I tend to stay away from that auction site since about 2008 but I was there this morning. There were almost 25000 sketch card listings! Most of them were from sets I have never heard of. It was unreal! There were some really well done pieces of art that were going for nothing and some art that I wondered how did this make it pass the card producer it was so bad! Man times have changed!

25,000 pieces on ebay.

Great pieces going for next to nothing.

Anyone spot the connection?

its all these ACEOs - and they are listed all the time many repeats -

It really is a buyer's market. Supply has exceeded demand.

As for ACEOs, I've never really understood those, and especially coming from great artists.

The reason sketch cards are the size of a regular card is because they have to fit into the pack with regular cards.

With commissioned ACEOs, you are paying the artist for the art, so why would you want it to be so small? The card was never in a pack or had to fit in a pack, so why pay for an illustrated piece that is so needlessly small.

The sketch card prices are unusually high on Ebay lately, but if you are patient and not super rich, like me (I mean I'm NOT super rich), the cards will probably eventually be re-listed at a lower price. The problem with that, of course, is you have to scroll through the numerous re-listings all the time. But the search can yield gold sometimes.

quote:

Originally posted by barobehere:
There were almost 25000 sketch card listings! Most of them were from sets I have never heard of.

Yes, apart from the tons of ACEOs that are not from any official sets, there are many smaller sets from smaller manufacturers and artist groups that are just plain sketch products. I don't mean Vampirella or Bettie Page, which I would call mainstream, I mean stuff like Angels, Zombies vs Cheerleaders, Dungeon Dolls and the like. I don't know how many of these types of products sold out as I don't normally buy sketches and don't try to keep up with types of titles. But there are many sketches from those sets that don't seem to be moving. Just a case of the supply far exceeding the demand I guess.

I also agree that its a tough market to logically figure out. A lot of good art is collecting dust at more than reasonable prices, while on the other hand there are expensive sketches that aren't supported by the mediocre quality of what I see. Of course they aren't necessarily selling either.

Notice that less than 5% of those listings are auctions, the rest are BIN -- regardless of supply/demand, etc what looks to be happening is that all the free eBay listings are getting a lot of people posting sketches that they either don't intend to sell or are asking too high prices for.

I agree totally ^

What I'm most confused about with sketch cards these days is if you do a search on Star Wars sketch card , you'll find some really nice ones that almost look like photographs and priced pretty high ( which is understandable ) , but then you come across sketches that look like a 3 year old did it and they are priced either the same as the really nice one or sometimes higher . Most are just outlined in scribble .

quote:

Originally posted by webjon:
Notice that less than 5% of those listings are auctions, the rest are BIN -- regardless of supply/demand, etc what looks to be happening is that all the free eBay listings are getting a lot of people posting sketches that they either don't intend to sell or are asking too high prices for.

I presume you are refering to US listings on eBay.com ? BIN listings are not free here in the UK, even when they have free listings weekends. It only applies to auction style listings.

Having said that, due to the way eBay.co.uk charges for listings, it is often cheaper to list things as BIN/BO than to waste money on auction style listings starting at any price greater than 99p.

quote:

Originally posted by chesspieceface:
It really is a buyer's market. Supply has exceeded demand.

As for ACEOs, I've never really understood those, and especially coming from great artists.

The reason sketch cards are the size of a regular card is because they have to fit into the pack with regular cards.

With commissioned ACEOs, you are paying the artist for the art, so why would you want it to be so small? The card was never in a pack or had to fit in a pack, so why pay for an illustrated piece that is so needlessly small.

I think a lot of people would agree with you. I am on the other side, though. I like the small artwork. I think it is a cool way to have a sample of art if you don't have much room to display it. I have several large pieces of original art in my home, mostly from local artists, but I don't have appropriate storage for works that would not have a permanent place. Makes me sad, but the cards fill the gap a bit.

quote:

Originally posted by fuchaldream:

quote:

Originally posted by chesspieceface:
It really is a buyer's market. Supply has exceeded demand.

As for ACEOs, I've never really understood those, and especially coming from great artists.

The reason sketch cards are the size of a regular card is because they have to fit into the pack with regular cards.

With commissioned ACEOs, you are paying the artist for the art, so why would you want it to be so small? The card was never in a pack or had to fit in a pack, so why pay for an illustrated piece that is so needlessly small.

I think a lot of people would agree with you. I am on the other side, though. I like the small artwork. I think it is a cool way to have a sample of art if you don't have much room to display it. I have several large pieces of original art in my home, mostly from local artists, but I don't have appropriate storage for works that would not have a permanent place. Makes me sad, but the cards fill the gap a bit.

ACEO's have been around a lot longer than sketch cards in art galleries and other outlets. A lot of times they're mixed media type stuff as well. So the title is more recognizable to non sketch card collectors as another way to gain a little exposure

quote:

Originally posted by fuchaldream:

I think a lot of people would agree with you. I am on the other side, though. I like the small artwork. I think it is a cool way to have a sample of art if you don't have much room to display it. I have several large pieces of original art in my home, mostly from local artists, but I don't have appropriate storage for works that would not have a permanent place. Makes me sad, but the cards fill the gap a bit.

I get that, absolutely.

Plus some artists are so excellent they can get a lot of detail into a sketch card and even enjoy the challenge of doing so.
Also, I would imagine it costs less to commission a sketch card from most artists than it would to commission a larger piece of art, so there's that to consider, as well.

I personally don't like sketch cards in with ordinary trading card sets, mostly due to the huge difference in quality between sketches. As an amateur artist myself I wouldn't sleep at night if I'd passed off some of the dreadful work out there! I'd much rather have more prop or costume cards in a set. But the good ones as artwork on their own are nice.

Sketch card-sized 'paintings' are the modern version of miniatures which have been painted for centuries, both portraits and landscapes. If you watch antiques TV shows in the UK like "Antiques Roadshow" or "Flog It", very often miniatures will turn up and the really good ones, or work by particular miniature artists command a large sum of money. Miniatures have always been popular, sketch cards appear to be the current popular format for them.

quote:

Originally posted by Hedgehog Witch:
I personally don't like sketch cards in with ordinary trading card sets, mostly due to the huge difference in quality between sketches. As an amateur artist myself I wouldn't sleep at night if I'd passed off some of the dreadful work out there! I'd much rather have more prop or costume cards in a set. But the good ones as artwork on their own are nice.

Well said. I appreciate the artist's who take the time to do it right. Of course, I don't know how much they are being paid, but I would think it would hurt you to have some of the terrible things I have seen...

On another note, I hate the puzzle cards. I have one from a Breygent set that is part of the Frankenstein movie poster or something. It would probably be nice if I could ever see the whole thing, but I doubt that will happen...

Puzzle sketches should always come in the same pack so they can stay together. Kind of pointless to have one without the other most of the time.

we always put puzzles togther and if one was not (fuchaldream) put togther that was an error on our part
Tom

quote:

Originally posted by Breygent Marketing:
we always put puzzles togther

That is *VERY* appreciated.

quote:

Originally posted by Breygent Marketing:
we always put puzzles togther and if one was not (fuchaldream) put togther that was an error on our part
Tom

Ummm... Well, then I take it back. Apparently, I was just unlucky.

It was years ago, and it has not had any impact on my view of Breygent. My view of the artist, though, maybe... Kidding. Just was not sure what I was going to do with it.

If someone has the other pieces, let me know. I am open to sending it to someone who needs it for completion.

Edit:
I'll dig up the card and post a scan this weekend if I have time.