and say that you were offered a piece privately for $40K that might be reasonably expected to sell for $25K at auction. One might choose to knowingly overpay for the piece to be sure of securing it rather than risk it getting away (or the owner deciding not to sell it at all). But, I would argue that $40K is not necessarily "market value" in this scenario. 

To update to 2022 values, multiply both sides of the equation by 5x.  But, at least if you "overpaid" back then, the market has more than bailed you out and then some. 

Edited December 16, 2022 by delekkerste

[delekkerste]

On 12/16/2022 at 12:20 PM, stinkininkin said:

People should collect whatever they want and pay whatever yields enjoyment, but old man Williams wishes that artistic merit mattered more in the hobby today.

[KirbyCollector]

On 12/16/2022 at 12:58 PM, jjonahjameson11 said:

Artistic merit means different things to individuals

We will all find out what has real merit (and by default, what should be valued more from a monetary standard) in the next few years... difficult financial conditions almost always bring a reversion to the mean for all assets as quality becomes valued again. FTX is the canary in the coal mine... and there is quite a bit of "HOTTEST NEW ARTIST XXX, BUY NOW!!!" poorly executed, highly derivative recent OA which will go quite the same way.

[JC25427N]

On 12/16/2022 at 4:05 PM, KirbyCollector said:

We will all find out what has real merit (and by default, what should be valued more from a monetary standard) in the next few years... 

People have been saying we'd find out just before pretty much every heritage auction this year  

[JC25427N]

On 12/16/2022 at 4:05 PM, KirbyCollector said:

We will all find out what has real merit (and by default, what should be valued more from a monetary standard) in the next few years... difficult financial conditions almost always bring a reversion to the mean for all assets as quality becomes valued again. FTX is the canary in the coal mine... and there is quite a bit of "HOTTEST NEW ARTIST XXX, BUY NOW!!!" poorly executed, highly derivative recent OA which will go quite the same way.

Also, if this OA market crash does happen, I think there's a good chance that we won't find out much. People will just stop consigning their art and keep them locked up until the market show signs of heating up again. You can't really observe a reversion to the mean if there aren't going to be enough samples to draw conclusions from. The only thing that would be interesting to see if that happens is what the dealers decide to do with their stock.

I think we find out more about "real" merit when the market is hot and more pieces come out of the woodworks, then people have to be more discerning in what they buy and how to spend their money. 

Just my opinion though. 

[jjonahjameson11]

On 12/16/2022 at 4:30 PM, JC25427N said:

Also, if this OA market crash does happen, I think there's a good chance that we won't find out much. People will just stop consigning their art and keep them locked up until the market show signs of heating up again. You can't really observe a reversion to the mean if there aren't going to be enough samples to draw conclusions from. The only thing that would be interesting to see if that happens is what the dealers decide to do with their stock.

I think we find out more about "real" merit when the market is hot and more pieces come out of the woodworks, then people have to be more discerning in what they buy and how to spend their money. 

Just my opinion though. 

This!

[Rick2you2]

On 12/14/2022 at 4:01 AM, inovrmihd said:

 The art in my collection that I enjoy the most tends to be is the art I bought before the big run ups in pricing, and the ones I didn’t feel I was overpaying for.  Do readers of this entry have similar views/experiences.

No. The ones I tend to enjoy the most were the ones that were hardest to find, or were discovered as a surprise (like thinking the artwork was digital, and then finding out it was traditionally made). Overpaying for a piece based on then-current market conditions doesn't really affect me as I simply won't spend the money on it if it doesn't fill a gap at a level I will pay. For my most expensive pieces, I'm generally proud I spent the money, but it doesn't really color my attraction for them. 

[gumbydarnit]

Fixed below

Edited December 16, 2022 by gumbydarnit

[gumbydarnit]

On 12/16/2022 at 11:20 AM, stinkininkin said:

People should collect whatever they want and pay whatever yields enjoyment, but old man Williams wishes that artistic merit mattered more in the hobby today.

No need to worry there are MANY of us that feel the exact same way. When a page by Johnny Journeyman sell for about 2/3rds that of a true artistic legend, I just scratch my head and shrug. I wouldn’t take 10 J Journeyman pages for 1 page by Mr Legend.  
 

There was a time where those pages were placed in a correct price relation, but that is no longer the case.

[stinkininkin]

On 12/16/2022 at 9:58 AM, jjonahjameson11 said:

Artistic merit means different things to individuals.  There are some artists whose artwork you collect and are willing to pay a lot for a page or a cover or what have you.  Some of those same artists from your list do absolutely nothing for me, and I have no interest in spending even 1 cent for an example of their work.

I wasn't referring to what any of us like or collect individually. There are A list creators that I have no interest in collecting, but it's still incredibly obvious their talent and contribution to the art form is unique and elite. Unless you're saying that all art is equally good and that there is no common language to define excellence in comic art and acknowledge unique greatness independent of our own personal tastes? I'm not looking for an argument here. I just feel the criteria for what makes for great and important and impactful art is changing and it's affecting how we view what is worthy of "overpaying" and what's not. Now get off my lawn!

Edited December 16, 2022 by stinkininkin

[stinkininkin]

On 12/16/2022 at 10:06 AM, delekkerste said:

Well, let's rewind 10 years ago and say that you were offered a piece privately for $40K that might be reasonably expected to sell for $25K at auction. One might choose to knowingly overpay for the piece to be sure of securing it rather than risk it getting away (or the owner deciding not to sell it at all). But, I would argue that $40K is not necessarily "market value" in this scenario. 

To update to 2022 values, multiply both sides of the equation by 5x.  But, at least if you "overpaid" back then, the market has more than bailed you out and then some. 

This rings true to me and puts things in better context than what I might have implied in my previous post. 

 

[JC25427N]

On 12/16/2022 at 6:37 PM, stinkininkin said:

I wasn't referring to what any of us like or collect individually. There are A list creators that I have no interest in collecting, but it's still incredibly obvious their talent and contribution to the art form is unique and elite. Unless you're saying that all art is equally good and that there is no common language to define excellence in comic art and acknowledge unique greatness independent of our own personal tastes? I'm not looking for an argument here. I just feel the criteria for what makes for great and important and impactful art is changing and it's affecting how we view what is worthy of "overpaying" and what's not. Now get off my lawn!

In my experience what has some people defensive or on edge when it comes to this topic are the incidents when someone uses that common language that defines excellence/greatness in comic art to put down what others personally like to collect. 

For example to illustrate the point, let's say there are two well known X-Men artists: Artist X and Artist Y.  Let's say its pretty clear due to this common language you mentioned that Artist X produces higher quality work and has had a greater impact on the industry than Artist Y. But let's say that even knowing this, Collector A still really prefers Artist Y's work and decides to focus their X-Men collection on work by Y. This infuriates Collector B and B exclaims that Collector A's taste is just objectively wrong and that A is a less legitimate X-Men Fan/ Collector. 

It's sort of a weird duality, everyone can pretty much agree Artist X is "better" than Artist Y, but we wouldn't say that an X-Collector is more or less "legitimate" than a Y-Collector. I suppose that's the definition of "There's no accounting for taste". Obviously, I think we can all agree that B is wrong here in this hypothetical I wrote (or I hope so at least),

but on the flip side you could make a hyperbolic comparison where B doesn't look so malicious. If I told you X was Jim Lee, and Y was me and my X-Men doodles that I made in middle school, then obviously Collector A looks loony here. Obviously that's an extremely hyperbolic comparison, but I then guess the question becomes what comparisons are crazy and what aren't. 

 

Edited December 17, 2022 by JC25427N

[JC25427N]

And then it gets even worse when you move beyond artist and to whole sections/genres. People who will assert that collecting Romance Art is less legitimate than collecting Hero Art, or that collecting Indie Art is less legitimate than collecting Marvel/DC Art.

 

Edited December 17, 2022 by JC25427N

[Rick2you2]

On 12/16/2022 at 6:32 PM, gumbydarnit said:

No need to worry there are MANY of us that feel the exact same way. When a page by Johnny Journeyman sell for about 2/3rds that of a true artistic legend, I just scratch my head and shrug. I wouldn’t take 10 J Journeyman pages for 1 page by Mr Legend.  
 

Honestly, I may go with Johnny Journeyman. There are times when the True Artistic Legend doesn't hit a home run, or even a double. He/she may be having a bad day or perhaps the -script prevents the artist from showing their skill. Likewise, journeymen can sometimes produce beautiful work. Art shouldn't be evaluated substantially based on the artist's reputation even when the price of it often seems to be heavily influenced by that reputation.  Doing so isn't much different than signature collecting.

[babsrocks31]

On 12/16/2022 at 5:49 PM, Rick2you2 said:

Honestly, I may go with Johnny Journeyman. There are times when the True Artistic Legend doesn't hit a home run, or even a double. He/she may be having a bad day or perhaps the --script prevents the artist from showing their skill. Likewise, journeymen can sometimes produce beautiful work. Art shouldn't be evaluated substantially based on the artist's reputation even when the price of it often seems to be heavily influenced by that reputation.  Doing so isn't much different than signature collecting.

Nailed it.

[Dr. Balls]

I missed out on a piece of art, and had the chance to buy it for more than the hammer price - which, I felt, was an overvalued price. I thought about it for a day and even though I missed out on a few other pieces, I really liked this one and was bummed I lost out on it on auction - so I paid extra. I don't have it in-hand yet, but here it is a few days later, and I'm still happy I bought it. I have a long-term OA goal, so I figure by the time I need to concern myself with parting with my collection, the enjoyment of having it will easily be worth more than the above-value cost I spent on it.