Heritage Nov 16-19 Signature Auction 5 5

[tth2]

On 11/17/2023 at 2:24 AM, Bronty said:

Dr Strange 5 cover at 84k seems really strong to me for that cover.

Seemed strong to me.

On 11/17/2023 at 2:24 AM, Bronty said:

Cockrum xmen 102 splash I guess is about right at 78k? but what a gorgeous page.

That seemed pretty weak to me.  It's a pretty iconic splash which I thought would break 6 figures.  But I guess it's not Byrne and Wolvie is not in a very dignified position.

On 11/17/2023 at 2:24 AM, Bronty said:

TOS 39 page seemed on the strong end of the range.    I would have guessed maybe 250?  But I can't fault the buyer at 336, that's an incredible page to own.

Seemed like a very strong price to me.  One has to wonder what the panel page with the first appearance of the armor, and the splash, would go for now. 

[tth2]

On 11/17/2023 at 2:23 AM, Grant Turner said:

I’m a big Don Heck fan, so happy to see a page of his hit such a high number!

Isn't it more a case of the page hitting such a high number despite it being a page of his?

[tth2]

On 11/17/2023 at 2:42 AM, delekkerste said:

Only $56,400 for the Barry Smith Conan #10 cover.  

But at least between a BWS no-action, no-Wolverine X-Men page fetching more than Conan pages at last week's Comic Art Live sale and this, just the latest in a lengthening string of disappointing BWS Conan cover results, maybe @tth2 will finally shut his pie hole now about not noticing that Barry Smith Conan is a long-term secular decline.  

That was way higher than I was expecting for this cover.  So as far as I'm concerned, BWS Conan is still beating expectations!

I am upgrading my rating of BWS Conan from "Hold" to "Accumulate".

[drdroom]

On 11/16/2023 at 6:12 PM, tth2 said:

That was way higher than I was expecting for this cover.  So as far as I'm concerned, BWS Conan is still beating expectations!

I am upgrading my rating of BWS Conan from "Hold" to "Accumulate".

Exactly. Imagine what one of the covers where you can see Conan will go for?

[batman_fan]

I am praying the Peanuts strips go a lot higher.  I already have two strips to frame and would hate to have more I need to frame.

[tth2]

On 11/17/2023 at 10:58 AM, batman_fan said:

I am praying the Peanuts strips go a lot higher.  I already have two strips to frame and would hate to have more I need to frame.

If the first day was any indication, bidders are really holding off until the live auction now.  Not that the final online prices were ever a reliable indication of what the winning bids would be, but there seemed to be a whole lot less thrill bidding this time. 

[KirbyCollector]

On 11/16/2023 at 9:58 PM, batman_fan said:

I am praying the Peanuts strips go a lot higher.  I already have two strips to frame and would hate to have more I need to frame.

Trying to buy one but something tells me the heavy hitters on auction day are going to crush me

[delekkerste]

On 11/16/2023 at 9:54 PM, drdroom said:

Exactly. Imagine what one of the covers where you can see Conan will go for?

Luckily, we don't have to wonder; the Conan #5 cover sold for $70K in the last ComicLink sale (vs. $66K at Heritage 5 years ago) and the #11 cover sold for $102K in the last Heritage sale (vs. $90K at Heritage 4 years ago; it probably would have fetched $75-90K 5 years before that). BWS Conan pages just sit on dealer sites these days going nowhere, even at prices which have barely budged over the past 4-5 years. I've even seen dealers over the past year or two actually mark down their asking prices on interiors and splashes to try and generate some interest. 

The best you can say is that the BWS Conan market is in a state of secular stagnation at the moment. Yes, of course there are certain pages and issues where the art would go nuts if it became available, but, that has always been the case. If, theoretically, Red Nails was broken up now, of course it would fetch eye-popping numbers, but, I know people who were willing to pay 2023 prices (or close to them) back in 2013 (and even made overtures to Thibodeaux) so the actual real price escalation would be far less than people think.  

[batman_fan]

On 11/17/2023 at 6:29 AM, delekkerste said:

Luckily, we don't have to wonder; the Conan #5 cover sold for $70K in the last ComicLink sale (vs. $66K at Heritage 5 years ago) and the #11 cover sold for $102K in the last Heritage sale (vs. $90K at Heritage 4 years ago; it probably would have fetched $75-90K 5 years before that). BWS Conan pages just sit on dealer sites these days going nowhere, even at prices which have barely budged over the past 4-5 years. I've even seen dealers over the past year or two actually mark down their asking prices on interiors and splashes to try and generate some interest. 

The best you can say is that the BWS Conan market is in a state of secular stagnation at the moment. Yes, of course there are certain pages and issues where the art would go nuts if it became available, but, that has always been the case. If, theoretically, Red Nails was broken up now, of course it would fetch eye-popping numbers, but, I know people who were willing to pay 2023 prices (or close to them) back in 2013 (and even made overtures to Thibodeaux) so the actual real price escalation would be far less than people think.  

Personally I think it is because BWS Conan material has lost some of its “bragging rights” appeal and the clout crowd has moved to something else.

[Bronty]

Yes; I'm not quite sure if that's because its not superhero material, or what exactly.

BWS wolverine seems to have shot up, so it seems to be more about the property than the artist.

TBH in relative terms I think it was expensive 10-15 years ago, and I think its getting cheap now.    A decent BWS conan cover going for the same money as What If 11 seems dumb.

Edited November 17, 2023 by Bronty

[delekkerste]

On 11/17/2023 at 9:34 AM, batman_fan said:

Personally I think it is because BWS Conan material has lost some of its “bragging rights” appeal and the clout crowd has moved to something else.

Yeah, I think that is practically axiomatic at this point. Mainstream super-heroes ascended to the top of the pop culture pyramid over the past 15 years. I wouldn't say sword & sorcery died during that time (witness the popularity of GoT), but, nobody can credibly argue that Conan specifically is as big a character as he was in the 1970s and 80s - not coincidentally, when most of the people still collecting Conan were in the teens and 20s. 

When I started collecting comic art in late 2002, BWS Conan was so revered that most people would have considered it to be one of the essential building blocks of a well-rounded comic art collection. And people who grew up with the comics and movies in the '70s and '80s were largely in their 30s and 40s, hitting their stride career-wise and buying up the art. Nowadays, there is just so little interest in Conan among younger collectors and it's really the 50-60+ crowd propping the market up at a more or less flattish level for the most part. 

Personally, I'm a huge Conan fan. I started reading the original REH stories in 1982, a year before I discovered comics, and I collected the comics throughout the '80s and loved the movies (I picked up a lot of the comics, collected editions, audiobooks, etc. in the 2000s and 2010s as well). To me, it's unfortunate that the early BWS art no longer has the relevance and appreciation that it did 10-20 years ago. It gives me no pleasure to point out that it's in a state of secular stagnation at best, but, it's so obvious at this point and people should be aware of that both in terms of if they are contemplating buying or selling and also as a cautionary tale about what can happen due to the shifting whims of the collector base over a decade or two.

Edited November 17, 2023 by delekkerste

[batman_fan]

On 11/17/2023 at 7:55 AM, delekkerste said:

Yeah, I think that is practically axiomatic at this point. Mainstream super-heroes ascended to the top of the pop culture pyramid over the past 15 years. I wouldn't say sword & sorcery died during that time (witness the popularity of GoT), but, nobody can credibly argue that Conan specifically is as big a character as he was in the 1970s and 80s - not coincidentally, when most of the people still collecting Conan were in the teens and 20s. 

When I started collecting comic art in late 2002, BWS Conan was so revered that most people would have considered it to be one of the essential building blocks of a well-rounded comic art collection. And people who grew up with the comics and movies in the '70s and '80s were largely in their 30s and 40s, hitting their stride career-wise and buying up the art. Nowadays, there is just so little interest in Conan among younger collectors and it's really the 50-60+ crowd propping the market up at a more or less flattish level for the most part. 

Personally, I'm a huge Conan fan. I started reading the original REH stories in 1982, a year before I discovered comics, and I collected the comics throughout the '80s and loved the movies (I picked up a lot of the comics, collected editions, audiobooks, etc. in the 2000s and 2010s as well). To me, it's unfortunate that the early BWS art no longer has the relevance and appreciation that it did 10-20 years ago. It gives me no pleasure to point out that it's in a state of secular stagnation at best, but, it's so obvious at this point and people should be aware of that both in terms of if they are contemplating buying or selling and also as a cautionary tale about what can happen due to the shifting whims of the collector base over a decade or two.

I think if the material dries up and finds “forever homes”, the desire will go back up.  I am seeing something very similar going on with Schulz works.  Year after year, auction after auction of material has definitely resulted in a “I can always pick one up” if I really want to attitude and they aren’t wrong. 

[tth2]

On 11/17/2023 at 9:29 PM, delekkerste said:

Luckily, we don't have to wonder; the Conan #5 cover sold for $70K in the last ComicLink sale (vs. $66K at Heritage 5 years ago) and the #11 cover sold for $102K in the last Heritage sale (vs. $90K at Heritage 4 years ago; it probably would have fetched $75-90K 5 years before that). BWS Conan pages just sit on dealer sites these days going nowhere, even at prices which have barely budged over the past 4-5 years. I've even seen dealers over the past year or two actually mark down their asking prices on interiors and splashes to try and generate some interest. 

The best you can say is that the BWS Conan market is in a state of secular stagnation at the moment. Yes, of course there are certain pages and issues where the art would go nuts if it became available, but, that has always been the case. If, theoretically, Red Nails was broken up now, of course it would fetch eye-popping numbers, but, I know people who were willing to pay 2023 prices (or close to them) back in 2013 (and even made overtures to Thibodeaux) so the actual real price escalation would be far less than people think.  

One major factor, in my opinion, is that particularly for the earlier issues the art really wasn't that good.  I mean I always knew that he was transitioning from his Kirby-esque style in the early issues to his pre-Raphaelite style in the later issues, but it's only in looking at the pages in B&W on a standalone basis now that I've realized how awkwardly drawn a lot of them were, or at least a lot more awkward than I remember when I was actually reading the comics many years ago.  Maybe it's because I was as much focused on Roy Thomas' writing as I was on the art back then, or maybe because the printed pages being in color made them look better, but for whatever reason a lot of the pages that've come to market haven't blown me away.

Also, almost all of the pages that've come to market seem to be lots and lots of panels and not that many big dynamic images of Conan fighting.  I no longer have copies so can't look back to see if there simply weren't that many pages with splashes or half splashes or at least with really good images of Conan, or if there were but they are being retained in collections and only the mediocre pages are being released into the market.   

[tth2]

I just noticed that the Corben page from Voice of Comicdom #17 is currently sitting at $31,200.  That seems really high for a page which quite frankly doesn't do much for me, and is much higher than I've seen for any of his other panel pages.

[delekkerste]

On 11/17/2023 at 10:48 AM, tth2 said:

One major factor, in my opinion, is that particularly for the earlier issues the art really wasn't that good.  I mean I always knew that he was transitioning from his Kirby-esque style in the early issues to his pre-Raphaelite style in the later issues, but it's only in looking at the pages in B&W on a standalone basis now that I've realized how awkwardly drawn a lot of them were, or at least a lot more awkward than I remember when I was actually reading the comics many years ago.  Maybe it's because I was as much focused on Roy Thomas' writing as I was on the art back then, or maybe because the printed pages being in color made them look better, but for whatever reason a lot of the pages that've come to market haven't blown me away.

Well, sure, but, the early art has been what it is for more than half a century - did everyone just suddenly wake up and realize that it wasn't necessarily all that? More likely is that there's just been a change in tastes (fantasy vs. superhero, '70s-era styles vs. mid-80s to the present modern looks) among the collector base. 

I think there's still a lot to like about the early covers and, with the exception of the #2 outlier ($264K during the collectibles mania of 2021) and the #15 (Elric was always going to get a decent price - $150K), it's been pretty disappointing to see this parade of early covers (#5, 6, 10, 11) sell for what I consider to be pretty disappointing prices the past couple of years. Even if the amounts don't look that low to some, just think about what else (far lesser art, IMO) sells for those prices or more these days and what the relative valuation differential was 10 years ago. 

[tth2]

On 11/18/2023 at 12:03 AM, delekkerste said:

Well, sure, but, the early art has been what it is for more than half a century - did everyone just suddenly wake up and realize that it wasn't necessarily all that?

Well, yeah. 

As you've said, the market has shifted from fanboys who looked at the art through nostalgia glasses to younger collectors who look at the art objectively and ask "So what's the big deal with the BWS Conan stuff?".

It'd be interesting to see some of the later pages with peak BWS art come to market to see what it would do.

[batman_fan]

On 11/17/2023 at 9:02 AM, tth2 said:

I just noticed that the Corben page from Voice of Comicdom #17 is currently sitting at $31,200.  That seems really high for a page which quite frankly doesn't do much for me, and is much higher than I've seen for any of his other panel pages.

I just saw that page 

[delekkerste]

On 11/17/2023 at 11:14 AM, tth2 said:

Well, yeah. 

As you've said, the market has shifted from fanboys who looked at the art through nostalgia glasses to younger collectors who look at the art objectively and ask "So what's the big deal with the BWS Conan stuff?".

Well, that's newer collectors, not guys like yourself. While I think there's some truth there, it feeds into the bigger picture of generally changing tastes over time for various reasons and not necessarily specific to BWS Conan.

On 11/17/2023 at 11:14 AM, tth2 said:

It'd be interesting to see some of the later pages with peak BWS art come to market to see what it would do.

I think we've seen time and again that people go nuts when something that wasn't available for so long suddenly becomes available. 

That said, even if some of this primo BWS Conan stuff comes out now/soon and sells for huge prices, please resist the urge to do a sack dance proclaiming the undying robust health of the BWS Conan market. Trust me when I say that I know people who were ready and willing to pay far-into-the-future prices for some of this material a decade ago and that whatever prices these pieces might fetch now probably aren't much (if at all) higher in a lot of cases. 

[Bronty]

On 11/17/2023 at 11:17 AM, batman_fan said:

I just saw that page 

Corben stuff has seemed strong lately.   I love his covers and I'm glad to see his work doing well.  

I had the same initial reaction to this page, but when I actually zoom in on the HA image, most of the panels really present quite well.

If it still isn't to your taste, 1971 undergrounds may not be for you in general?    I think its really pretty neat.    I wouldn't pay 30k for it, but its neat.

 

[gumbydarnit]

Way back in the early eighties... Conan books were always on the back wall of comic shops. As a kid I thought the back wall equaled important and historic... but I didn't really know why, I never understood the appeal of the title, but as BWS style developed, I do think he became a strong and important comic book artist. The early Conan work definitely doesn't hold any appeal for me, but man does his later work does!

Edited November 17, 2023 by gumbydarnit