Heritage Weekly Auction ending 12/31/17

Happy holidays, and welcome to my third installment of Heritage weekly comic art auction previews!  First, I'd like to review my predictions from last week's Heritage weekly auction (ending 12/24/17) and the final results:

Dale Keown Incredible Hulk #387; ComicArtAds estimate--$900, final price including BP--$1,075.50

Joe Kubert Star Spangled War Stories #147; ComicArtAds estimate--$3,500, final price including BP--$4,063.00

Alex Toth Eerie #64 two-page lot; ComicArtAds estimate--$2,800; final price including BP--$4,063.00

Herb Trimpe Defenders #80; ComicArtAds estimate--$375, final price including BP--$418.25

I have to pat myself on the back, at least for three of the four estimates.  Perhaps the fact that my estimates were around 15% less than the final price is a tribute to my personal cheapness and not wanting to pay full market value on art.  I was pretty far off on the Toth lot, which finished stronger than the two-page lot the week before from Eerie #2.  Is the Eerie #64 story somehow significant?  I don't get it, but it looks great, and I don't blame someone paying that kind of money.  Overall, I think last week's Christmas eve ending did not affect prices much.

This week's Heritage weekly auction, ending on New Year's eve, has some interesting pieces, but one piece in particular stands out to me for personal reasons.

I bought page 9 from Captain America #361 in 2005 and likely paid around $50 for it.  The page features everyone's favorite Gallic gangster, Batroc the Leaper.  I was trying to find Batroc comic art examples by as many artists as possible in the 2000s.  I have since partly moved on from that collecting theme, but I still have a soft spot for Batroc.  In January 2015, I worked out a deal with long-time art collector Ethan Roberts to trade a big box of his old comic art catalogs for this piece of art.  This trade inspired me to try to share old art ads in a serious way, so I will always be thankful to Ethan for this trade.  I still like this page and hope it does well, although I'm not going for it.  Your ComicArtAds pre-auction estimate: $400.

There has been a lot (and I mean a lot!) of talk of a Howard Chaykin Phantom Stranger commission on the CGC boards this month.  Although there is no Phantom Stranger image with pasted-on corrections, it's still nice to see a vintage Jim Aparo Phantom Stranger #11 page in this week's Heritage auction.  This same page sold for $227.05 on Heritage in November 2014.  Vintage Phantom Stranger pages by Aparo that feature the title character have sold for $775+ over the past couple of years.  This is a good-looking title page with a creepy bad guy, so I think it has some appeal.  Your ComicArtAds pre-auction estimate: $500.

The page from Spectacular Spider-Man #100 by the team of Milgrom, Isherwood, and Colletta is an interesting piece with some things going for it, as well as a few features that could make it somewhat affordable.  The Spidey/Kingpin battle action is great, but there is some noticeable water damage in a bottom corner.  There seems to be some ink fading on background inks in places as well.  A less-desirable page from the same issue sold for $573.60 a little over two years ago.  I think bidders might overlook the condition issue and focus on the fight scene, and the nice portraits of the Black Cat.  Your ComicArtAds pre-auction estimate: $800.

I'll wrap up this week's installment by focusing on a page from Transformers #29 by Don Perlin, Ian Akin, and Brian Garvey.  I have been surprised to see the reasonable final prices for Jose Delbo/Dave Hunt Transformers pages in recent months on Heritage, which have ranged in price from $143.40 to $358.50.  Perhaps issues from two years earlier, by different art teams, are more desirable to collectors?  A Perlin/Akin/Garvey page from Transformers #25 went for $657.25 in April 2016.  I have a hunch that this will finish stronger than the Delbo/Hunt examples, although I don't know Transformers comics and art fans enough to say why.  Your ComicArtAds pre-auction estimate:  $450.

Thanks for reading, and please tune in next week when I report on the success or failure of my predictions, and present more ComicArtAds pre-auction estimates for the next Heritage weekly auction.  

Yours in art, 

Lee