Are OA prices out of control? 7 7

[Rick2you2]

On 5/30/2024 at 10:23 AM, vodou said:

What I've seen playing in other deeper sandboxes is this is exactly what happens. Then they die and the kids or other heirs inherit stuff the don't want and it all goes into a local auction house. And everything but the A+++ material resells for significantly less that original purchase price paid decades before. And that's in nominal terms too, essentially a zero inflation adjusted.

Several years ago I bought a wonderful signature style oil by a once darling artist from a once darling region, heavily collected from 1950 through the mid/late 90s. I paid, all in including freight, 1/3 what it sold at Christie's for 30 years before.

I'm happy, and probably the kids are too 

Makes perfect sense to me. People love their treasures, even if no one else does. I seriously doubt that some of my hard sought after pieces of Phantom Stranger art will be particularly coveted, although some will. Ironically, the ones which were hardest to find will often be worth the least. I had an uncle who used to collect plate blocks of stamps (he worked in the post office). I doubt they have done too well. 

[tth2]

On 5/30/2024 at 7:36 AM, G.A.tor said:

what is interesting is when I started seriously collecting my art in 2021, I stumbled upon coolines before I had read all the info about them...they had many pages I wanted...I bought them all at the prices less a small discount....turned out in 2022/23 some similar type pages sold for 2-3x what I had paid...maybe I got lucky...but it seems to me that with art, as long as you want it and can justify buying it at listed price, it really can't be a "wrong" price, right?

Or it's just further proof of the Greater Fool Theory.

[Kevin76]

On 5/30/2024 at 12:25 AM, Fischb1 said:

You hate the advice because you misunderstood it. 

I'm not telling him to spend his mortgage payment on a piece of art he can't afford. I'm telling him to try and choose wisely on what to spend his money on because, as he pointed out, prices have gone way up. And the wisest way to choose imo, is to buy something you love (that you can afford). 

The alternative would be you telling him "yup, prices have gone up. It sucks. Leave the hobby." But I don't see it that way. 

I like this advice 

[Dr. Balls]

On 5/29/2024 at 9:02 PM, Kevin76 said:

I hate this type of advice...cause what most people love is Wrightson, Neal Adams, Dave Stevens, Mcfarlane, Jim Lee, Frank Miller and Jack Kirby and most collectors don't have that kind of money to spend 6 figures or millions to just "buy what they love"  "Buy what you love" doesn't mean "Buy garbage that you love"  

For me, that's the challenge. Finding art you love by artists who are not household names, but have immense talent that can be admired is a sure fire way to get enjoyment and embrace the hobby. Sure, it might be of non-classic characters, but I've learned to really admire many less-known artists. I'm not going to land a Stephen Platt 'Prophet' cover, but I really like the Shelby Robertson 'Morbid Angel' cover I have - they have a similar style. I admired the skill it took for him to create a hyper-detailed Platt-esque cover.

Do other people covet my Morbid Angel cover? Probably not, and probably never will - but that's not why I bought it. I came back to the OA part of the hobby knowing that I'll never likely touch the stratosphere artists, but I found a whole area of art that I really enjoy that fits my price range.

Life is too short to pine over things I can't have instead of enjoying the things I do have.

[MDK@cgc]

On 5/30/2024 at 5:26 PM, Dr. Balls said:

Life is too short to pine over things I can't have instead of enjoying the things I do have.

Very VERY wise words… for comic art collecting and, more importantly, everyday life. Great perspective. 

[Xatari]

I have shared this before on other threads, but this is how I go about my collecting these days and pass along the same feedback to a lot of my new friends entering the hobby. It helps eliminate accumulating too many pages that I’ll have trouble moving later on if my taste changes and also ensures my pages tend to be a bit more liquid if a nicer examples comes along as @Unstoppablejayd mentioned. Flexibility is key in this hobby as one never knows when a coveted piece becomes available. 
 

I guess I could add a third circle to indicate affordability as that is dependent on each prospective collector. 
 

 

[cstojano]

On 6/4/2024 at 7:08 AM, Xatari said:

I have shared this before on other threads, but this is how I go about my collecting these days and pass along the same feedback to a lot of my new friends entering the hobby. It helps eliminate accumulating too many pages that I’ll have trouble moving later on if my taste changes and also ensures my pages tend to be a bit more liquid if a nicer examples comes along as @Unstoppablejayd mentioned. Flexibility is key in this hobby as one never knows when a coveted piece becomes available. 
 

I guess I could add a third circle to indicate affordability as that is dependent on each prospective collector. 
 

 

Tried and true venn diagram. Another one, more rarely discussed is YOU LOVE on the left and DIRT CHEAP on the right, then you don't really care if you ever sell it. 

[Xatari]

Very true. The overlap would be very small though and potentially not intersect. 😂 

[cstojano]

On 6/4/2024 at 7:30 AM, Xatari said:

Very true. The overlap would be very small though and potentially not intersect. 😂 

Very true. I have such a niche. It pays to have been obsessed with some off brand pop culture when I was a kid in the 70s

[MAR1979]

On 5/30/2024 at 12:25 AM, Fischb1 said:

The alternative would be you telling him "yup, prices have gone up. It sucks. Leave the hobby." But I don't see it that way. 

yeah but for most it's true and more times than not, sound honest advice. Unless of course their interest is modern sketches or post 1990 C or lower list titles drawn by C or lower list artists - assuming mainstream hero art

On the whole those interested in truly collecting 80's and earlier  hero art either need to be approaching wealthy or have got into the hobby at least 8-10 years back.

 

 

Edited June 5 by MAR1979

[vodou]

[Xatari]

Do you happen to recall how they are defining wealth in your chart?

[Dr. Balls]

On 6/4/2024 at 8:02 PM, MAR1979 said:

On the whole those interested in truly collecting 80's and earlier  hero art either need to be approaching wealthy or have got into the hobby at least 8-10 years back.

Boy, ain't that the truth.

[MAR1979]

On 6/5/2024 at 10:29 AM, Dr. Balls said:

Boy, ain't that the truth.

Then of course there are the mythical (made-up) European buyers that at least one New England based art dealer rolls out at the drop of a hat.

[PhilipB2k17]

On 6/5/2024 at 12:32 PM, MAR1979 said:

Then of course there are the mythical (made-up) European buyers that at least one New England based art dealer rolls out at the drop of a hat.

They aren't mythical. I met a whole lot of them at Lake Como. But, they are just as price sensitive as American buyers

[delekkerste]

On 6/5/2024 at 2:12 PM, PhilipB2k17 said:

They aren't mythical. I met a whole lot of them at Lake Como. But, they are just as price sensitive as American buyers

[PhilipB2k17]

My 2 cents. 

When I first got into the hobby, I started out buying traditional comic art from the era I collected, basically 1980's. Of all the impulse buys I made at that time, only one or two didn't turn out to be good investments. Then, I got sucked into buying "modern" or "new" art and bought a bunch of stuff that I very likely never recoup my costs on. The stuff that I boght because I really like it as art doesn't bother me as much as the stuff I speculated on.

I gave up on trying to guess the market and decided to just buy stuff from my collecting era that I really like. That's worked out pretty well, as the stuff i have bought in that realm, while more expensive, is not not a black hole and will probably either go up or I won't lose much if I trade or sell it. 

Some of the stuff I bought on impulse for relatively cheap in 2016/2017 has been parlayed into better stuff via trades, etc. 

My advice is to not try and anticipate the market and buy what you really love. Try and get it for as low a price as you can reasonably afford, but when you stop worrying about the market, you are much happier. Besides, the expensive stuff is expensive for a reason: Demand.

[Dr. Balls]

On 6/5/2024 at 10:32 AM, MAR1979 said:

Then of course there are the mythical (made-up) European buyers that at least one New England based art dealer rolls out at the drop of a hat.

Whenever we eat out, if we get burnt bread - we always joke that it's "European Style". There was a bakery here in town (unsurprisingly, out of business now) that would routinely burn their breads and pastries and attempting to sell them as "that's how they eat it in Europe." (We live in Montana).

I'm not worldly in the art community, but when I hear of "European Buyers" I immediately say to myself: "What do they know about buying art? They pay for burnt bread!"

[Readcomix]

On 6/5/2024 at 2:57 PM, Dr. Balls said:

Whenever we eat out, if we get burnt bread - we always joke that it's "European Style". There was a bakery here in town (unsurprisingly, out of business now) that would routinely burn their breads and pastries and attempting to sell them as "that's how they eat it in Europe." (We live in Montana).

I'm not worldly in the art community, but when I hear of "European Buyers" I immediately say to myself: "What do they know about buying art? They pay for burnt bread!"

Jason, I love your story! But @MAR1979 they are real, and they know enough to scoop up fair deals on Kirby and John Buscema FF pages, because they’ve beaten me to the punch in my own backyard. They are not just buying online or at Lake Como once a year. They travel here to shop too. That’s my anecdotal experience, but it’s enough to know they are not  just mythical. 

[Brian Peck]

It's all a matter of perspective.

Yes there is alot of crazy priced OA out there today but you are just looking at the stuff everyone talks about. I have been collecting for almost 40 years seen the prices increase and yes I have cut back in my purchasing but alot has to do with me being more selecting of what I want.

Just speaking about published art not con drawings, commissions or pinups. Last year I bought 19 published pages under $1K including art by Giordano, Layton, Barrows, Guice two of which were covers, and I bought 3 pieces between $1K and $1500 Heck, Willingham and Gibbons.

This year I have only bought a dozen published art, due to a personal event. Of the 12, three were under $1K (including Swan and Guice), and 4 published art between $1K and $1500 by artists like Nrbres, Thorne, Dillin and Gindberg.

I did buy some higher end pieces in the last two years as well but to say everything is priced out of your budget is not true. Unless you only collect Kirby, Byrne, Miller, Etc. Over the last few years I have gotten alot of art under $1000 and I love it. I am a BIG Eduardo Barreto fan and I feel he is a great artist who has been over looked by collectors and I can find alot of his art for very reasonable prices.

So for those that say the whole market is over priced I say bull mess. Yes some artists work is priced out for many collectors but there is still alot of great art out there at reasonable prices. Again its all your perspective, $100 pages can be found but reality its good pages these days art more at $500. Just be patient and look for the art you like and much of it is not outregiuously priced.

Edited June 6 by Brian Peck