Are OA prices out of control? 7 7

[Aaron]

On 6/18/2024 at 8:26 PM, comix4fun said:

Two total posts and you come out of hibernation to post this? 

Well don’t really post here not much reason for me to but since I was at the auction and was sitting next to the under bidder thought this was really funny to see what happened in person 

[artdealer]

On 6/18/2024 at 8:29 PM, MyNameIsLegion said:

No, Pedro is a newbie that Xatari and Dinesh have been “advising” on investing in art. He got a cover recently that was a recreation of a cover Malvin owns and had a hard time accepting it wasn’t the published art. There’s a whole thread about it. 

Oohhhhhh…. The blind leading the blind!

[comix4fun]

On 6/18/2024 at 8:27 PM, Aaron said:

Well don’t really post here not much reason for me to but since I was at the auction and was sitting next to the under bidder thought this was really funny to see what happened in person 

So, you weren't with the actual high bidder, or the person bidding for the high bidder,  or Felix, or DWJ or anyone else that's being talked about in this thread? 

You got the see the underbidder bid and then not win and that somehow corroborates allegations against Felix for whatever nebulous stew of high crimes everyone else is too afraid to articulate but will still use to assassinate his character? 

They won't answer. They won't elaborate. So, we're left to place as much weight to the allegations as details given to corroborate or articulate accusations. Which is none. 

[Xatari]

And now the comedians arrive. 🤡 

[Xatari]

On 6/18/2024 at 5:53 PM, Grendel72 said:

I don't know about OA but this has truly gone out of control. There wont be any worthwhile outcome coming out of this.  All that can be said has been said. Both sides will not be budging.  Some of you guys bat in the major leagues. Surely you can play the bigger person and stop posting on this anymore. If not can you start your own 'Heroes Con" topic. This thread.has been crapped on enough.

Yeah. Fair enough. 

[Aaron]

On 6/18/2024 at 9:37 PM, comix4fun said:

So, you weren't with the actual high bidder, or the person bidding for the high bidder,  or Felix, or DWJ or anyone else that's being talked about in this thread? 

You got the see the underbidder bid and then not win and that somehow corroborates allegations against Felix for whatever nebulous stew of high crimes everyone else is too afraid to articulate but will still use to assassinate his character? 

They won't answer. They won't elaborate. So, we're left to place as much weight to the allegations as details given to corroborate or articulate accusations. Which is none. 

So I guess me saying I was next to the underbidder was lost to you I was there when he was told if you bid again you will win which I thought wow that’s not cool 

[Pedro Cruz]

On 6/18/2024 at 8:26 PM, comix4fun said:

I didn't see any "justifications". I've read all these posts and the only person actually posting details is Felix.
Given their responses to Felix's detailed account of the the sale of the Transformers piece that was EXACTLY who they were referencing. 

I also didn't see any "actions" taken by Felix. I heard of another art dealer, not present, asking a friend of his for decades to bid for him on a piece he wanted. That wasn't Felix. 
It's pretty frustrating to read all this, all the puffed up chests, and finger pointing, without a single detail of what the crime allegedly committed was. 
What are you alleging Felix did? 

I've asked a few people now to explain what they think happened or specifically what accusation they are making and nothing has been forthcoming.  Right now this is the most opaque, fuzzy and ambiguous smear campaign I can think of. I've heard "liar", "unprofessional" "not good human"  "sad" and "gross" and nothing of any real substance. Someone summon the bravery to say what they mean and back it up. 

Given Felix's response that he wasn't next to the winner and was instead with DWJ in another part of the auction room, I have to ask, have you ever seen Felix in person? 
 

I was there.  I saw the person run to the underbider and heard loud and clear the message of “I have been told to tell you that if you bid $x (which I think he said $14k but maybe was $12k, whatever the next bid was) you will win” 

then the bid closed as they were talking.  Shortly after, within a minute or so, Felix came from the side of the winning bidder and stoped next to the underbidder, and I heard him say it was a phone-in bid. That was very confusing to me.  I’m clearly new to this but thought that was weird and strange.  
 

But again, to me the most telling part is that he wasn’t called out at all on this thread.  Instead he started defending himself and throwing accusations and insults.  
 

Only the guilty feel that they need to justify their actions.  
 

 

[Xatari]

On 6/18/2024 at 6:18 PM, MyNameIsLegion said:

I wonder which artist Xatari is targeting that Felix reps in the hopes of getting access to his art? They seem to want his artists to see this dust up. This is all very contrived. 

You seem to have issues with me. You’ve said I’m advising people about investing in art and now targeting artists. Feel free to message me personally.  I’ll give you my direct number, and we can engage in a real conversation man to person. Nothing I’ve share about Felix has not been shared with him directly. I believe in going to the source. 

[LamboLGM]

On 6/18/2024 at 9:43 PM, Aaron said:

So I guess me saying I was next to the underbidder was lost to you I was there when he was told if you bid again you will win which I thought wow that’s not cool 

I see, you're the guy sitting next to underbidder who he helped with advice on two auctions you did bid on? I know him and spoke to him just today.  I was the winning bidder via proxy on this piece and sat far away from you. So I don't know who the heck told him such a thing. Maybe as a joke? Or talking out of his A? Because outside of me, nobody else knew what I had authority to bid up to and believe me, that wouldn't have been true whatsoever. 

[comix4fun]

On 6/18/2024 at 8:43 PM, Aaron said:

So I guess me saying I was next to the underbidder was lost to you I was there when he was told if you bid again you will win which I thought wow that’s not cool 

Told by whom? 

They were repeating that on what authority? 

Given who won and who two different people have said he was willing to go to on that piece it seems someone lied to your friend/underbidder but that's morphed into an axe to grind against Felix. I have to guess at most of this because....

This is what I am talking about. 1/2 sentences, no names, no details. But still used as proof of some still unformed allegation. 

What's lost is how some unnamed party, allegedly told the underbidder something about bidding, that you don't know who may have told him to say so, and that's somehow Felix bidding on his own artist's work through Lambert even though both of them, with a combined 60 years in this hobby with reputations for ethics and honesty that few can match, have detailed exactly the opposite and the people making vague allegations offer nothing. 

Reputations are hard earned and guys like Lambert and Felix are rare and BOTH have reputations for straight dealing, outing scammers, and nothing even close to what they are being vaguely accused of by people who haven't been in the hobby long enough to get to truly know anyone or anything about either of them outside of whatever assumptions they've made to forward their own agendas. 

When it's two men who I've known for 25+ years each and whom I have witnessed their honesty and integrity more times than I can count and faceless, nameless, accusations without anything to back them up. You can see how reasonable people will not be willing to take some new person's word, especially when they offer no details, over people they actually know and have actually assessed their character. 

[Pedro Cruz]

On 6/18/2024 at 8:29 PM, MyNameIsLegion said:

No, Pedro is a newbie that Xatari and Dinesh have been “advising” on investing in art. He got a cover recently that was a recreation of a cover Malvin owns and had a hard time accepting it wasn’t the published art. There’s a whole thread about it. 

Funny, you use false narrative to try and silence the truth by proving a point you have no way of proving either. 

I might be a newbie, but you’re clearly a troll without any decent original thought. 

 I saw Malvin’s thread and felt sad for him.  I wasn’t going to add to the fire like many of you did.   

BTW, at heroes, my page was legitimized as the real original art by the artist.  But, you don’t care about the truth, only about rage bating people for your amusement.   🫤🥲

[comix4fun]

On 6/18/2024 at 8:59 PM, Pedro Cruz said:

I was there.  I saw the person run to the underbider and heard loud and clear the message of “I have been told to tell you that if you bid $x (which I think he said $14k but maybe was $12k, whatever the next bid was) you will win” 

then the bid closed as they were talking.  Shortly after, within a minute or so, Felix came from the side of the winning bidder and stoped next to the underbidder, and I heard him say it was a phone-in bid. That was very confusing to me.  I’m clearly new to this but thought that was weird and strange.  
 

But again, to me the most telling part is that he wasn’t called out at all on this thread.  Instead he started defending himself and throwing accusations and insults.  
 

Only the guilty feel that they need to justify their actions.  
 

 

You're the only person who thinks he wasn't called out in this thread. 
Even the people calling him out knew they were calling him out in this thread. 

They even posted memes about it. 

If you don't think they were calling him out and that it was crystal clear by their instant responses to Felix's (AGAIN) detailed set of facts clearing up the false claims, you're having a harder time reading and understanding what's being posted here than you think. And the assumptions you're making and language you're using is beyond over the top and extraordinarily reckless given how little actual first hand knowledge you seem to possess. 

You may want to really get to know the people you're assuming are telling you the truth and the people you're assuming are "guilty" before you leap....you're attacking two of the straightest no B.S. people in the entire hobby with nothing more than an off hand comment from an underling at the auction who could have been just as easily saying "you've got to go $12k if you want to be winning" (which is what auctioneers do to tell people what they have to bid to take the lead), but you've morphed that into iron clad proof of guilt and it's really poor judgment on your part. No other way to say it. 

[Nexus]

On 6/18/2024 at 6:43 PM, Aaron said:

So I guess me saying I was next to the underbidder was lost to you I was there when he was told if you bid again you will win which I thought wow that’s not cool 

If this is what happened, then no, that isn't cool. But whoever this person was, it wasn't me. And I didn't put anyone up to it, either. It's also totally wrong, because whatever number you say you heard, wouldn't have won the piece.

Again, ask anyone who was in the room if I told them what to bid or to even bid at all. The underbidder himself volunteered to me beforehand that he was planning to bid $8K and asked if that would win it. I didn't ask. That number actually seemed high to me. I told him I thought he did have a good chance to win at $8K. He ended up bidding even more when the auction went down, but that was the extent of my interaction with him prior. He can confirm all this.

Also, again, neither Dan nor I have anything to gain from the art selling for whatever number. We don't get a cut; it all goes to support the show. It's also not a data point that really matters. His market is his market. It's up to Heroes to promote the piece properly and to get as much as they can for themselves. Last year, they sold Dan's TRANSFORMERS painting on Sunday where it went for a song. That's their loss, not ours. If it happened again this year, that would be sad for them. But it would mean nothing to us.

[comix4fun]

On 6/18/2024 at 9:20 PM, Nexus said:

If this is what happened, then no, that isn't cool. But whoever this person was, it wasn't me. And I didn't put anyone up to it, either. It's also totally wrong, because whatever number you say you heard, wouldn't have won the piece.

 

Actual veterans of Heroes Con Art Auctions ( I've been attending almost every year for over 20 years, probably closer to 30, sad to miss this one) know a few things. 

1) It's a loud room
2) It's fast paced on the bigger pieces, making the room louder with all the people shocked by the numbers
3) Auction underlings and helpers will come out to bidders when the numbers get up super high and let people know where things stand
4) They will say things like "You've got to go $X to take the lead" or "If you want to be winning you've got to bid $X"....

In a loud room, with drinks flowing, and people shouting, and auction bids flying.....it's entirely possible that some minion helping out with the auction went to the guy or guys NOT in the lead and said something like "You're not winning right now, you've got to bid $X if you want to be winning" and that can be heard a lot of different ways by a lot of different people.....especially in the post mortem if any of them have personal baggage brought to the translation.

I am just giving everyone a chance to go back, examine what they really KNOW and what they only HEARD or were TOLD, and that maybe they've gotten this horribly wrong and they've used it to smear people who didn't do anything, at all, wrong. I can only assume that's why one offhand comment by an anonymous auction worker is doing so much heavy lifting in this accusation. 

Edited June 19 by comix4fun

[LamboLGM]

On 6/18/2024 at 9:39 PM, Xatari said:

Yeah. Fair enough. 

Fair enough? So sling some bs around and make up stuff that didn't happen and then say as proof "First, I was there, this is not what happened." when Dinesh wasn't anywhere near me at anytime before, during and after the auction. But yeah, now lets end it without discussing the veracity of the allegations.  sure.  I see how you roll.

So I ask again, Dinesh, were you in my lap when Albert texted me at 9 pm and saw what was on my phone?

Maybe he was!!! HOLY MOLEY!  I totally missed Dinesh's FIRST APPEARANCE in my lap!!!!!!    

I heard that was a thing! Shoot, I should have NFT that!!!

and NO, I won't let CGC slab my lap! you wise guys! 

Edited June 19 by LamboLGM

[Michael Browning]

On 6/18/2024 at 8:20 PM, Bronty said:

What can I say, I don’t want to sleep with the fishes!

My main point is that, as blazingbob said on these forums 10+ years ago, there’s barely even such a thing as a dealer anymore.   There’s buyers, and there’s sellers, and the same guy is one on Monday and the other on Tuesday.   
 

I think they get a rough ride around here sometimes and as collectors, it’s not like our own poop doesn’t stink.   Plenty of “collectors” behave badly (and plenty behave well).    
 

Flad to hear you’re sometimes taking the other side because I don’t think there is enough of that here.   Seeing things from someone else’s perspective usually changes the conversation. 

I’m just trying not to get fitted for cement boots. 😂

[Xatari]

@LamboLGM I’ve not said anything about you, and frankly didn’t mention Felix until he decided to share. Even then, as I stated before, it’s not my story to tell. I did not want the underbidder to get sucked into drama without his choosing, so I remained silent about the details, addressing Felix only. 

However, when Felix started bashing first appearances collectors, a very strong subset of his collecting base, as gamblers, speculators, rookie card chasers, and not true collectors, then I will engage.

I posted a very specific solicitation from Felix himself where he hypes this very thing then turns around and lists at higher than normal pricing (which is what this thread is about). When you mock your customer base then turn around and try to say “just kidding this is awesome… buy, buy, buy”, I have an issue with that. I have spoken with Felix directly about this long before I ever posted publicly, but when he said those thing this morning, I am going to call out the duplicity.

Again, I shared all of this with Felix directly, not in the shadows or behind keyboards like many here have chosen. Felix continues to accuse me of being some comic art investor who is buying for profit. It’s pretty easy to look at my CAF and see what I have bought and kept.  That accusation fits his narrative, and is not something I appreciate but sticks and stones…

Perhaps you should go back and reread everything with fresh eyes.

 

[Unstoppablejayd]

On 6/18/2024 at 10:31 PM, LamboLGM said:

Fair enough? So sling some bs around and make up stuff that didn't happen and then say as proof "First, I was there, this is not what happened." when Dinesh wasn't anywhere near me at anytime before, during and after the auction. But yeah, now lets end it without discussing the veracity of the allegations.  sure.  I see how you roll.

So I ask again, Dinesh, were you in my lap when Albert texted me at 9 pm and saw what was on my phone?

Maybe he was!!! HOLY MOLEY!  I totally missed Dinesh's FIRST APPEARANCE in my lap!!!!!!    

I heard that was a thing! Shoot, I should have NFT that!!!

and NO, I won't let CGC slab my lap! you wise guys! 

Lambo Lap Slab!!!! I know people would bid on that! 

[delekkerste]

The case against Felix and Lambert's version of events all hinges on one singular point: that there was someone who told the underbidder, under instruction from Felix, what it would take to win the DWJ Transformers piece because the auction was shilled/rigged. Without this, there is less than nothing to substantiate any of the accusations. 

So, I'm an open-minded person. If someone can identify/describe this person and establish some sort of connection to Felix, I'm all ears. But if not, it sounds far more likely and just makes so much more sense (I'm very much both an Occam's and Hanlon's Razor kind of guy) that someone overheard/misheard something that was said by a person of no actual relevance (such as in the hypothetical @comix4fun described above) and jumped to the wrong conclusion about it. And then this got a group of collectors riled up who felt they had been slighted by Felix in the past, and was used as a cudgel to escalate this prior/ongoing grievance. 

[LamboLGM]

On 6/18/2024 at 10:48 PM, Xatari said:

@LamboLGM I’ve not said anything about you, and frankly didn’t mention Felix until he decided to share. Even then, as I stated before, it’s not my story to tell. I did not want the underbidder to get sucked into drama without his choosing, so I remained silent about the details, addressing Felix only. 

However, when Felix started bashing first appearances collectors, a very strong subset of his collecting base, as gamblers, speculators, rookie card chasers, and not true collectors, then I will engage.

I posted a very specific solicitation from Felix himself where he hypes this very thing then turns around and lists at higher than normal pricing (which is what this thread is about). When you mock your customer base then turn around and try to say “just kidding this is awesome… buy, buy, buy”, I have an issue with that. I have spoken with Felix directly about this long before I ever posted publicly, but when he said those thing this morning, I am going to call out the duplicity.

Again, I shared all of this with Felix directly, not in the shadows or behind keyboards like many here have chosen. Felix continues to accuse me of being some comic art investor who is buying for profit. It’s pretty easy to look at my CAF and see what I have bought and kept.  That accusation fits his narrative, and is not something I appreciate but sticks and stones…

Perhaps you should go back and reread everything with fresh eyes.

 

Since I was the one who was the winning bidder, every accusation Dinesh makes towards Felix either directly or indirectly applies to me because guess what, I was the guy doing it. and btw, since Dinesh was there (i seem to have read that lol) he would also know the only thing that remotely could be called shilling was by the underbidder who kept his paddle up all the way up to around 8K. That was my memory of it and the underbidder, who is a friend of mine, mentioned it himself when he called me to chat today. I don't think I even started to bid until it got to around 8000 to 9000 give or take.