(After typing all this, I thought I'd go back up here and make it clear that I'm not ticked off/mad, I'm just trying to figure this out. )


Alright, someone needs to help me understand something. I collect sketch cards (mainly Marvel) and I've wondered why for the last 14 months why the NSU price guide has not had a better guide for Complete Avengers other than sketch cards $30-$300.

Then I see the lastest edition of NSU and they have (arguable) a complete list of artists for the 2007 Marvel Masterpieces with individual prices for 97 of the 162 (approx.) artists. Now, Upper Deck didn't release a list of artists until after the release date and there's still a few question marks on a few artists (apparently an artist had a few of his friends sketch some cards and they were inserted, so....).

Now, I'm thinking to myself.....wait, RA posted all the artists and their numbers before release. AND the quanities each of them did. Then you throw in the fact that basically 3 dealers bought half the production run, opened and sold the sketch cards. I think that's an incredible consolidated source to get a average/basic/approx. value for each artist. One phone call or email to each of those 3 dealers and add in what you've seen on ebay and you've got a value that can be respected. I actually know a collector that has kept track of ended CA sketch card auctions.

Over the years I've always wondered why the artists for MCC98, Marvel Silver Age and Fleer Ultra Spider-man wasn't listed out (other than space). Then the same was done for CA, by making one large group ($30-$300). Why did NSU pick MM07 to start listing out all the artists with it being such a large complex list with some questions marks?

I look forward to reading some replies.

Thanks, Tim

PS. BTW, I see there's a lot of quantities missing next to the MM07 artists names, I could help out with almost everyone of them.

. . . Purely speculation, but it was very recently that they changed the price guide, and perhaps now they have more space for this sort of thing. Complete Avengers came out when space was really tight (I think).

Personally I don't think there is much of a point to list the prices for sketch cards. The prices change so frequently, and are based on much more than just the artist.

I'm sure they'd love to have the missing information passed along -- I think there is a price guide update link from the NSU home page.

All that said if they keep listing out artists like this for all the sets they're going to be out of price guide space again in no time.

Jon

quote:

Originally posted by jon@webjon.com:
Personally I don't think there is much of a point to list the prices for sketch cards. The prices change so frequently, and are based on much more than just the artist.Jon

I would agree that pricing 1/1 sketch cards seems pointless for the Guide. Its not just that the pricing might change, its how do you measure it to begin with? There is the artist of course, but then you have to consider the popularity of the set, how many sketches he/she did in the set and most importantly the sketch itself, which is the biggest variable.

For instance let's take the listing for Dennis Cristostome in Marvel Masterpieces at random. It says he did 200 at $77.00. Now I might see one of them and say that's a fair price, I might see another and say its way too low or way too high based on my opinion of the subject drawn. Its nice to know what artists worked on the set and how many they did, but unless all of the sketches are exactly the same you can't fix a price like on an autograph card.

I can understand why NSU might want to put something in the guide on sketches because they have become the main insert in many new sets, but to just do arbitrary dollar amounts on name recognition alone is not enough, and to put n/a after everything just wastes the page space. It would be better to go with a range, or just not try to price sketches at all, if estimates on average sale prices of unequal work is the only basis available.

Nobody knows more about all the variables involved with pricing a sketch card than I do. I've been collecting them for 5+ years with easily 50+ trades.

I don't think it's pointless to have a guide for sketch cards. There has to some average price for the cards. The quantity, quality and popularity of the artist is factored in (which would reflect in dealer/ebay sales). And certainly a Spider-man will bring more interest and $$ than Black Panther. But that's why it's a guide, you will have cards that sell above and below the guide. You do with many auto's and memorabilia cards. If you have a variant auto or piecework card there's a good chance it will bring more money than the guide but atleast you knew what the average auto or piecework card goes for to base it off of.

I understand the issues of space in the NSU price guide, my main question was why start with Marvel Masterpieces which is much more difficult than Complete Avengers? CA has exact artists with quantities AND a limited character list that could be drawn. Plus they were all colored taking out one of the variables. Plus you had a huge amount of the sketch cards sold by a few dealers, giving you a consolidated resource.

Ttyl, Tim

P.S. - I'm still surprised that 1998 Marvel Silver age doesn't list out artists Tuska, Colan, and Severin.

I don't think autographs and pieceworks cards compare to sketches -- variants are the rule with sketches, and (generally) the exception with autographs and pieceworks.

If anything I'd rather see a range than an average price in the guide, but again that would be pretty useless in my humble opinion.

More good questions regarding the Silver Age artists, I'd shoot an email off.

Jon

I have not really followed the sketch cards much maybe 5 months not 5+ years but I think a price listing really is not something that will work out for sketches. Seems that almost every set now has sketches as part of them. So there are more and more cards done by the artist so there is more opportunity to finally get a card by one of the artist. They might of done only 50 for set X but they did 50 for set Y and 50 for set Z. So as each set is released prices will fluctuate. Granted a particular character or artist might bring a few $$$ more but over all I think the prices will start to stabilize. The other thing is say an artist did 100 sketches how can you break it down by colored compared to just inked when it depends on the character or scene that drives the price. Then throw in the 6 back or 10 artist proofs that never make it to the public and only the artist and person who purchased the card know the price paid. It would be extremely hard to keep it all straight in my opinion. Plus, internet sale prices are different than show sale prices. It would be a full time job just to keep up with the sketches alone.
Another thing is on that auction site you all know that there is a hand full of people that have bottomless bank accounts that price is no concern so a lot of cards are in one persons possession and then they would in a way influence the market and would not be a true reflection I would think of the true market value as they are a form of an monopoly so to speak.
With sketches being a one of one and that so many are now out in the market I really don't think a price listing would work as everyone would hope it would in the long run.

quote:

Originally posted by goldenavenger:

Alright, someone needs to help me understand something...Why did NSU pick MM07 to start listing out all the artists with it being such a large complex list with some questions marks?

Tim,

I believe that the comments posted, so far, in response to your query are on point but let me add to them. NSU did not "choose" MM07. With the reorganization of the price guide (fully explained in the magazine) we have the opportunity to fully list every new card series, ONCE. You will find MM07 shrunk down to next to nothing in the next issue along with other series listed for the first time in Vol. 19 #2. Unfortunately we may not have perfect knowledge of what actually made it into a series at press time, especially when it comes to autographs and sketches but we will be giving the reader more information than we have in the past.

I am responsible for the prices that you find in the guide. I cannot agree more with another poster. I feel that pricing sketch cards is only marginally helpful. Prices for an artist can deviate dramatically making an average useless (without some knowledge of the standard deviation). So, use the prices loosely to gage popularity and demand. The prices found are for specific works of art, not "like kind items", whose value is based upon artist, execution, complexity, subject matter, number of sketches and popularity of subject matter. I'm sure that you can name a few more characteristics effecting price. I would never tell anyone that a sketch that one is about to purchase is worth what it says in the guide. The sale is too subjective.

I am collecting Wizard of Oz sketches but I only want one sketch of each character. My focus is not on the artist but on my perception of the artist's ability to capture the spirit of the character. I will pay accordingly.

A policy is a policy, though. We will continue to list what we know. MM07 will join the ranks of the "shmooshed" in the next issue.

We welcome all corrections. I will be keeping an archive of "unshmooshed" listings for possible future use.

quote:

P.S. - I'm still surprised that 1998 Marvel Silver age doesn't list out artists Tuska, Colan, and Severin.

If we had knowledge of prices for these artists that warrent listing in the guide then we would list them. Any help would be appreciated.

What we need is a national policy regarding "card control". All sales would have to go through a federally licensed dealer who would be bound by law to enter the particulars of each sale into a national database. Until then, we rely on our readers to fill in the gaps.

Stepping on my soap box to try to get some sketch card pricing in the price guide ...

A price guide for sketch cards for individual card releases can certainly be made once the concept that it would be a GUIDE used for reference is achieved by the reader. Gathering actualized prices from public forums such as Internet sales and show sales of individual artists from the releases and taking an "average" or "median" price is a fair snap shot for the market of those sketch cards. Perhaps that is what NSU is trying to achieve with starting Marvel Masterpieces. Now if we can continue that pricing going forward for sketch cards with newer releases and going back with older releases such as Complete Avengers.

Obviously, giving a price range would be a better method to report the card prices for individual cards but for whatever reason NSU uses the one pricing method. So with NSU pricing of Dennis Crisostomo's Marvel Masterpieces sketch cards at $77, it shouldn't be taken that ALL of his cards should be valued at that price because it's a GUIDE. Some will sell for more and others will sell for less. A lot of the pricing would depend on what the character is, how detailed it is, and what a certain collector is willing to pay for it. It would probably be an easier concept to grasp if NSU used a price range for his cards in a $45 - $90 range instead of the $77 that is currently in the price guide. There are "typical" sketch cards of his of "typical" characters that he drew that would probably good sellers in the lower range of $45 and some "popular" characters that will sell closer to the $90 range.

I agree that Complete Avengers would be an easier product to price than Marvel Masterpieces because the variables were less. All sketch cards were colored, the amount of cards that were done by each artist was giving, there were no Archive Box exclusives, no Artists Proofs or 6 back to the artist cards and high percent of product that was opened by a few dealers and priced by them. Complete Avengers can still be individually priced in NSU, it just might need a little help from the members of these message boards

Lastly, every bit of information to help the collector is useful. Even marginal help is better than no help at all. I see that there are some prices for the sketch cards in DC Legacy with "the top five are listed" in the guide. That is more helpful than the "others" given a range of 20 - 210. With more and more sets coming out with sketch cards as a key selling point, having some pricing these cards in the guides needs to take on more relevance. With more sets coming out, more collectors are bound be entering the hobby also. Those collectors will probably want to know what the sketch cards are worth and they have to turn to somewhere for the pricing and their continual purchasing surely could depend on finding the prices in the guides. By using pricing of actual sales to come up with "average" prices of the artists for a GUIDE is still helpful to the collectors if you let them know that it's an average price and that there could be pricing premiums when it comes to "execution, complexity, and popularity of subject matter" of the sketch card. After that marginal help, let the collectors decide accordingly.

...getting off my soap box now.

My experience of sketches, which I collected from 1998 onwards was that a few collectors tried to dominate the setting of prices by whatever means necessary (I've had more down right nasty emails from sketch collectors than for any other collectible). Forgive me if I don't see the need to pander to such a a limited group of people, and a thankless task to be sure. Because they are sure to be right and you are wrong

So glad I switched from sketchagraphs into buying Silver age comic art instead. A much nicer crowd of collectors in the main (and better prices!)

I had similar experiences (downright rude emails) with sketch collecting, however these days it's a much friendlier area of collecting -- perhaps because there is so much product to collect. . .

Jon

Sketch card collecting is nothing like it was in years past. There's so much out there, the quantity of collectors have increased tremendously and the amount of sketch cards has increased at the same rate or even more than collectors have.

Before sketch cards were so limited that it was a niche market within a niche market. Once they crossed over to the entertainment sets sketches moved into the main stream. Now that some products seed one or two per box even non-sketch card people like me can enjoy them.

But any kind of published pricing for artists is going to be difficult. If you have to acknowledge a ton of stipulations like its only a guide, its just an average, there are premiums based on color, subject, number, set, etc. etc. I mean with all due respect, someone could spend a lot of time trying to calculate all the variables just to arrive at a value that would still be anybody's guess.

I think the best you can achieve is a general range and then, as someone said, let the collectors decide.

I am a member of a site which lists prices for a separate collectible. I pay for the privelege and these fees pay for the work of updating the prices. Just like sketches each item is an individual piece of work. All this does do is list the exact prices gained on ebay, hertitage and other public domain auction sites. This is done by collectors on behalf of collectors. What it doesnt do is list private sales as these have no means of being verified and could change prices radically without market proof being evident.

I've seen old sketch lists doing the rounds listing ebay prices. Why dont the expert sketch collectors band together and do this for themselves. If I ran a publication such as NSU I'd be scared stiff of anything that could be construed, however wrongly, as contributing to the 'fixing' of prices for such a volatile area of collecting and again ,however wrongly, as pandering to certain collectors.

I'm glad to hear sketch collecting is no longer controlled by the 'Millenium Group'. Hope springs eternal.

quote:

I'm glad to hear sketch collecting is no longer controlled by the 'Millenium Group'. Hope springs eternal

quote:

I had similar experiences (downright rude emails) with sketch collecting,

quote:

My experience of sketches, which I collected from 1998 onwards was that a few collectors tried to dominate the setting of prices by whatever means necessary (I've had more down right nasty emails from sketch collectors than for any other collectible). Forgive me if I don't see the need to pander to such a a limited group of people, and a thankless task to be sure. Because they are sure to be right and you are wrong

Sheesh. Well, speaking as one of "THOSE" collectors, I apologize on behalf of all of my brethen within the Millenium Group. Too bad we didn't know we had an uber cool name or we would have used it before now.

Sincerely,
ME - a founding member of the Milennium Group of Sketch collectors.

Joanna-

I sincerely hope you aren't being serious. Sure, you may have been involved with buying sketch cards back in the day and beyond (as have I), but you never were one of the people who would downright berate you for not wanting to trade cards.

Jon

Not sure yet. I have been, shall we say, known to be difficult when it comes to trading my precious little babies - although I don't ever think I was rude. Slow, certainly, forgetful, most definately, but I always tried to conduct business in a friendly manner.

But, the posts in this thread lump us old-school collectors all together. They seem to say that old sketch collectors are elitest while the new generation is much more uber. Frankly, I've had worse experiences with the new collectors that I ever had with the old ones. That is not to say that I've not had unpleasant experiences with old school collectors, but I wouldn't say that categorically they were better or worse.

Still, I would be a founding member of the Millenium Group, now, wouldn't I? Been doing this way too long, I suppose. Maybe it's time to get out. But I do so love my sketch babies...

Regardless of being a new, old-school, or even non-sketch card collector there are more products being released with sketch cards in them. Providing the best possible pricing information on these sketch cards to a newer and expanding audience is certainly not catering to niche collectors. Part of the purpose of a price guide is to be educational and that's what pricing the sketch cards would help to do for all collectors of non-sports cards.

Millenium group was just my little joke .... Egocentric, clique forming, downright weird, agenda-driven, crackpots....hehe :-)

Sorry over worked mum....I dont think I ever had the pleasure of being stalked by you...

Anyway time to move on to more pleasant things...

Sketches are an in-demand thing, depending on artists, numbers drawn, sets there from.....
You could practically charge what ever you want!!!!! If someone is silly to buy at some ludacris price, that's up to them, but then again, that same person may find a sketch for a good price and think it way under valued!!!!!

Ryan Waterhouse Sketches are priceless now

KADRAN00157