Prices for curent covers. 1 1

[Terry E. Gibbs]

I started back in early 2016 and after 6 mths had leaned as much as I could towards covers and full page splashes. Have brought new art from 4 different agents, often before listed and sometimes before published and found some I thought very good value with only one of the agents having  pages sitting around for over a year or more. I also saw some of these pages being turned over shortly after by the usual dealers at only -5 -+10% of what the original agent asked for. Prices as low as US $900 to US$ 2,100 for multi figure. Last covers bought mid 2020, so sometime ago. Just received an offer for a soon to be published cover that was 4 times what I had been paying. I was kind of shocked. It is great art, very detailed background, great perspective and a lot more work than what I had been buying. These are the type of covers I am seeing on current variants. Is this what other people are seeing.

I don't do US Cons (can't count ECCC anymore as a comic con) so opinions appreciated.

[Rick2you2]

On 6/11/2024 at 2:24 AM, Terry E. Gibbs said:

I started back in early 2016 and after 6 mths had leaned as much as I could towards covers and full page splashes. Have brought new art from 4 different agents, often before listed and sometimes before published and found some I thought very good value with only one of the agents having  pages sitting around for over a year or more. I also saw some of these pages being turned over shortly after by the usual dealers at only -5 -+10% of what the original agent asked for. Prices as low as US $900 to US$ 2,100 for multi figure. Last covers bought mid 2020, so sometime ago. Just received an offer for a soon to be published cover that was 4 times what I had been paying. I was kind of shocked. It is great art, very detailed background, great perspective and a lot more work than what I had been buying. These are the type of covers I am seeing on current variants. Is this what other people are seeing.

I don't do US Cons (can't count ECCC anymore as a comic con) so opinions appreciated.

It may depend on the pieces at issue, but not for what I focus on. I bought a few covers within the last year for less than $2,000 each. I have also seen some dealers offering covers at what appear to be astonishing prices, but I don’t pay close enough attention to how they have increased.

What I am seeing is a lot more crapart for sale which slows down my searches for decent work. Do people really buy all those pinup type drawings of heroines in various poses with little changed besides the costume? Walt Disney must be turning over in his grave at Snow White’s adventures with her dwarfs.

[Andahaion]

I started the same time as you.  I think it's definitely going to depend on the artist and the book/character.  I'd say that some pieces are worth it and some not, but I've certainly seen an uptick in new cover pricing (generally speaking).  It's fairly subjective, difficult to really comment without an example.  

[Unstoppablejayd]

Terry- depends on the artist rep etc.. I just bought a great cover from a name artist for 2k this week and another great cover from a lesser artist a few weeks ago for 1200 both marvel a list characters so no Indy discount . That being said I am also seeing modern covers being offered (and sold) in the 5-10k range and even more. Some reps are pushing the envelope to go as far as they can price wise. Personally I just look past those and have set up guard rails for myself around modern comic art prices . There is enough out there that falls within my parameters that fills my needs. 

[grapeape]

On 6/11/2024 at 7:13 AM, Unstoppablejayd said:

 also seeing modern covers being offered (and sold) in the 5-10k range and even more. 

You're 💯 % right. That's the Felix Lu drops in part. Guy is a legendary rep. I personally have no problem seeing these artists get paid. I remember John Romita lamenting that he could never of fathomed the monetary value attached to original comic art.

Any cover bought by dealers today is going to get slapped with a FOMO resale  significant price increase. I stopped chasing.

Modern covers specifically, I just bought my first for under 2k. I remember only 15 years ago Burkey had 20-30 covers at anytime between $1-2k. Many sat for long periods of time. We're the victims of our own inaction in some ways.

The biggest test for modern art is the secondary market. If the resales underperform it could have a chilling effect on modern art ask prices. We don't have enough data to determine if modern art is a wise investment. I think it is, but what you buy in any market  is subject to a downfall in value. What I want to see for example is public exchanges of artists work like Tradd Moore SSB. There's much anecdotal examples of wild multiples of profit resale. To translate to the skeptical we need more archival evidence like the HA record keepers provide.

 

Good luck to all. This is supposed to be a fun hobby, or so I was told. So go after what you can afford mostly. I can't tell another collector when or how much to go over the budget. Only they have knowledge of their own balance book.

 

 

 

[Kevn]

Doesn't it depend entirely upon the artist in question, the title, and the quality of the image? I'm responding to this part of the original post:

Just received an offer for a soon to be published cover that was 4 times what I had been paying. I was kind of shocked. It is great art, very detailed background, great perspective and a lot more work than what I had been buying.

Are you basing this observation on a single cover (it sounds that way from what you wrote, but just wanted to clarify)? Was this a 4x increase from an artist you'd previously bought covers by? Is the new cover on a much higher visibility title? Does it involve much more collectible characters? Has the artist's reputation and prominence increased over the last 4-5 years? Is it a super amazing image (you indicate that it is an exceptional piece of work). Frankly, I see a 3- or 4-fold range in cover prices for most established artists, based on the title, characters, poses, etc. 

There are a few dealers whose artists I've been following a little bit. For the dealers who rep a variety of artists (like Felix mentioned above), I see a huge range in sales prices among the artists, for both covers and interior pages. As in, a 20-fold difference! OK, throw out the super extreme exception of Tradd Moore, and there's still a good 10-fold difference among the artists. I'm skeptical that this is a genuine trend of two doublings in price over just 4 years across the board for new art.

The nice thing about open markets is that they are inevitably self-correcting. If an artist or a dealer is underpricing, people will snap up the art and increase the price to the actual FMV. If an artist or dealer overprices (or buyers try to speculate and flip art that was already at FMV), the stuff is going to sit there, sometimes for years, or it'll quietly be sold at a discount. I could easily see the example mentioned as either a dealer realizing that this artist's work was being flipped successfully, and wanted to get more of that $$ for the artist. I could also imagine the dealer deciding to make a play to push his artist into a new price category, which could easily backfire. Or it's just a reasonable price for a cover that is 4x more desirable that the covers you were seeing 4-5 years ago.

[BigMookie]

I don't think you're wrong in your assessment.  I slap myself for selling covers I had just a few years ago for the prices I sold them. I've seen prices go up 4x-5x those selling prices and languish, but the prices remain.  In particular, an artist I like had their covers posted at a basic price point across the stack, give or take.  I think one sold over 6 months.  Then, all the artwork was pulled down for 1-2 months, only to be reposted again for almost DOUBLE their previous prices!!  I've seen similar things with artwork on EBay and the old car market....the ol "Better buy it now while I have it this low, or else I'll RAISE THE PRICE!".....whatever, that stupid.  I get the idea of trying to create FOMO, but to me it's more like F off...so I do, let them keep it! LOL.  After months of raising prices on Ebay listings, you'll see them drop it back to the original price and start all over again....wow.

[Terry E. Gibbs]

On 6/12/2024 at 6:13 AM, Kevn said:

Doesn't it depend entirely upon the artist in question, the title, and the quality of the image? I'm responding to this part of the original post:

Just received an offer for a soon to be published cover that was 4 times what I had been paying. I was kind of shocked. It is great art, very detailed background, great perspective and a lot more work than what I had been buying.

Are you basing this observation on a single cover (it sounds that way from what you wrote, but just wanted to clarify)? Was this a 4x increase from an artist you'd previously bought covers by? Is the new cover on a much higher visibility title? Does it involve much more collectible characters? Has the artist's reputation and prominence increased over the last 4-5 years? Is it a super amazing image (you indicate that it is an exceptional piece of work). Frankly, I see a 3- or 4-fold range in cover prices for most established artists, based on the title, characters, poses, etc. 

 

Everything there is good and I agree. In my case it has been an agent I am very happy with, and it is the same comic character the whole time we have dealt with each other. I am seeing much more intricate comic art on this characters variant covers, also Batman as well as an example, but personally I don't see the improvement to me. The "art" is better but not the emotional pull. I only buy covers that are related to the story arc, and only if including some of the comic's "cast".  These new covers seem to be exploring the artists interpretation of the character.and of course a picture would help, but this one was offered before solicitations are released on the book and a long time before it hits the shelves. I will come back here when the book comes out.

 

As we know the best way to judge the worth ( the floor value) is through auction. Funny how little new stuff hits CL Ebay or HA.

[Kevn]

On 6/12/2024 at 1:20 AM, BigMookie said:

I don't think you're wrong in your assessment.  I slap myself for selling covers I had just a few years ago for the prices I sold them. I've seen prices go up 4x-5x those selling prices and languish, but the prices remain.  In particular, an artist I like had their covers posted at a basic price point across the stack, give or take.  I think one sold over 6 months.  Then, all the artwork was pulled down for 1-2 months, only to be reposted again for almost DOUBLE their previous prices!!  I've seen similar things with artwork on EBay and the old car market....the ol "Better buy it now while I have it this low, or else I'll RAISE THE PRICE!".....whatever, that stupid.  I get the idea of trying to create FOMO, but to me it's more like F off...so I do, let them keep it! LOL.  After months of raising prices on Ebay listings, you'll see them drop it back to the original price and start all over again....wow.

This is pretty much exactly what I mean by markets being self correcting. I don't think you can "create FOMO" by raising prices, else every retailer in every market would be doing exactly that. You describe a situation where covers by an artist you like were somewhat over priced (i.e., a single cover selling over a 6-month period, so clearly were some degree above a "market-clearing price" or what the buyers would consider FMV), and then abruptly the prices were almost doubled. You don't mention if in that case any of those covers that had been sitting around suddenly started selling, but I'm going to guess they didn't. In the eBay example, where prices are raised significantly, the items didn't sell, and prices were subsequently adjusted downwards. You also describe covers you sold being marked up 4-5x, and then the items remain for sale for an indefinite period. This is three examples where unrealistic price increased seem to have failed. 

In any event, in my experience prices doubling for a certain artist's work over 4-5 year periods is not particularly unusual. A 4x increase over 3-4 years is, but that might also just reflect wishful thinking in asking prices, and not at all indicate a massive increase the actual sales prices.

[Kevn]

On 6/12/2024 at 7:25 AM, Terry E. Gibbs said:

As we know the best way to judge the worth ( the floor value) is through auction. Funny how little new stuff hits CL Ebay or HA.

There are good reasons why the vast majority of recent art that is sold is not sold at auctions. This goes for both fine art and comic art. There are steep transaction costs (in both time and money), there is huge pricing variability, you're operating with a tiny sales window, and the vast majority of auction buys go in with specific targets. It's a common theme here that people get auction fatigue between HA, CL, CC, Hakes, eBay, and others. As it is, lots of nice art tends to slip through the cracks, especially at the lower end. Imagine if just 20% of all new comic pages went straight to auction every month, on top of all the many thousands of older pages already being auctioned. I rarely go into a comic shop and browse any more - there's just too much product every month, and the shops I go to are so crammed that I can't even browse titles. I have to sort though boxes and stacks, even for the very latest titles. OA auctions are something of a -shoot for well established artists/characters/titles. For the majority of newer artists putting out contemporary work, it would be a financial bloodbath.

[alxjhnsn]

FWIW, everything I know on this topic is in the hidden text of the first post on this thread:  Pricing Comic Art