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William Henry Hunt, Grapes and a Basket, 1835, & My Thoughts on Auctions, Pt. 7

Artist: William Henry Hunt (All)

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William Henry Hunt, Grapes and a Basket, 1835, & My Thoughts on Auctions, Pt. 7 Comic Art

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William Henry Hunt, A Black Boy Holding a Casket, c. 1833 & My Thoughts on Auctions, Pt. 6

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Artwork Details

Title:	William Henry Hunt, Grapes and a Basket, 1835, & My Thoughts on Auctions, Pt. 7
Artist:	William Henry Hunt (All)
Media Type:	Paint - Watercolor
Art Type:	Other
For Sale Status:	NFS
Views:	136
Likes on CAF:	0 1
Comments:	0
Added to Site:	7/2/2021
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Description

I have said before that one of the circumstances which can kill a market for a particular type of art is the unavailability of examples of that art that can be collected. After several decades of a boom market for English watercolors, prices have declined significantly over the past decade due to so few works being offered for sale. This could be due to the reality that so many watercolors are now badly faded and have little appeal to those who used to buy examples with stronger colors.

But the equivalent of unavailablity can result when prices are pushed to much higher levels, levels which put a genre of art beyond the reach of almost all collectors who had been interested for similar pieces when they had been affordable. I don't know of any collectors who would be satisfied with "end-of-the-bin" pieces of art when they are priced out of the market after having been able to collect much more desirable examples in recent years. Even those true collectors who are able to participate in a market with hugely inflated auction prices, most would not be able to buy nearly as many pieces when the prices start exceeding $100,000, $200,000, or even more. I don't find collecting most types of comic art to be "fun," anymore, since I don't enjoy paying prices which I consider to be totally unjustified for pieces which I would love having and for pieces which I previously bought with little competition. The "hobby" is no longer a hobby in my opinion but an exercise in buying art that is little respected by ordinary people and which way too often isn't even very important vis-a-vis the pieces which are lurking out there, recently unseen, perhaps, but certainly worth waiting for if absurd prices will have to be paid due to true demand.

The artificiality of current prices for Marvel art should be obvious to anyone who has any idea of the quantity of Marvel originals which exist. Perhaps some early covers have been lost, but, otherwise, it is certain that virtually every Marvel original survives and could be sold at any time. This is also true of all E.C. art, including covers, since it was all kept by Bill Gaines and sold by Russ Cochran in the 1980s. D.C. art, which was largely thrown out before the 1980s, will never be as common as art from these other two companies, yet the interest in D.C. pieces is not keeping up with that of Marvel originals. Obviously, everyone has his own preferences and opinions on the value of art, but it is almost impossible to intelligently evaluate what to collect without at least a broad understanding of what art exists.

Collecting original comic art is different than collecting comic books in that issue numbers for which the art was used and first appearances probably should have less bearing on the value of a piece of art probably shouldn't outweigh the importance of the quality of the art itself, I have always been attracted to art from origin stories, first comic book and comic strip appearances, etc. But this only goes so far. Since I already owned many of the Blondie originals which featured the first appearances of long-running characters of the strip, including Blondie, Dagwood, Alexander (Baby Dumpling), etc., one would have thought that I would go after the original from 1941 in which the other child, Cookie, was introduced. Even though it didn't sell for that much when auctioned a couple of years ago, I didn't even place a bid. This was due to the fact that the original was so badly stained with zipatone glue that I didn't think that it could be restored to an acceptable appearance.

I own and have owned many more comic book pages which feature the first time some characters were introduced, and I certainly understand why many collectors might want to own such pages -- and I definitely consider a first cover appearance to be an actual first appearance, but, especially with Marvel comic book art, there have been so many first appearances of tertiary characters, villains, supporting characters, etc., that such pages, especially those which are not terribly well drawn, are really quite common. If the general public wouldn't even recognize a character, I usually couldn't care less about owning such an original. While I am very impressed with pieces in CAF galleries which show the first appearances of X-men members and other major heroes and villains, those are few and far between. I don't think that pages with minor first appearances should command significantly higher prices than other originals.

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About the Owner

	C E
Joined:	April 2006
Last Login:	August 2025
Country:	UNITED STATES
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