Friday, July 19, 2013

Selling, selling, and selling a little more...through ComicLink!

A few posts ago I was pimping some sales on ebay and said something like "if I could sell forty $150 pieces and then buy one $6000 piece with the money I would do it in a heartbeat". Well, it will take a bit longer than that, but I have essentially gone and done this horrid horrid thing; I have sent 36 items to ComicLink for inclusion in their next 2 auctions, taking place in August and September. But they are not just $150 pieces...well many of them cost that much but will only bring 30-60% of that back. But I knew I had to throw in some yummy stuff as well if I wanted to generate any serious cash at all. Also, in order to get ComicLink interested I knew I better have a few very strong pieces in there as well.

Jason from ComicLink was very easy to deal with. So far at least. ;-) I showed him some things from my CAF and asked if they made the grade. After clearing that hurdle, I decided I was good to go and starting pulling the Itoyas and picking pieces to send out. I probably only used 25 of the 36 items Jason approved and instead sent some other stuff. And boy was I surprised at what I pulled when those Itoyas were being flipped through!

I always knew I was going to sell my Mignola cover. It was a huge impulse buy and if I am going to spend that kind of cash I need it to fit my collection better. And a Witchfinder cover does not fit into my collection, no matter how tremendous a cover it is. I have my eye on a Mignola piece that is three times what I paid for this one and has none of the features in the Witchfinder cover that drew me to it. In other words it has Hellboy on it. The best Mignola pieces have the design strengths that really make Mike Mignola exceptional as well having Hellboy, the character with which he will always be most associated. Well, I am not a big enough fish to swim in that pond, but a great Hellboy, Batman, Starman piece is within my reach and that means the best Mignola I have will have to make way in order for me to get that elusive other piece. And the Witchfinder cover has the balance in black and non-black areas throughout that really draws me into Mike's work. I was blown away by it when I was flipping through Mike's portfolio that day, and happily handed over all those hundred dollar bills a few minutes later. But now I have seen the $7500 piece that will fit my collection like a glove, and the call of THAT NEXT ELUSIVE PIECE OF COMIC ART is strong.

What I did not know was that I was going to sell my two Travis Charest Flash annual pages.

What I did not know was that my Duncan Fegredo Baba Yaga, Hellboy, and Koschei The Deathless piece would end up in that box as well.

And I had never considered the possibility of the Chris Stevens OIL PAINTING going in the box, yet Jason will see it right away when he opens that very box today.

Art from Gene Ha, Paolo Rivera, and Leinil Yu is suddenly gone from my collection. Almost all art by those guys has in fact left. Almost.

I am going to have 50 stellar pieces of art soon. I have over 600 pieces of art right now. 25 of them may be in the stellar range that I am talking about. I will sell hundreds of pieces to get the rest. The Starman pages, over 100 of them, are not going anywhere. (Well, not Tony's Starman pages anyway.) Most if not all of the Dr. Strange commissions, the true commissions, are safe and sound here at home. But so much else is in jeopardy in order for me to get a nice Frank Miller. Or an Alex Raymond. Maybe a political Winsor McCay. A Foster Valiant panel. So much more BWS. .

In fact, I saw that ComicLink has a November auction as well. Hmmm.

ps I know I have not told the rest of the Teddy K tale. It is coming.



EDIT: Okay, I see 5 of my items in the August focused auction. This is a good thing, I expected less. Okay people, bid away!