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

[grapeape]

On 2/24/2024 at 8:43 AM, JC25427N said:

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

I wish I knew how to combine them.

[Dr. Balls]

I am continually waiting for the topic of Bottom Tier art to get floated around here so we can discuss the nuances between Shelby Robertson vs Stephen Platt, Mark Pajarillo vs David Finch and John Royle vs J Scott Campbell.

[Rick2you2]

On 2/24/2024 at 10:57 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.

I have made this point before in different contexts, but everything is relative, Sure those V-12 Packards from the 1930’s have gone up, but relative to older Ferrari’s? Not so much. And then there are still unsung bargains out there, like the late 1960’s Toronado’s or even the Studebaker Hawk GT’s of the early 1960’s which deserve better fan attention. 

By the 1990’s, I lost a lot of interest in reading these books. Too many retreads of old story lines but in newer, better packages. The art, overall, is often better by the 1990’s, but I have no particular nostalgia for virtually any of it. And no, I don’t think empowerment of women was a driving force. More equality with men, but let’s face: people liked seeing images of Power Girl for reasons having less to do with her attitude than her attributes.

And then, you hit the biggest problems: demographics and sales. Fewer buyers means less nostalgia, higher prices and competition from video games, among other things, reduced them. So you are left with a smaller potential art collectors market among fans who are less likely to be rabid fans—even if the art is often objectively better IMO. 

Result: relative to older stuff, and factoring in inflation, is a lower top end. Not Tulipmania, but not the “old days” either.

[Dr. Balls]

On 2/24/2024 at 11:25 AM, Rick2you2 said:

By the 1990’s, I lost a lot of interest in reading these books. Too many retreads of old story lines but in newer, better packages. The art, overall, is often better by the 1990’s, but I have no particular nostalgia for virtually any of it.

I think that's a pretty big factor: lots of people walking away during the 90's era and when they came back to comics - they came back to the era they loved which was the 60s/70s/80s. I'm the first to admit the stuff in the 90s - storywise - is tough to enjoy, especially the independent stuff that was trying to establish new characters with immense artistic talent. I adore Jim Lee, but his writing just couldn't make his titles compelling. So few of those guys could balance the artistic skill with captivating stories (there were not many Frank Millers, Walt Simonsens and Jim Starlins out there). Long-term, that creates a huge void in the emotional connections people have with the era. Not to mention the few attempts at moving them into other medias (action figures, trading cards, animation and movies) didn't quite work out. And those that did work out - like action figures and trading cards - were quickly lost in the title wave of bandwagon retailing by everyone making an action figure of their own indy characters.

The result of that was a tidal wave of product that retailers were taking the hit on for over-ordering and getting burned. I mean, there were Avengelyne action figures sitting on the same shelf as Spawn figures. One Lady Death card set was comprised solely of partial page panels cropped horribly, scanned at low-res and put on a card - it was complete garbage, yet advertised as something people wanted - which would not be the case once you opened up the first pack, likely leaving the rest of the case to collect dust on the comic shop owner's shelf.

With that being said, you now not only have an era of comics that less people are interested in simply because of the sheer volume of what was available, but now you have retailers picking-and-choosing what *might* be hot, gambling on the comic craze, likely getting burned as equally as they profited. To make matters worse, collectors new to the hobby were misled into thinking all their purchases would triple in value overnight, and old collectors were subjected to subpar stories with flashy art - making it a hot mess for the era.

I speak from experience on this, I had my comic shop in the mid-90s and it was hard to navigate even being completely submersed in it - combined with the new trading card game glut. Believe it or not, I opted out of that new TCG called Magic: The Gathering because I thought it was a hokey D&D knockoff and no one would play it because D&D was so much cooler to participate in. I opted to put my retail revenue into Star Trek: TNG and Star Wars trading card games. My buddy who also owned a shop became the local MTG dealer and made hand-over-fist in money, while I was trying to convince people to buy the Lt. Commander Data card because it gave you a +3 for logical thinking or some such nonsense.

Anyways, this is all well-known by everyone here - my point is that the next era of OA has far less examples to showcase than the previous Silver, Bronze and Copper age eras. There are a lot 90's pieces at the top tier, but I'd wager not in the same quantity as the previous eras - and I think the quality problems of that era are going to contribute to a lower threshold as time goes on.

Edited February 24 by Dr. Balls

[Peter L]

Up to now, I have been bullish on comic art and believed it could continue to go up.  I have a different opinion now.

A lot of my opinion was that comics would still be relevant, especially Marvel because Disney was such a smart organization on how to keep their IP relevant.  Based on the poor choices at Disney management, it looks like they are destroying every part of their empire.  I read they just sold the rights to make physical media for their films to Sony.  Disney looks like they are bleeding money making flop after flop for choices other than what fans want to pay for.  Of course I am trying to explain this in a non-political way, but if you know the context, I'm sure you understand this.  Making money and making fans are not the priorities of Disney as it has been in the past.  Comic store owners I speak to also explain how Disney is hurting their businesses with bad distribution deals and bad business practices that take short term bucks over long term investment decisions.  I am taking a huge loss on the Disney stock I own.

WB Discovery is also making bad business decisions for other reasons, but also quite a mess.  

I suppose both corps could be bought out or have new management but I wouldn't bet on that or that things will turn around or be ok for either company.

The comic book industry is suffering from downstream bad corporate choices.  They are not making new fans.  There is a big collectors swap meet like show called Frank and Sons in Los Angeles. I use it as a barometer for what is popular among kids.   It used to be mostly comics and some cards maybe 20 years ago.  Now it only has a few tables for comics, and a few more rows for sports cards, and a lot of pokemon.  Times change and kids nowdays do not seem interested in the latest political message comics for some reason.  The best selling comic in the US is Dogman now.  They are actually good but they are for kids.  I spoke to a huge comic store owner who is my friend and he never heard of Dogman even though he has a kid.  

I have and read every Superman comic from something like the early 80s to early 2000s, and some after but they became harder and harder to read.  The new comics are mostly awful and unreadable, not just for politics but storytelling flaws.  

Comics used to be disposable and cheap.  In an era where everyone is being squeezed by $18 Big Mac meals, most kids don't have money to throw away on 18 page decompressed comics of mostly art and little plot and with perhaps objectionable or insulting messages.

I think Pokemon will be relevant and see the 30 year bump in values down the road.  After we die off, I don't see new comic readers being created who will be interested in the art that is left.  I tried reading early Marvel Masterpieces (first few Avengers, Fantastic Four, Spider-man) to kids recently and no one was interested.  No one was interested in any new book or Star Wars show or Marvel tv show.  I'm not going to show kids the comic where Superman was raped in prison.  History will look back at the last few years of the destruction of Disney and WB and the comic book industry as a turning point as we do as the start of the Silver Age or the release of DKR and Watchmen.  This is a big inflection point and we are going to look back at this time with sadness where things could have been different but the worse case scenario occurred.  

If something I really want comes up for a good price like a particular DKR page or something I liked, I would still buy it at the right price.  I'm young enough to appreciate it before I enter the retirement phase and need to sell before my death.  But as an investment or even for fun, all of the modern bad current iterations of the characters are staining my previous good feelings towards the characters.

[Dr. Balls]

On 2/24/2024 at 12:21 PM, Peter L said:

The comic book industry is suffering from downstream bad corporate choices.  They are not making new fans.

I'd offer that it goes a step further: they're not only not making new fans, they are driving potential fans away - and for current fans, it's like they are covering themselves in Axe body spray to keep us from embracing them.

With all due respect to Tom Brevoort - who clearly has decades of experience - if he is summing up the entire X-Men universe by saying "The message is the premise." He's not only not the man for the job, but has such tunnel vision about the singular topic that is so cryptically w0k3 - I (along with anyone who is an X-fan) are probably deeply worried.

Yessssssss, the X-Men are a metaphor for accepting those who are different than others - but gat-damn, it's so much more than that. I would expect someone of his position to spend a little time wordsmithing a more apt way to describe this new sector of storytelling for the MCU.

It's about family (the general relationship). It's about loss (Dark Phoenix, Phalanx Covenant, etc). It's about courage in the face of certain death or danger (The Fall of the Mutants, Jubilee rescuing Wolverine in Australia, etc), it's got soap opera betrayals (rogue and Gambit), it's about friends who are enemies (Chuck and Mags), it's about changing who you are for the better (Bobby Drake) or the worse (Archangel). It's about doing the moral thing instead of the right thing (Cyclops vs new X-Force)- It just goes on and on.

To reduce what the whole universe is to one flippant quote because Tom wanted to try and dunk on some guy who is absolutely 100% correct - fan or not - means that Marvel is just not learning the lessons that are hemorrhaging them money. I'm sure he was going for brevity, but man - this is one property where you want to expend a little nuance when describing it, because it's got an entire universe's depth on its own.

Swinging back to your post - I agree that these are the kinds of things that can damage the long-term viability of the OA hobby, specifically X-Men. How many new fans will they generate using this current course of action and tone that will step up 10 years from now to pay $1M for a Jim Lee X-Men page?

[buttock]

On 2/23/2024 at 11:02 PM, 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.  

Every day would be inconvenient.  Nothing is built for someone your size.  Everybody stares at you and makes stupid comments.  You don't fit in chairs, cars, clothing, shoes.  Everything you use regularly would need to be custom built/sized.  That would take a lot of money to justify the inconvenience.  

[adamstrange]

On 2/24/2024 at 7:13 PM, buttock said:

On 2/24/2024 at 1:02 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.  

Every day would be inconvenient.  Nothing is built for someone your size.  Everybody stares at you and makes stupid comments.  You don't fit in chairs, cars, clothing, shoes.  Everything you use regularly would need to be custom built/sized.  That would take a lot of money to justify the inconvenience.  

If you're tall but you're un-athletic, you have a lot of downsides with little upside from the height.  If you reached that height from Marfan Syndrome, even $50M isn't going to seem enough compensation.

[grapeape]

On 2/24/2024 at 11:21 AM, Peter L said:

Up to now, I have been bullish on comic art and believed it could continue to go up.  I have a different opinion now.

A lot of my opinion was that comics would still be relevant, especially Marvel because Disney was such a smart organization on how to keep their IP relevant.  Based on the poor choices at Disney management, it looks like they are destroying every part of their empire.  I read they just sold the rights to make physical media for their films to Sony.  Disney looks like they are bleeding money making flop after flop for choices other than what fans want to pay for.  Of course I am trying to explain this in a non-political way, but if you know the context, I'm sure you understand this.  Making money and making fans are not the priorities of Disney as it has been in the past.  Comic store owners I speak to also explain how Disney is hurting their businesses with bad distribution deals and bad business practices that take short term bucks over long term investment decisions.  I am taking a huge loss on the Disney stock I own.

WB Discovery is also making bad business decisions for other reasons, but also quite a mess.  

I suppose both corps could be bought out or have new management but I wouldn't bet on that or that things will turn around or be ok for either company.

The comic book industry is suffering from downstream bad corporate choices.  They are not making new fans.  There is a big collectors swap meet like show called Frank and Sons in Los Angeles. I use it as a barometer for what is popular among kids.   It used to be mostly comics and some cards maybe 20 years ago.  Now it only has a few tables for comics, and a few more rows for sports cards, and a lot of pokemon.  Times change and kids nowdays do not seem interested in the latest political message comics for some reason.  The best selling comic in the US is Dogman now.  They are actually good but they are for kids.  I spoke to a huge comic store owner who is my friend and he never heard of Dogman even though he has a kid.  

I have and read every Superman comic from something like the early 80s to early 2000s, and some after but they became harder and harder to read.  The new comics are mostly awful and unreadable, not just for politics but storytelling flaws.  

Comics used to be disposable and cheap.  In an era where everyone is being squeezed by $18 Big Mac meals, most kids don't have money to throw away on 18 page decompressed comics of mostly art and little plot and with perhaps objectionable or insulting messages.

I think Pokemon will be relevant and see the 30 year bump in values down the road.  After we die off, I don't see new comic readers being created who will be interested in the art that is left.  I tried reading early Marvel Masterpieces (first few Avengers, Fantastic Four, Spider-man) to kids recently and no one was interested.  No one was interested in any new book or Star Wars show or Marvel tv show.  I'm not going to show kids the comic where Superman was raped in prison.  History will look back at the last few years of the destruction of Disney and WB and the comic book industry as a turning point as we do as the start of the Silver Age or the release of DKR and Watchmen.  This is a big inflection point and we are going to look back at this time with sadness where things could have been different but the worse case scenario occurred.  

If something I really want comes up for a good price like a particular DKR page or something I liked, I would still buy it at the right price.  I'm young enough to appreciate it before I enter the retirement phase and need to sell before my death.  But as an investment or even for fun, all of the modern bad current iterations of the characters are staining my previous good feelings towards the characters.

The powers that be at DC the moment they dreamed up the final nail for his coffin.

[buttock]

On 2/25/2024 at 2:49 AM, adamstrange said:

If you're tall but you're un-athletic, you have a lot of downsides with little upside from the height.  If you reached that height from Marfan Syndrome, even $50M isn't going to seem enough compensation.

Yeah, for me the absolute floor was $100M.  It would have to be enough to not only cover all the inconveniences, but also to still be a life-changing amount afterward.  

[tth2]

On 2/26/2024 at 6:08 AM, buttock said:

On 2/25/2024 at 5:49 PM, adamstrange said:

If you're tall but you're un-athletic, you have a lot of downsides with little upside from the height.  If you reached that height from Marfan Syndrome, even $50M isn't going to seem enough compensation.

Yeah, for me the absolute floor was $100M.  It would have to be enough to not only cover all the inconveniences, but also to still be a life-changing amount afterward.  

Being 5'6", I would definitely prefer to err on the side of being too tall than too short.   (Obviously setting aside major health issues, but it's not like short people can't have health issues too.)

I would certainly rather be 7' tall than 4' tall.

[buttock]

On 2/25/2024 at 10:40 PM, tth2 said:

Being 5'6", I would definitely prefer to err on the side of being too tall than too short.   (Obviously setting aside major health issues, but it's not like short people can't have health issues too.)

I would certainly rather be 7' tall than 4' tall.

Now that's a good question.  I'm 6 feet and I wouldn't pay much to be an inch or two taller, I'd pay more to NOT be an inch or two shorter.  But I'm not sure if I'd rather be really short or really tall.  

[BS Damutantman]

I only started collecting OA within the past few years, so I don't have any historical basis for these points, but these are two aspects I think are likely to impact the OA market over the next 10-20 years:

• The increasing recognition of OA as a legitimate art form by museums and other institutions. More recognition further legitimizes the significant values achieved by higher-end pieces for outside art investors/collectors, which could bring more of their money to the market. It also seems like a good way to bring in younger collectors. I've been to the SDCC museum a few times in recent years. During the Spider-Man and Stan-Lee exhibits, I saw at least a few groups of youths (younger than high school) going through the exhibit, getting excited about how cool the original art looked and talking about how they would draw Spidey. These youths could easily become the next generation of collectors in 10-20 years. They might not be gunning for 4-6 figure pieces, but more collectors means a healthier overall market.
   
• A lot of OA nowadays is partially or entirely digital. I'm curious to see how this will impact the market; will the current OA be more valuable because less was physically made? Will it limit the entry points for future collectors? E.g., individuals reading books now who decide to kickstart their OA collection in some years by finding pages from the stories that impacted them as youths, only to see no physical OA exists. This last point is particularly resonant with my entry to OA. I've been a comic guy and gamer since I was a kid. I was aware of OA but primarily stuck to comics. Finding some pages from the 90s comic adaptation of my favorite video game (Resident Evil) finally pushed me into collecting OA. Now, I've expanded my OA collection to include many different types of pages I was always interested in but was not ready to pull the trigger on. If that original Resident Evil art had been only digital, I don't know if I would have made the jump. 

[grapeape]

On 2/26/2024 at 8:02 AM, BS Damutantman said:

I only started collecting OA within the past few years, so I don't have any historical basis for these points, but these are two aspects I think are likely to impact the OA market over the next 10-20 years:

• The increasing recognition of OA as a legitimate art form by museums and other institutions. More recognition further legitimizes the significant values achieved by higher-end pieces for outside art investors/collectors, which could bring more of their money to the market. It also seems like a good way to bring in younger collectors. I've been to the SDCC museum a few times in recent years. During the Spider-Man and Stan-Lee exhibits, I saw at least a few groups of youths (younger than high school) going through the exhibit, getting excited about how cool the original art looked and talking about how they would draw Spidey. These youths could easily become the next generation of collectors in 10-20 years. They might not be gunning for 4-6 figure pieces, but more collectors means a healthier overall market.
   
• A lot of OA nowadays is partially or entirely digital. I'm curious to see how this will impact the market; will the current OA be more valuable because less was physically made? Will it limit the entry points for future collectors? E.g., individuals reading books now who decide to kickstart their OA collection in some years by finding pages from the stories that impacted them as youths, only to see no physical OA exists. This last point is particularly resonant with my entry to OA. I've been a comic guy and gamer since I was a kid. I was aware of OA but primarily stuck to comics. Finding some pages from the 90s comic adaptation of my favorite video game (Resident Evil) finally pushed me into collecting OA. Now, I've expanded my OA collection to include many different types of pages I was always interested in but was not ready to pull the trigger on. If that original Resident Evil art had been only digital, I don't know if I would have made the jump. 

Very good points. Just know that there are some on the board who insist comic OA will never crossover to, say, the fine art market. While they make relevant points about snobbery, Or Rembrandt vs. Sal Buscena... I still believe there is a way OA expands in some form over to the galleries of fine art. It's not always comparisons that drive an art market. Picasso is on another level than Don Heck. Okay. A given.

Art is intuitive, and the collector is a target for manipulation, but also self examination of what appeals to them. Now it only takes money and access, mixed with enthusiasm.and

A clever gallery rep will one day "challenge" the fine art world with primitive expression that relies less on comparing the talent of the fine art masters, but does mark a significant time period of the comic created form. Nostalgia and "one of a kind" art mix together and make a hell of drug.

I can't speak to digital art, other than to say it's what we have now. I prefer the old way.

I'm happy to hear your experience with young people and their expressed appreciation of comic art!

 

 I think are likely to impact the OA market over the next 10-20 years:

On 2/26/2024 at 8:02 AM, BS Damutantman said:

 

[Rick2you2]

On 2/26/2024 at 4:08 PM, grapeape said:

Very good points. Just know that there are some on the board who insist comic OA will never crossover to, say, the fine art market. While they make relevant points about snobbery, Or Rembrandt vs. Sal Buscena... I still believe there is a way OA expands in some form over to the galleries of fine art. It's not always comparisons that drive an art market. Picasso is on another level than Don Heck. Okay. A given.

Art is intuitive, and the collector is a target for manipulation, but also self examination of what appeals to them. Now it only takes money and access, mixed with enthusiasm.and

A clever gallery rep will one day "challenge" the fine art world with primitive expression that relies less on comparing the talent of the fine art masters, but does mark a significant time period of the comic created form. Nostalgia and "one of a kind" art mix together and make a hell of drug.

I can't speak to digital art, other than to say it's what we have now. I prefer the old way.

I'm happy to hear your experience with young people and their expressed appreciation of comic art!

 

 I think are likely to impact the OA market over the next 10-20 years:

 

The biggest problem with crossing over to appreciation like fine art, I think, is the pricing structure. Objectively, there is a lot of good work on less than popular subjects, and while that also affects fine art, I can’t imagine it is as profound. No one reads fine art as a kid. I have said this before, but IMO, romance comics would have a bigger audience among the general public than among the comic collecting readers, if only because so many of them are unintentionally funny. One of these days, I expect someone will figure out how to use cheap original art as decoupage.

[MAR1979]

Other than far and few exception/outliers everytime I thought a published pre 1986 Marvel or DC Superhero piece would go down in price I have been wrong. Plausible that will occur one day and I look forward to it, but not sure it will happen.

What already has occurred is its become a sector of the hobby for the wealthy or those who got in a long while ago.

Edited February 27 by MAR1979

[Rick2you2]

On 2/27/2024 at 1:48 PM, MAR1979 said:

Other than far and few exception/outliers everytime I thought a published pre 1986 Marvel or DC Superhero piece would go down in price I have been wrong. Plausible that will occur one day and I look forward to it, but not sure it will happen.

What already has occurred is its become a sector of the hobby for the wealthy or those who got in a long while ago.

As I mentioned before, prices are “sticky downward” (an old economics phrase). Best bet is to win at auction, where pricing is a little more flexible unless someone has put in a price protection bid on their own stuff.

[tth2]

On 2/28/2024 at 2:48 AM, MAR1979 said:

What already has occurred is its become a sector of the hobby for the wealthy or those who got in a long while ago.

[tth2]

On 2/28/2024 at 7:31 AM, Rick2you2 said:

unless someone has put in a price protection bid on their own stuff

Price protection bids are not just put in by people on their own stuff (which would be shilling).  Price protection bids are put in by people who are not the owner but who own similar pieces and want to protect the value of their pieces. 

[MAR1979]

On 2/28/2024 at 3:00 AM, tth2 said:

Price protection bids are not just put in by people on their own stuff (which would be shilling).  Price protection bids are put in by people who are not the owner but who own similar pieces and want to protect the value of their pieces. 

As I recall Burkey admitted on these very forums that he shills his own Heritage Auctions. It's totally legal in Texas, but likley immoral and unethical everywhere.

Edited February 28 by MAR1979