Eat your heart Brisbane, Cancun, Miami, we’re getting temperatures in the mid teens this coming week, (that’s mid 60s for our American friends) it might even be hot enough to melt through those snow plow build, Antarctica sized ICE piles in the shopping mall parking lots, maybe. Still, its so nice to put the parka away, all we have ahead of us is the promise of something better, and have you ever noticed the promise of something is sometimes better than the actual something when it comes.
It has been one busy week ! Busy good, not busy bad, busy as in we had over 625 live auction lots before last nights closings, for us that is a lot of live auctions, the most to date. Our lofty lot numbers are thanks to out two normally overlapping auctions plus a big card auction wedged in between. The card auction is special because it is full of high grade Bowman 1954 Football, all graded by PSA. Please check some of the cards out here.
I went at the “going to eBay auction” pile hard this week, we have to get the listing numbers higher and the only way to do that is to go at the “going to eBay auction” pile hard. I spotted our Cover of the Week early, it was so obvious, it is Bill Seinkeiwicz’s masterful cover to Marvel Age #28. Can a cover be too good for a comic? I’m thinking Bill was throwing pearls at swine with this effort, a beautiful Robot cover, one worthy of a Sci Fi novel, not a Marvel News update comic.
Our Splash Page of the Week comes from Amazing Spider-Man #16, drawn by the great Steve Ditko. OK here’s the scene, Stan walks into Steve’s office with FIVE of Steve’s old splash pages from past Tales to Astonish issues, Stan says “look here Steve, see these splash pages, replicate them in the next Spidey issue”, then Steve says “why sure, Stan” and quickly does a mock up, then Stan says “I knew this would be a problem Steve, I’m glad I popped in to see you, please add ALL FIVE of these Splash Pages worth of art into that ONE Spidey Splash page, crowd the shit out of that baby Steve”. As Minimalist Mr. Ditko starts complaining Stan turns around, walks down the hall and says “I knew you’d like the idea Steve, have it on my desk by tomorrow”. It might have went something like that. Steve gives us a rare super busy Splash Page here, with a Kirbyesque chaotic battle scene. I like it.
Our Ad of the Week comes from Wonder Woman #171 and it is trying to entice us to give up a Dollar for 6 pin ups. I have a couple of questions, first is, how come I never see these for sale on the collectibles market? Am I not looking in the right spots? I’ve seen the Marvel equivalents sell for good money many times but these seem to be a lot rarer. Second question is, how did these ad gimmicks ever make any money? You get 6 posters 11″ x 14″ for a buck, There are obvious costs, obvious production and personnel overhead, I mean you sell 4,000 of these you might make $900 ? Hey, sometimes you gotta grind it out.
Last night closed out another one of our weekly icecollectibles eBay auction, raw lots were doing great. We had a beautiful lot of 10 uncirculated copies of Daredevil #189 close at $118.50 USD. They say covers sell and do they ever, can you get any more Frank Miller than this? Looks like a scene from 300.
