Monday, August 6, 2012

Comic book auction sale yields astonishing prices

While the Marvel Comics superheroes’ onscreen versions are scooping up dollars at the box office, the trend of their printed incarnations fetching premium price tags at the auction block, is also coming to the fore.

A Spider-Man illustration, which ran on the cover of a wall-crawler’s comic book adventure from the 1990s went for over $650,000, whereas 1960s comics comprising of the first appearances of the publisher’s Avengers & X-Men teams each got for six-figure returns as auction prices. According to Heritage Auctions, the original cover artwork from Amazing Spider-Man No. 328, drawn by Todd McFarlane and depicting Spidey (smashing the Hulk into his logo) was grabbed for a very impressive price.

Todd McFarlane's original piece of art for ‘The Amazing Spider-Man #328’ fetched a record price of $657,250 as part of the Signature® Comics and Comic Art Auction courtesy Heritage Auctions in Beverly Hills. The auction house added this was the highest ever auction price for any piece of comic-book art.

Meanwhile, another illustration done by Mr. McFarlane drawn for the Spider-Man No. 1 cover, a series in the 1990s, was sold for $358,500 at this same auction. The VP of Heritage Auctions, Todd Hignite stated: "The auction is one among the single highest grossing comic/ comic art auctions in history. We are thrilled with these results and especially for Martin Shamus, who showed the foresight and taste to acquire these precious pieces over two decades ago."

The artwork was sold — along with McFarlane's original art for Spider-Man #1 (Marvel, 1990), which fetched $358,500 – all as part of the first tranche of the sizzling ‘Shamus Collection of Modern Masterworks’, a collection of late-1980s, extending into early 1990s original comic book art that put together by owner of a comics/ memorabilia shop on Long Island, Martin Shamus.

The Heritage auction also featured the ‘Doug Schmell/Pedigree Comics.com Collection’. The entire comic book sale all in all yielded some truly astonishing prices.

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