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Did anyone bid or win anything on Heritage?

Started by Drummy,

25 posts in this topic

Drummy

Drummy

Posted
Posted

Let me preface this by saying I'm not a big Heritage fan...I have a queasy feeling about how they do business and find their BP exorbitant. Occasionally, however, a piece will go through their auction house that I feel compelled by. So much for my integrity, I know, but I'm also a passionate OA collector who gets stuck in the middle all too often.

 

I collect Marvel Bronze superhero art from the 1976-1979 range (along with many others). I don't have many pieces yet, but on Heritage I bought the following:

 

Avengers165.jpg

 

I'm a big Iron Man fan and remember the Avengers series against Nefaria like it was yesterday. Yes, I paid a LOT. But I'm also very happy and would love to see other pieces that made y'all happy as well.

 

Thanks!

 

Dan

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CW

CW

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Wow! Cool piece. I bid on a Virgil Finlay but lost again sorry.gif

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tentpeg06

tentpeg06

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Dan,

Aaargh. This is my first post on this message board, and now I see who outbid me on this page. I thought that my main competition would be Eric Hinton for this page. I had to cap my high bid at $4K when you also consider the juice from Heritage.

 

However, congrats on a great pick-up!

PRC foreheadslap.gif

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Mister Trent

Mister Trent

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I did place a bid, but got beat, on the Johnny Craig CRIME PATROL cover.

 

Yes, Heritage's BP is high - but I factor-in the premium when I'm working out how much I can afford my maximum bid to be. To me, that's the obvious thing to do.

 

I've bought other stuff through Heritage and don't have a problem with them.

 

I know of dealers (e.g. Mike Burkey) who buy art from Heritage - then flip it at higher asking prices than what they paid.

 

I remember Mike Burkey buying the STRANGE TALES # 138 cover from Heritage for around $17k. A few days later, he was asking me if I wanted to pay $30k-plus for the cover from him. I just said, "If I couldn't afford to bid through Heritage last week, what makes you think I can suddenly want to pay you twice the price now?"

 

So, perhaps it's not too bad an idea to get your 'must-have' pieces of art directly from Heritage before the dealer-types do . . .

 

Talking about Burkey, I notice he's wanting $38k for the FANTASY MASTERPIECES cover that recently sold on Comic-Link. Anyyone remember how much the cover sold for originally?

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Drummy

Drummy

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Hey PRC!

 

Thanks for the compliment; I figured I'd get beat on this one somehow despite the big bid. (I think someone bid $4k before the juice; my bid was $4100 pre-juice and it stuck.) I felt a little better when all the other classic Byrne pages ended in the same ballpark price-wise.

 

You and I will certainly compete (with Eric and Mark? others?) for superhero pieces from this era. I'm selling my books to make room for the transition to full-time OA, so don't worry -- I'll run out of money soon!

 

Regarding the Fantasy Masterpieces cover, I don't know the previous sale price. Given the asking price on Mike's site, I'm glad I don't collect Kirby or SA stuff...wow!

 

Dan

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westform

westform

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By the way, an almost bigger suprise to me was the Cockrum Xmen 107 page. $6500 give or take.... never seen one go even close to that high that wasn't from GS1 or 94. I like that page obviously, but I was out early. Dan

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westform

westform

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Hi Terry; wasn't this Fantasy cover part of the Philip Weiss auction? I believe so, and it was all stat. The cover Mike B. has is a different one. It was pieced together from the original art of Cap that I believe Mike T. owned. Burkey must have had Gordon C. put new stats around the central image as that's all there was there before. It actually doesn't seem like a horrific price to me. It is the only inked Kirby cover, its Cap, its twice up. Doesn't kick me in the pants, but it will someone....

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westform

westform

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Dan; that's a really nice Byrne page! Yes, it seemed like a lot but at least it's not one of those 40k Spidey pages... my point is, the market seems to be moving up fast for good things, so it does take an aggressive bid to carry home the prize it seems. The pieces I was bidding on or tracking all went larger than anyone would have expected. I guess I just have good taste.... and, .... I also have no new art from this auction. ' sniff ' .

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Drummy

Drummy

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Hi Dan -- Thanks for the compliment. Sorry you didn't pick up anything new...I know you like the sweet stuff. Maybe you can make yourself feel better by reviewing the awesome material you already have! grin.gif

 

Suffice to say I don't expect to get another Byrne page from the Nefaria saga. If I do, everything will have to work out perfectly...they're too pricey. But nostalgia is an enormous part of the allure for me, so now that covers are out of my range (again, too pricey) I'm trying for the best combo of panel/splash pages I can.

 

Hi Jay -- Thanks also for the nice words...I thought your Avengers passion was a bit earlier than the Byrne run? You have some #147 pages and others from that era that I admire a lot. So perhaps we'll be more complimentary collectors than competitors? Hope so, at least. Or maybe some trading someday; now that I have about 20 pieces in my collection, I might become a trade partner eventually.

 

To say I was surprised at the high prices from this auction -- both for books and for art -- might be overstating it since Heritage always seems to do "very well", but it seemed to bring out some major bucks. Glad I came away with the one piece I targeted.

 

D

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Mister Trent

Mister Trent

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Hi Terry; wasn't this Fantasy cover part of the Philip Weiss auction? I believe so, and it was all stat. The cover Mike B. has is a different one. It was pieced together from the original art of Cap that I believe Mike T. owned. Burkey must have had Gordon C. put new stats around the central image as that's all there was there before. It actually doesn't seem like a horrific price to me. It is the only inked Kirby cover, its Cap, its twice up. Doesn't kick me in the pants, but it will someone....

 

Phil Weiss . . . yep, I think you're right about the source (must be getting a little confused with all these auctions going on!).

 

So . . . there are two versions of this cover in existence? Who'd a thunk it.

 

Mike ought to disclose this info (about building the cover up with replacement elements/stas) in his description. Any would-be-buyer might get a little pissed at finding out after the fact (and also hearing the original stats for the cover exist on another original) . . .

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otherworldsj33

otherworldsj33

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I lost the Wood Creepy 38 page by $30. It went for $3583 with the comm. Not even a twice up. It was a nice page, but did have 9 panels. Wood EC pages routinly go for the 1 to 1.5K range, so I can't figure this one out. And I bid MORE then DOUBLE what I belived the market is on that page. I really wanted it, but... Oh well.

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tentpeg06

tentpeg06

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I have to reply to Dan F.'s post on the Cockrum page. I am an active and avid collector of Cockrum's early X-Men art (94-107). Over the past year, prices have moved to this higher range. While I do not know who won this Cockrum Heritage page, I have a good idea who may have won it because it is just two pages prior to the first appearance of the Starjammers.

 

The last early Cockrum X-Men page to sell on eBay went for a ridiculously low $2800 and change from X-Men 100. Steve Donnelly won it unfortunately since I could not snipe due to business travel. It is now in the realm of unattainable based on his mindset.

 

As for my market analysis, one prominent art dealer has a pre-100 page priced in the same range as the 107 page final bid price. A page from 102 sold last year for $6,000 at San Diego. Prices in the early X-Men market are moving up. I think that Dave's unfortunate death has further solidified the higher collectibility of his earlier X-Men work. Notice, however, that the two pages from Uncanny X-Men 150 never received a bid on eBay when priced at $1,000. His work post Uncanny X-Men 145 has not received the same interest, and I seriously doubt that it ever will when compared to the earlier work.

 

What I find very interesting is that the 107 page outperformed the Byrne 121 page in Heritage bidding. In past Heritage Signature auctions, the Byrne X-Men pages normally went higher than the Cockrum X-Men pages. I know that because I won every Cockrum X-Men page through Heritage from 2004-2005. It appears that Byrne X-Men pages that are more ordinary (I do not count the Heritage Byrne 140 page because it was all Wolverine in a nice fight sequence) are stabilizing at the $4K to $5K range.

 

Anybody else's thoughts? 893scratchchin-thumb.gif

PRC bumpit.gif

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tentpeg06

tentpeg06

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Dan,

What I found hard to believe was that the Avengers 165 page went higher than the IF 15 page and the MTU 62 splash. I went just below $4k on both of those pages as well and was still outbid. Are these final bid prices an anomaly? I do not know. Fewer and fewer Byrne vintage pages are becoming available. When they do, the frenzy starts if they are put in the public forum.

 

Avengers 164-166 now commands a lot of attention. One person on the CAF is trying to acquire pages from 164. I have already mentioned Eric attempting to put 165 and 166 back together. With the price realized at the Heritage Signature auction, will more pages show up? In one way, I hope so. In another way, it will cost a lot more money to acquire pages that went for just $400 to $500 back in 2002 and 2003.

 

BTW, contact Steve Donnelly if you want to own the splash page to Avengers 165. I am sure that he might consider selling it to you for $25K. Oh wait, that is $25k plus any other Avengers pages that you might own now.... boo.gif

Ciao!

PRC

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