Top Tier Comic Art is Far From It's Eventual 3 3

[grapeape]

I have no empirical evidence only intuition. I'm 56 years young, so I've seen a thing or two. Enough so that I have an outstanding offer from State Farm Insurance to be a claims adjuster 

I remember the year 1987 hanging out at Page After Page Comics and debating the value of the Mile High copy of Action Comics 1. The story we heard was a guy walked in with a briefcase with $300k, but his offer to buy was rejected.

This stunned us. Surely the refusal was a mistake. $300k in 1987 was a lot of money. Later I thought about it and told myself, if I owned the book, and didn't need money, I wouldn't sell either. 
 

My gut is telling me that we enjoyed a renaissance due to unusual factors related to the gloomy, doomsday Covid fear days. And now a lot of the heat has cooled.

 Perhaps a good deal of mid and lower tier material has lost its HOT value. I'm holding my best work. I believe there's a second wave that's coming in the next ten years that will explode the values of the best examples of OA that will distance the 2020-2022 period by a good amount.

Agree.

Disagree.

It's just my personal opinion, my gut.

what say you?

 

[fishbone]

Agree ?  Disagree ?  Let's just say that I so HOPE that your theory is correct, I would tend to think that OA will grow in desirability as it is truly "One-of-One" 

[Rick2you2]

“Hold value” isn’t necessarily the same as “hold price.” People who bought something and then see demand plummet are not likely going to be out there selling at a reduced price, unless they must, because they “remember when….” Prices, in other words, are “sticky downwards” which leaves them with the same collectors who slowly adjust to new realities. But “value”, with a vigorous buy/sell market, is different. What people read in their teens and twenties should have a heyday when they are in their late 40’s and 50’s into their early 60’s.

As to the art itself, I expect demand to drop for Golden Age, Atomic Age and Silver Age stuff in that order because the people who read them are older and/or dead. Some exceptions for special pieces, like early BM or Capt’n America should hold up. Then, Bronze Age will drop. It depends how long of a time line you are thinking about. I would expect that for most Silver Age, 10 years at most, with show declines in demand and top end pricing.

But, people who buy Peanuts, or other strips which still are rerun, will probably see increases. Don’t be surprised if Garfield one day becomes hot.

[malvin]

On 2/22/2024 at 1:24 PM, fishbone said:

Agree ?  Disagree ?  Let's just say that I so HOPE that your theory is correct, I would tend to think that OA will grow in desirability as it is truly "One-of-One" 

I also HOPE that theory is correct.

Our hobby is "one of one" because there is only one original page, but there are a lot of substitutes, i.e. unless you are fixated on a specific page, there are other pages from the same writer/artist team from that issue (or issues) with the superhero in costume and in action.

Malvin

[cloud cloddie]

Does truly top tier art ever lose its value? Besides from a few attempted quick flips of very high profile pieces, it seems like A+ pieces are a safe bet. What one considers top tier can vary with mileage…

[thehumantorch]

Seems like the good stuff has always gone up.  But comic art, comics, sports cards, any collectible, is only worth what the next person will pay for it.  I  invest in stock in companies that generate profits and I don't consider collectibles to be an investment.  But that's me and we all approach life differently.  

[Rick2you2]

On 2/22/2024 at 7:29 PM, cloud cloddie said:

Does truly top tier art ever lose its value? Besides from a few attempted quick flips of very high profile pieces, it seems like A+ pieces are a safe bet. What one considers top tier can vary with mileage…

It loses its sell potential. That’s what happened to Persian rugs, another art form with a narrow market. Top tier pricing occasionally went down after the 1980’s, but mostly it froze because sellers didn’t want to suffer a loss (or wounded pride). Run of the mill stuff sank like a rock with some losing over 3/4’s “value”. If you love a piece by all means buy it, but don’t assume youngsters will too.

[cstojano]

I actually think the one of one factor keeps pricing down, elevates the knowledge barrier to entry, "dumb money" isn't attracted as easily, etc. 

[tth2]

[timguerrero]

definitely prices will keep soaring.

[delekkerste]

On 2/22/2024 at 3:11 PM, grapeape said:

what say you?

I think there will be two competing forces at play:

1. The constant debasement of money (bullish for prices)

2. Demographic changes (likely not bullish)

My prediction is that one of these forces will be stronger than the other. 

[buttock]

You never know until you're put in the situation, and you never know what someone's situation is.  I have a group of friends with whom I grab beers from time to time and I threw out the question "how much would you have to get paid to be 7 feet tall?"  For those of us who are financially comfortable the number was at least $50M.  One of us, who isn't financially comfortable was at $250k.  That amount of money would change his station in life, but not for the rest of us.  

Similarly, I had a friend who has a top 3 collectible in the field get an insane offer, 2x market and we're talking big money for 99.7% of people.  But he's established and doesn't need the money, enjoys his job, doesn't have big debt.  It won't change his life, and he likes the item.  So what's the motivation to sell?  It's the mindset of a collector, and having what you want matters more than money.  

So until those people who own the items want the money more than the item - which is not a given - they may never show up.  

[grapeape]

I apologize that CGC and maybe my unsteady hand posted this topic x 2 threads same name. Yeesh.

[westform]

On 2/23/2024 at 7:05 AM, delekkerste said:

I think there will be two competing forces at play:

1. The constant debasement of money (bullish for prices)

2. Demographic changes (likely not bullish)

My prediction is that one of these forces will be stronger than the other. 

You could be right…or not. I feel strongly both ways.

[MAR1979]

On 2/22/2024 at 3:12 PM, grapeape said:

I have no empirical evidence only intuition. I'm 56 years young, so I've seen a thing or two. Enough so that I have an outstanding offer from State Farm Insurance to be a claims adjuster 

I remember the year 1987 hanging out at Page After Page Comics and debating the value of the Mile High copy of Action Comics 1. The story we heard was a guy walked in with a briefcase with $300k, but his offer to buy was rejected.

This stunned us. Surely the refusal was a mistake. $300k in 1987 was a lot of money. Later I thought about it and told myself, if I owned the book, and didn't need money, I wouldn't sell either. 
 

My gut is telling me that we enjoyed a renaissance due to unusual factors related to the gloomy, doomsday Covid fear days. And now a lot of the heat has cooled.

 Perhaps a good deal of mid and lower tier material has lost its HOT value. I'm holding my best work. I believe there's a second wave that's coming in the next ten years that will explode the values of the best examples of OA that will distance the 2020-2022 period by a good amount.

Agree.

Disagree.

It's just my personal opinion, my gut.

what say you?

 

Perhaps? Perhaps not?

[tth2]

On 2/23/2024 at 11:15 PM, buttock said:

I have a group of friends with whom I grab beers from time to time and I threw out the question "how much would you have to get paid to be 7 feet tall?"  For those of us who are financially comfortable the number was at least $50M.  One of us, who isn't financially comfortable was at $250k.  That amount of money would change his station in life, but not for the rest of us. 

I've read that 25% of all 7-footers in the world have played in the NBA.  For a 25% chance to play in the NBA, I would've thought that most people would be willing to pay to be 7 feet tall, not have to be paid.  

[The Voord]

On 2/24/2024 at 6:02 AM, tth2 said:

I've read that 25% of all 7-footers in the world have played in the NBA.  For a 25% chance to play in the NBA, I would've thought that most people would be willing to pay to be 7 feet tall, not have to be paid.  

I wonder how many midgets would jump at the chance of being 7ft tall (and pay for it)? *

*  No offence to midgets intended.

[Dr. Balls]

On 2/22/2024 at 1:11 PM, grapeape said:

Perhaps a good deal of mid and lower tier material has lost its HOT value. I'm holding my best work. I believe there's a second wave that's coming in the next ten years that will explode the values of the best examples of OA that will distance the 2020-2022 period by a good amount.

Agree.

Disagree.

It's just my personal opinion, my gut.

what say you?

My knee-jerk reaction is to say disagree, citing all the topical stuff like crashing economy, rising personal debt, etc - but when I look at the vintage car market (of which I spent lots of years in - but not the Barrett Jackson type stuff, obviously) - I have a tendency to agree on your assessment of the top end of the OA market. The top end of anything with nostalgia mixed with uniqueness seems to never waiver. However - at some point I have to wonder if the uniqueness of a thing becomes capped - because there is simply nothing unique left (I'm looking at you, Eurotrash Supercars)

I apologize for rambling, but here I go:

Not that I am collecting OA for "investment" purposes, nor do I expect to reap insane profits from my topless Rick Perry 'Catfight' cover but my future hope was that in the next ten years you speak about, there will be a whole new slew of "best examples" from a different era: the independent 90s. And as I speak about this, I am excluding artists like Lee, Platt, McFarlane, Miller, etc because they are already at the top and commanding huge numbers. I'm looking a little farther down the list.

Many people that collect the nose-bleed stuff by Romita, Kane, etc could already be into the 90's work with the aforementioned Masters, but there's a lot of excellent craftsmanship in other areas of that era - and while one could argue that the "objectification of women" may hold that genre down permanently - my hope is that collectors come to see that more as an empowerment issue, rather than a sexual issue. Sure, people slapped unrealistic women in sexy poses on everything in the 90's, but I stick by the assessment that the core reasoning for that was that the reward for developing empowered female characters was an increase in book sales. Sure, not completely altruistic - but that era did spearhead en masse the idea that strong women had stories to tell (the quality of those stories is another debate). With all that hope that collectors see it a different way, there are some serious roadblocks that bottleneck the amount of stuff in the 90's that is unique enough to stand the test of time combined with a continuation of it's own brand.

Did these independent stories make a mark on potential buyers? Do they have a fondness or emotional tie to the origin story of a girl-getting-revenge-for-being-abused from issues of Hari Kari? I'd say with 99% certainty, they did not. People probably look at stories like The Clone Saga, and despite it's derision - still have a sentimental place in their heart for it, and with much of it by Mark Bagley, it helps drive up value. However, those classic 90's stories are not as ubiquitous as stories from the 60s/70s/80s due to the amount of glut from the 90s era - meaning less people find an attachment to them or find them as widely-known.

Will some movie studio repurpose independent properties from the 90s? DC moving forward with The Authority is a good start towards bringing in characters that are not widely-known. Will studios look at delving into the "Bad Girl" era? As much as I'd love to see it, I doubt it - they'd have made a move on it by now. So much of the 90's independent art will not be showcased - because there will be no renewed interest in characters brought to audiences in a new medium like the classic Marvel and DC characters.

At some point, the big pieces from the 70's and then the 80's are just going to be locked up like the stuff from the 60's. Eventually people wanting to be part of the hobby are going to start driving up the next era - which they've already done to some extent - laying the groundwork for continued big prices for 90's stuff by the Top 10 artists, but it's arguable that those Top 10 artists can't hold up the whole genre. Will the hobby cap itself with those artists, or will there be a new focus on other artists simply because there's a void to fill between the $10,000-$100,000 original art price range?

Will rising tides lift all boats? I hope so - not just for monetary sake, but for enlightenment of craftsmanship of an era of art that I really love.

[grapeape]

On 2/24/2024 at 7:57 AM, Dr. Balls said:

My knee-jerk reaction is to say disagree, citing all the topical stuff like crashing economy, rising personal debt, etc - but when I look at the vintage car market (of which I spent lots of years in - but not the Barrett Jackson type stuff, obviously) - I have a tendency to agree on your assessment of the top end of the OA market. The top end of anything with nostalgia mixed with uniqueness seems to never waiver. However - at some point I have to wonder if the uniqueness of a thing becomes capped - because there is simply nothing unique left (I'm looking at you, Eurotrash Supercars)

I apologize for rambling, but here I go:

Not that I am collecting OA for "investment" purposes, nor do I expect to reap insane profits from my topless Rick Perry 'Catfight' cover but my future hope was that in the next ten years you speak about, there will be a whole new slew of "best examples" from a different era: the independent 90s. And as I speak about this, I am excluding artists like Lee, Platt, McFarlane, Miller, etc because they are already at the top and commanding huge numbers. I'm looking a little farther down the list.

Many people that collect the nose-bleed stuff by Romita, Kane, etc could already be into the 90's work with the aforementioned Masters, but there's a lot of excellent craftsmanship in other areas of that era - and while one could argue that the "objectification of women" may hold that genre down permanently - my hope is that collectors come to see that more as an empowerment issue, rather than a sexual issue. Sure, people slapped unrealistic women in sexy poses on everything in the 90's, but I stick by the assessment that the core reasoning for that was that the reward for developing empowered female characters was an increase in book sales. Sure, not completely altruistic - but that era did spearhead en masse the idea that strong women had stories to tell (the quality of those stories is another debate). With all that hope that collectors see it a different way, there are some serious roadblocks that bottleneck the amount of stuff in the 90's that is unique enough to stand the test of time combined with a continuation of it's own brand.

Did these independent stories make a mark on potential buyers? Do they have a fondness or emotional tie to the origin story of a girl-getting-revenge-for-being-abused from issues of Hari Kari? I'd say with 99% certainty, they did not. People probably look at stories like The Clone Saga, and despite it's derision - still have a sentimental place in their heart for it, and with much of it by Mark Bagley, it helps drive up value. However, those classic 90's stories are not as ubiquitous as stories from the 60s/70s/80s due to the amount of glut from the 90s era - meaning less people find an attachment to them or find them as widely-known.

Will some movie studio repurpose independent properties from the 90s? DC moving forward with The Authority is a good start towards bringing in characters that are not widely-known. Will studios look at delving into the "Bad Girl" era? As much as I'd love to see it, I doubt it - they'd have made a move on it by now. So much of the 90's independent art will not be showcased - because there will be no renewed interest in characters brought to audiences in a new medium like the classic Marvel and DC characters.

At some point, the big pieces from the 70's and then the 80's are just going to be locked up like the stuff from the 60's. Eventually people wanting to be part of the hobby are going to start driving up the next era - which they've already done to some extent - laying the groundwork for continued big prices for 90's stuff by the Top 10 artists, but it's arguable that those Top 10 artists can't hold up the whole genre. Will the hobby cap itself with those artists, or will there be a new focus on other artists simply because there's a void to fill between the $10,000-$100,000 original art price range?

Will rising tides lift all boats? I hope so - not just for monetary sake, but for enlightenment of craftsmanship of an era of art that I really love.

Some good takes, thank you. For the 90's period Witchblade stood out for me. I am on the side of the argument that "objectification of women" as an art form will always appeal to the audience it was intended for. Any protest, or downward pressure to censure the art form ultimately majes it more desirable.

Mark Bagley's Amazing Spider-Man run has a lot of fans. He is a ⭐️ to watch over these next few years.

The point of this thread is pretty simple. The best known copy of comic fandoms signature superhero now trades for millions. But I remember the day when it would've sold for a fraction of the price. Many other golden age comics of the same time period sell in the hundreds of dollars.

So, figure out what's the cream of your collection, and let it rise to the top.

 

[JC25427N]

I think we need a 3rd copy of this thread running for us to discuss this, there's just too much to unpack here