June 2023 Heritage Signature Auction #7340 4 4

[Michael Browning]

On 6/24/2023 at 10:15 AM, Matches_Malone said:

This one was a bargain.  I wish I had paid more attention. 

Dang. That really is a bargain.

[Carlo M]

Lee Williams half splash from UXM with good characters for about 15k? The market is definitely cooling down. I think it is good news for the hobby , 2021 and 2022 levels were just crazy . But , I think we will see less prime materials coming through. 

[fsumavila]

On 6/24/2023 at 11:07 AM, Carlo M said:

Lee Williams half splash from UXM with good characters for about 15k? The market is definitely cooling down. I think it is good news for the hobby , 2021 and 2022 levels were just crazy . But , I think we will see less prime materials coming through. 

Great UXM page. The buyer should be thrilled to get it at what is a relative bargain for Vintage Lee-Williams X art

[Bronty]

On 6/24/2023 at 10:31 AM, Michael Browning said:

Dang. That really is a bargain.

unpublished and its a bargain?   No thx.    Maybe I'm behind the times but unpublished is a huge drag on value to me.

[Michael Browning]

On 6/24/2023 at 12:26 PM, Bronty said:

unpublished and its a bargain?   No thx.    Maybe I'm behind the times but unpublished is a huge drag on value to me.

I think it’s a bargain, especially if Marvel ever uses it as a variant cover and considering it probably would have cost that to get BWS to do a commission.

[delekkerste]

On 6/24/2023 at 1:13 AM, tth2 said:

Squishiness is only seeping in for those who think 60-degree slopes are normal.

On 6/24/2023 at 1:17 AM, tth2 said:

"Not happy" is too subjective a standard.  How rational is their unhappiness?  How many of them actually lost money?  Or did they actually make a boatload of money, and are only unhappy because they lost theoretical additional profits based on a theoretical Pandemic peak price?

Tens of millions of dollars of original art traded hands at the peak of the market's fervor in 2021 and 2022 and yet you consistently make it seem like everybody bought a long time ago and is unaffected by the softening witnessed in certain swaths of the market since then. And this is even when we've already seen numerous examples this year of 2021 and 2022-purchased art being resold at steep losses. You can say it's their fault for re-selling so soon or paying so much in the first place, but, it certainly suggests that there's a lot more art out there that is effectively underwater and that those owners would sell at similar losses if they had to liquidate now.  

And people have every right to be disappointed when their mark-to-market gains have fallen substantially from theoretical peak highs. Most people mentally mark to market their gains and losses to at least a certain extent and get joy from unrealized gains and feel pain when those gains evaporate. The fact that they may still be up, even substantially, from their cost basis, or that the market is merely correcting an unsustainable 60-degree advance, does not alter the fact that some segments of the market are down and that real disappointment or even pain is being felt by some sellers.

I'm sure the guy who consigned the DD #169 and Ronin #1 pages (it was the same person) does not share your cavalier view of what does and doesn't constitute justifiable disappointment in this market.  

Edited June 24, 2023 by delekkerste

[delekkerste]

On 6/24/2023 at 9:05 AM, Bronty said:

Well it’s from #1, great shot of red Sonja, etc.   Seems a strong price but its also easy to see why.   

Early Red Sonja is very much in my wheelhouse, but, this one got way away from me by a lot during the live bidding session. Lovely page, but, that seemed very much like a "I don't care if I lose money on this" price to me (no judgments; congrats to the buyer, especially if it was something they really appreciated/wanted).

[alxjhnsn]

On 6/23/2023 at 2:14 PM, RICKYBOBBY said:

Wow…

https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/story-page/frank-miller-ronin-1-story-page-19-original-art-dc-1983-/a/7283-91022.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515

 

and now..

https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/story-page/frank-miller-ronin-1-story-page-19-original-art-dc-1983-/a/7340-93082.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515

Wow indeed! Nov 22 to June 23 and drops from 35K to 13K. That hurts and that doesn't count the amount paid to Heritage on the $13K. I had to check several times to be sure that I got the dates right.

Edited June 24, 2023 by alxjhnsn

[Kryptic1]

On 6/23/2023 at 6:12 PM, Bronty said:

Where and for how much was this bought Gene?   I don't see it in the HA archives.

Wait, someone actually paid that price?  For a panel page with no action?  And thought it was such a good price they could immediately flip it for a profit after fees?

[alxjhnsn]

On 6/24/2023 at 12:22 PM, Kryptic1 said:

Wait, someone actually paid that price?  For a panel page with no action?  And thought it was such a good price they could immediately flip it for a profit after fees?

That really hurts! (sympathetic pain).

Frank is fading?

[gumbydarnit]

I’m not cheering for anyone’s losses, however the silver lining might be, a downward trend for valuations will cause some of the investor types to look elsewhere for returns and we could end up in a place where comic art prices are more in line with where collectors (not investors) think they should be, probably wishful thinking.

For example, I think the results for the two Miller pages (Ronin and Daredevil) still seem to be way above where they should be.

 

[Unstoppablejayd]

On 6/24/2023 at 10:15 AM, Matches_Malone said:

This one was a bargain.  I wish I had paid more attention. 

Couple things in this… inks didn’t jive with the time period and the signature is also different from the time… so I thought there was something going on with it… maybe inked much later or not by bws? I spoke to a few collectors that had the same concerns 

[Unstoppablejayd]

On 6/24/2023 at 12:00 PM, fsumavila said:

Great UXM page. The buyer should be thrilled to get it at what is a relative bargain for Vintage Lee-Williams X art

I thought it was an ok buy … yes half splash but rogue in a none rogue outfit - fury and kazar… I think people who want to spend up on lee Williams want X-men on there X-men pages… I actually thought the 248 page was the better buy but got dinged for green inks (I almost got it on a proxy bid lol) 

[DJRome]

I've always believed that the oa market would stay on fire as long as buyers felt that they could profitably flip their auction winnings through he same venue within a span of six months. With this auction, I'm comfortable saying that we've finally passed that point and the wave of speculation that brought almost everything up in value has finally passed.

Does this mean that I see a great deal of pain coming for the hobby? Not exactly. Anyone who needs to sell something that they've bought over the last 18 months may very well be disappointed with their results. But oa collectors are, by and large, long term players who really enjoy owning this stuff. The ones who remain will continue to collect, but perhaps not with the fear of missing out that has driven things lately.

Eventually, I believe it will all work out. If prices continue their squishyness, consignors will send less to auction and supply will eventually meet demand. But with a metric ton of art under consignment, it could take awhile to do so!

I hope all you oa fans pick up something nice in the back half of '23 for a cheaper price than you would have paid in '22. Lots of lots coming up tomorrow to choose from!

[Bronty]

On 6/24/2023 at 1:24 PM, alxjhnsn said:

That really hurts! (sympathetic pain).

Frank is fading?

I think he's one of the artists that shot up the most during covid, and so I think his values are retracing back down.

I bought one very minor Frank about 4 years ago, sold it 1-2 years ago for 4x as it felt like that was starting to be pretty good money for what it was.

Across many collectible categories the trend (with exceptions) has generally been that the items that shot up the most during covid are the "squishiest" now.    In terms of mainstream comic art, I'd generally put Frank's art on that list.    Its generally terrific material and an A-list artist, but values were getting aggressive there and some of it seems to be coming back down to more sustainable numbers.

Jim Lee stuff shot up a lot too, but either it hasn't come down or I haven't noticed or it hasn't resold much.     But that's another one where IMO some of the values were getting a little nutty (360k for an x-men half splash, really?   Compare to x248 cover for 65k back in 2018... IMO a better piece, or at least equivalent... for 300k less...).

I don't know if Lee stuff has or will go down, but some of those ultra aggressive covid era Lee buys seem susceptible to me.    Desirable material, but the prices paid were just so strong at the time that I don't know if they can be sustained.     (Does the Wolverine 24 cover sell for 144k today?   Seems really unlikely to me.  ).

Edited June 24, 2023 by Bronty

[artdealer]

On 6/24/2023 at 1:24 PM, alxjhnsn said:

That really hurts! (sympathetic pain).

Frank is fading?

No. 
the consignor thought he was the smartest person in the room and tried for a quick flip. 

[comix4fun]

On 6/24/2023 at 12:40 PM, Bronty said:

 

Jim Lee stuff shot up a lot too, but either it hasn't come down or I haven't noticed or it hasn't resold much.     But that's another one where IMO some of the values were getting a little nutty (360k for an x-men half splash, really?   Compare to x248 cover for 65k back in 2018... IMO a better piece, or at least equivalent... for 300k less...).

 

Not all Lee is created equal. The peak Lee is Lee/Williams on X-men. 
The 248 page that sold yesterday was Lee/Green. The 248 cover is Lee/Green and is lacking what people are looking for in a Lee X-men premiere go to the mattresses at auction piece (Hint: "Snikt"). Also the $360,000 page is from an arc everyone who collects or read this stuff remembers: Xtinction Agenda.  I like Colossus a lot, and Havok is ok, but it's not this : 

This page is several times more desirable to Lee X-men collectors than that Lee/Green cover, for all the reasons people collect comic art, the characters, composition, and credits matter.

 

This is a page people fight to the death over, and they did looking at that auction result. If you want a cover that's a comp to this page I'd look at 268 and not 248. 
The 268 cover sold 2 years before the 271 page above for $300,000 and would likely be dramatically more today. That cover and this page are leagues ahead of another Lee cover that didn't have Williams inks or Wolverine, Psylocke or Jubilee, etc on it. 

[Michael Browning]

I've said for awhile now that collectors paying such outrageously high prices for art should think (especially when they're going crazy and bidding) about the eventual resale. Yeah, yeah, I know a lot of you say you don't care about reselling and that you buy because you love the art. Well, if the guy who sold the DD #169 page got $80,000+ worth of enjoyment out of that page in the short time he owned it, then he didn't lose a thing. But, I'm guessing he's sick after losing that amount of cash.

Who is the market for the resale of these $100,000+ pieces? Who is going to pay more for that Secret Wars #8 page than what it sold for? All I know is, whoever bought it better love it for a long, long time.

It's like the guy who thought he was bidding me up on that cover in the last big HA, earlier this year. He thought since he won it -- and surely he won it by beating me -- that he could make a profit by trying to sell it to me. When I told him I didn't even bid on it and really didn't want it at that price, he got shook about having to pay for it and he asked me to buy it and pay Heritage directly so he didn't have to. I did not do that. He later said he ended up selling it for a profit, but, if he did, it couldn't have been for much more than a few hundred dollars. I mean, he had already outbid someone who really wanted it -- again, not me -- but that underbidder didn't want it enough to drive it up another bid. And there ain't that many of us out there who are collecting those covers.

Edited June 24, 2023 by Michael Browning

[alxjhnsn]

On 6/24/2023 at 1:46 PM, artdealer said:

No. 
the consignor thought he was the smartest person in the room and tried for a quick flip. 

Or perhaps ran into financial problems. Still, that's a huge drop.

[KirbyCollector]

On 6/24/2023 at 12:59 PM, delekkerste said:

I'm sure the guy who consigned the DD #169 and Ronin #1 pages (it was the same person) does not share your cavalier view of what does and doesn't constitute justifiable disappointment in this market.

You live in that world... the world where the rich think they are gods and leverage themselves to the hilt at every chance in the unending competition to have more than the next guy. Do you feel sorry for them when they fail to display any common sense and blow their accounts up? Why is this any different?