Okay, last year was my first birthday sale. It was a modest failure. Just kidding somewhat, I sold a few pieces and that was great - after all that is the objective of a sale. (If that one boardie had actually followed through and bought his four pieces that I placed on hold it would have gone better. But no harm in the end.) At that time I was envisioning selling only at my birthday sales and foregoing the auction house and ebay routes from then on. Well, my resolve on that part was weak and I sold a good many things this past year through Comiclink (thanks Josh and Doug) and even went back to ebay a little the last few weeks. I ask forgiveness.So now I want to get my birthday sale going. This year I decided on quality over quantity. I had over 100 pieces last year and was a bit all over the place. This year I have 36 pieces ready to go and maybe some more in reserve should the unthinkable happen and I actually sell a bunch. Pricing was hard, I had a Cerebus page 22 years until I sold it in the presale last week. [Saw some active dealer sales I thought were relative comps and then I priced accordingly based on the dealer. (Who prices better than Roger Clark by the way! Roger, get some Flight of Bones for New Year's mister!) Try pricing a BWS Rune page, and then try pricing two! Not many comps there, other than the fact that very little BWS sells for under $1000 anymore. ]So quality over quantity this year, but that doesn't mean expensive. I think I put up a bunch of really nice commissions and sketches for under cost and under $250. Only five pieces over $1000 and nothing more than the Starman cover at $1850. (That may just be on the wall if it doesn't sell this year and then forget it.) Head on over and check them out!
birthday sale hosted on wifey's website design company
Site will be updated often, so if you see it you can buy it. Not looking to go paypal, but we can talk about that if it is a deal breaker. Time payments possible as well. All terms on the sale site. You can contact me through here PM or this thread as well.
But here on my blog I will go a little deeper. Not that there are any secrets or anything, just fleshing out my reasoning a bit.
I am selling pieces of art here that are among my favorites. But not my absolute favorite. I sold a Cerebus page that I bought in 1992; it should be delivered tomorrow in fact in Canada somewhere. I was going to offer both of my pages, as I have a Dave Sim commission and a wonderful Mars Attacks cover featuring Cerebus as the alien. Lookee here.
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| Dave Sim IDW Mars Attacks cover featuring Cerebus |
So the Cerebus pages became expendable in the new regime that is the pursuit of The Fifty. But when I sold that Cerebus page the buyer asked if I had others; I couldn't sell them both. Not yet. One, yes but not both. So I still have the "checkmate" page with tiny Cerebus and Suentus Po.
Excuse me, just went and sold a BWS page.
Jeez Louise!
I don't know if I should increase the prices of the 2 remaining BWS pages or decrease them!
I will let them stand and see what transpires.
But the reason I am putting myself through this is because there is no gain without pain. I am forging my collection through the fires of Hell but it is not without purpose. This hellfire will forge a stronger and more formidable collection.
There is nothing like acquiring new pieces. Collecting is an active pursuit and it has been hard for me to go from buying dozens of pieces a year to less than a dozen. But I had hundreds and hundreds of pieces. I always tried to live by a credo I learned 25 years ago - "have a collection and not an accumulation". So I focused on Dr. Strange, Starman, and Grendel. Grendel eventually fell by the wayside, although remnants remain. An awesome JK Snyder commission on cardboard that my wife arranged as a birthday present. Matt Wagner head sketches. But nothing truly substantial, and I owned a lot of Grendel at one point. In fact it was a chance meeting with Bernie Mireault that may have started me in the OA game; he sold me painted color guides from Grendel: Warchild that were just beautiful. I used money I had just acquired by selling my signed copy of Evil Ernie #1 to buy 5 or 6 color guides. I eventually matched one or two up with the original art pages, but I sold them years ago. Sometime before that I had realized that my collection was accumulating at a rapid rate and I think I had over 700 pieces on CAF at one time with a few dozen more not online. that was when I knew I couldn't keep all that sitting in a closet while I had a family and a live to lead. I looked at them online more often than I looked at the real things, so I started my culling. I have about 8-10 empty Itoyas now, and it is hard to see what I have let go but in all reality my finances and collection have never been stronger.
And wait until you see what I get now.
I have two things in mind specifically. One would be my largest purchase ever and one would be in the top five easily, maybe number three. I am hoping to get those sometime next year - maybe one at each comic art con - and in the meantime I think I can swing one additional purchase. So as long as those two things are not sold by their respective dealers I may be good to go. It is always a dangerous game to play when you want something but there is always more art around the corner if these deals do not work out.
In fact, I think there may be some new art for you around the corner! Click the link in the upper left of this blog post and check out my Second Annual Birthday sale.
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