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Sept Heritage Signature Auction
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Started by jjonahjameson11,

281 posts in this topic

tth2

tth2

Posted
Posted
On 9/15/2023 at 12:26 PM, delekkerste said:
On 9/15/2023 at 11:00 AM, tth2 said:

So a BWS Conan cover goes for less than a 9.8 Avengers 4 or 9.8 TMNT 1 these days.

Yeah, first the Conan #5 sells for only $70K at CLink last week and now $102K for the Conan #11.

I was tempted to go for the Conan 11 because I think it's a good cover, but then I remembered your comments about how dead the BWS Conan market was and decided that discretion was the better part of valor.

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tth2

tth2

Posted
Posted
On 9/15/2023 at 12:27 PM, delekkerste said:
On 9/15/2023 at 10:57 AM, tth2 said:

Congratulations, you’re finally getting the bear market that you’ve always wanted.

Sadly, the exquisite Raymond Flash Gordon Sunday will not be affected - it's too good. :cry: 

$252k before it even goes to the floor! :whatthe:

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delekkerste

delekkerste

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 9/15/2023 at 12:38 AM, tth2 said:

I was tempted to go for the Conan 11 because I think it's a good cover, but then I remembered your comments about how dead the BWS Conan market was and decided that discretion was the better part of valor.

LOL, I wouldn't describe the BWS Conan market as "dead", but, a lot of the prices definitely haven't even kept up with CPI over the past few years while mainstream Marvel art has enjoyed some of its best years ever. And, aside from a couple/few outlier sales, it's not like prices were tearing it up before then either. And, sure, if the best BWS Conan material ever hit the market, people would of course go nuts over it, but, there were people who would have been willing to pay a "future price" a decade ago as well. That stuff would go for more now, of course, but, I think it's fair to say that even the best stuff would have hugely lagged the appreciation in the overall OA market from the levels where motivated buyers would have ponied up for it 8-10 years ago

When I started collecting OA about 20 years ago, BWS Conan was one of the pillars of OA collecting. If Kirby FF was AAA-rated, BWS Conan was solid AA, investment-grade art that would have been deemed essential for a broad-based comic art collection. Nowadays, I'd say that it's the equivalent of a BBB-, barely clinging on to its investment-grade rating, with very few younger collectors caring at all about it. :sorry: 

That said, buy whatever turns your crank! 

Edited by delekkerste
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delekkerste

delekkerste

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 9/14/2023 at 10:57 PM, tth2 said:

Congratulations, you’re finally getting the bear market that you’ve always wanted.

In all seriousness, I think it's pretty clear that we're now 12-18 months past the "everything is going up" phase of the market when there was a ton of indiscriminate YOLO and FOMO buying going on by both newer and veteran collectors alike, just grabbing everything they could before prices went even higher. My working hypothesis is that a lot of people probably overspent their budgets (pulling forward future demand) at very high price points for art during this time, which is why OA has been generally flat-to-down this year even though other risk assets have generally been pretty frothy to the upside.

The net result of which is that OA collectors have become far more focused in their buying, which is why we keep hearing more stories about people who might have ordinarily bid, now holding back for certain pieces that would surely have fetched more in, say, late 2021 or early 2022. To be sure, there is still a lot of money sloshing around out there, so, some pieces will still be going gangbusters, but, at this point, that a general market correction is happening is pretty much settled science. 

Edited by delekkerste
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delekkerste

delekkerste

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 9/15/2023 at 9:39 AM, KirbyCollector said:

Translation 1: There is less money available now

Translation 2: A few guys I knew colluded to stay out so a friend of theirs could get it

Anecdotally, I know a lot of my circle of collector friends (and friends of friends), including some big hitters, have pulled back their buying this year and there's been a lot more "selling art to buy art" vs. tapping the bank/investment accounts. Which gets us to a crucial talking point: if you're not as confident that the art you need to sell is going to fetch the price you want so you can buy something else, well, you may just stay on the sidelines rather than take that chance. This would also explain why the number of lots with reserves seems to have spiked higher.  And seeing some of those lots (Frazetta Death Dealer, Iron Fist #15 page) go RNM yesterday (let's see how the Bolland Batman page fares today) could dent confidence further. 

Speaking of the Death Dealer, I'm not surprised that it went RNM. Why? Because when it sold the first time around, it came from a Frazetta family member and Heritage is going to make sure the family gets taken care of. While I'm sure it was a big hitter who consigned it back, I don't think the same incentive was there to make sure it sold this time around. :fear: 

Edited by delekkerste
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delekkerste

delekkerste

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 9/15/2023 at 12:43 AM, tth2 said:

$252k before it even goes to the floor! :whatthe:

I can tell you that the Heritage catalog did no justice to this piece. Not that it's Heritage's fault, it's just that, in person, it has a presence/wall power that just cannot be captured in a photo. It is just stunning, easily the most beautiful piece of comic art that I have seen in years. I kept coming back to look at it over and over and over again at SDCC. (worship) 

I had initially planned to make a serious run at this, but, I am an example of what I said above - I'm not as confident at the moment that the art I would need to sell is going to get the prices I would need to swing a purchase like this. So, I revised my limit lower, and we've blown past that limit at this point. That said, it might have been a moot point anyway as it looks like it could blast even higher in the live session. My initial instinct when I saw this was this could easily be a Lucas Museum target (very likely the inspiration for Princess Leia's Episode IV hair-do) and that it could have just been unwinnable from the start. 

Edited by delekkerste
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Michael Browning

Michael Browning

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 9/15/2023 at 10:27 AM, delekkerste said:

I can tell you that the Heritage catalog did no justice to this piece. Not that it's Heritage's fault, it's just that, in person, it has a presence/wall power that just cannot be captured in a photo. It is just stunning, easily the most beautiful piece of comic art that I have seen in years. I kept coming back to look at it over and over and over again at SDCC. (worship) 

I had initially planned to make a serious run at this, but, I am an example of what I said above - I'm not as confident at the moment that the art I would need to sell is going to get the prices I would need to swing a purchase like this. So, I revised my limit lower, and we've blown past that limit at this point. That said, it might have been a moot point anyway as it looks like it could blast even higher in the live session. My initial instinct when I saw this was this could easily be a Lucas Museum target (very likely the inspiration for Princess Leia's Episode IV hair-do) and that it could have just been unwinnable from the start. 

I’m sort of in that category, but it’s more of a feeling that if I buy a cover for $20,000 today, I might not live long enough to sell at break-even or see a profit years from now. I don’t primarily buy for resale purposes, but I don’t make/have a lot of extra cash like many collectors on this thread have and I make sure event penny counts - and that, if I need to sell, I could at least make my money back fairly quickly. I always have my eye on the resale, even if I plan to never sell. It comes from growing up poor and with Depression-era parents who raked and scraped and saved and taught me to keep my comics and Star Wars action figures in good condition in case I need to sell them one day.

I have steered clear of a lot of great art auctions because the prices have just gone so high that I don’t have the confidence I once had that I could get my cash back if and when I need to sell. There are lots of pieces I’d love to own, but I have to rethink sometimes and say to myself “Do I want it and enough that if I’m in a pinch and need to sell, I could recoup 100% of what I spent?”

That keeps me out of a lot of auctions these days.

Edited by Michael Browning
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tth2

tth2

Posted
Posted
On 9/15/2023 at 10:27 PM, delekkerste said:

My initial instinct when I saw this was this could easily be a Lucas Museum target (very likely the inspiration for Princess Leia's Episode IV hair-do) and that it could have just been unwinnable from the start. 

So be a hero and put in some punishment bids! :devil:

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KirbyCollector

KirbyCollector

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 9/15/2023 at 10:01 AM, delekkerste said:

if you're not as confident that the art you need to sell is going to fetch the price you want so you can buy something else, well, you may just stay on the sidelines rather than take that chance

This is the current RE market, as well

Edited by KirbyCollector
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comix4fun

comix4fun

Posted
Posted
On 9/15/2023 at 9:01 AM, delekkerste said:

 And seeing some of those lots (Frazetta Death Dealer, Iron Fist #15 page) go RNM yesterday (let's see how the Bolland Batman page fares today) could dent confidence further. 

 

I don't think the Bolland Batman 400 going RNM will dent confidence and most folks are confident it won't "MR". 

On 9/15/2023 at 9:27 AM, delekkerste said:

 it has a presence/wall power* that just cannot be captured in a photo. I

*licensing fee to FelixComicArt may be paid by Venmo, Zelle, or in the form of Paul Smith pages. 

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G.A.tor

G.A.tor

Posted
Posted
On 9/15/2023 at 12:14 PM, batman_fan said:

Today will be telling when I see where the Peanuts pieces end up.  My hope is prices are depressed, not so much for this auction but an upcoming one. :wishluck:

the one page I was interested in is already higher than I had anticipated bidding...maybe wishful thinking on my part... sigh

 

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