Chuck's Pottery Brawl in Alamagordo! Howdy! After driving 600 miles in just over eight hours last evening, I am back at my home in Boulder. My three-day trip to the RG Munn Indian Arts and Crafts auction was quite interesting, particularly from the perspective of evaluating the current conditions in the collectibles world. While there is obviously quite a distance between those who collect Native American crafts and those who are interested in coins, stamps, comics, antiques, etc., there are also a significant number of commonalties. As a case in point, the past 18 months have seen significant erosion in many retail prices of collectibles, as disposable income has retreated during the recession. The rise in gold and silver prices have kept some coin values steady, but even fine art, collectible cars, and fossils have seen price declines. A great many collectors are still avidly buying in today's market, but disinflation has definitely had an impact. Virgil Ortiz mermaid figure! Returning to the subject of the Munn auction, there were over 1,000 items listed in this sale, ranging from paintings, to Navajo rugs, to hand carved Hopi Kachina (or more correctly, Kat'sina) figures, to turquoise and silver jewelry, to Pueblo pottery. Summarizing quickly, rug prices were down, Kachinas were completely dead, jewelry was good to very good (in part because of meltdown values...), some paintings did quite well and sold well over estimates, and pottery went absolutely nuts. I went to Alamogordo specifically to buy some of the 200+ pieces of pottery listed in the catalog, and I had to fight in what was essentially a bar brawl in order to obtain my pieces. Half a dozen big time pottery collectors were at the auction, and none of us were willing to back down, except under extreme duress. That meant that the bidding for a great deal of the pottery exceeded the high estimates in the auction catalog, oftentimes by several multiples. As a case in point, my #1 goal at the auction was to buy a Virgil Ortiz mermaid figure that he created as a young man. Mermaids are sort of an in-joke at Cochiti Pueblo, as they are reputed to live in a large reservoir that was built on pueblo lands. What made this piece particularly attractive to me, however, is the fact that Virgil has now become a huge player in the world of fashion design, with his own very successful lines of jewelry scarves and handbags. As a result of selling slews of $400 scarves, he now pots far less than in the past. I haven't checked prices lately, but his more avant garde pieces were selling for upwards of $10,000 each a couple of years ago. Heaven only knows what they bring today... To make a long story short, Virgil's mermaid came up very early in the first auction session, and I won it at $1,200, or three times the $200-$400 estimate in the catalog. I would have actually have won it for less, but someone on the Internet wanted it almost as much as I did, so they bid $1100. That having been said, I was very smart to have scored my #1 goal early, as from that point onwards, I was forced to repeatedly back down when bidding on far more mundane pots vastly exceeded my remaining budget. My archnemesis in the pottery world was there, and he brought a huge war chest with which to beat me up. After losing half a dozen items in a row to him, I decided to go on the offensive by engaging in a very risky "roll and dump" campaign. What that means is that I would jump in bidding on items that I really didn't want, but that I thought that he did, with no intention of actually buying them. I would bid furiously for about 2 minutes, and then when the price reached ridiculous levels, I would dump the piece off to him at the inflated price. By the time I was finished, I cost him at least an extra $10,000 on about 60 pieces, and only got stuck with one pot. My strategy didn't faze him, however, as he spent over $40,000 at the auction, scooping up most of the best pots. I did score a few more great deals because I simply know more than he does about some of the more eclectic pottery genres, but he was invincible on all the obvious gems. Sigh... Had I not have locked in my mermaid early on, I would have been very frustrated and disappointed. All of the above having been said, it was clear to me that there is still a great deal of money out there in the collectibles market. With paintings, pottery and jewelry leading the way, this auction was the most successful for the Munn's in at least two years. Only a couple of items didn't sell at all, and even they drew decent bids, but just not enough to meet the minimums imposed by the consignors. There were about 60 live bidders at this auction (as compared with 5 at the auction back in March), who were joined by at least 100 more bidders on the Internet. The overall caliber of material was better this time, but not so much so as to cause such a large increase in interest. My own feeling is that prices have now hit their lowest points for most collectibles, and are now starting to rise. Several of the bidders at the auctions told me that the recent improvements in the stock market had restored some of the lost asset values in their retirement accounts, and they thus felt comfortable in once again purchasing art. All of this is good news, especially if you're me. With a great deal of my personal net worth tied up in my 8,000+ pieces of pottery, I am just delighted to see all that excited bidding at the Munn auction. I was particularly pleased that figural pieces sold especially well, as that is my #1 area of specialty. It may be harder for me to buy in the future, but at least I no longer need have any fear of disinflation in the pueblo pottery world. It's nice to see the collectibles economy recovering so briskly... Moving on to comics news, our ongoing 80% off sale will be ending on Friday, at noon, Colorado time. So you know, I have added 2 extra days into the 80% off sale to help me recover from my expenditures at the Munn auction. At this point, however, I am beginning to feel quite trepedatious about continuing to sell our comics so inexpensively. While Pam's buying program is certainly still bringing us in thousands of comics, I'm becoming concerned that prices are going to rise quite a bit when we reach the peak selling period for back issues, from December-May. That's the time period when I will be heading out to buy at shows on the East Coast, and I am already hearing rumors from some of our suppliers of significantly increased demand for scarce comics. That means that I will almost certainly be faced with higher wholesale prices for comics. My goal is always to provide those of you who support us with the very best discounts that I possibly can, but I always have to weigh the degree of our discounting with our cost of replacement. If you have been holding off on placing an order with us, I highly recommend that you do so before the end of this week. I will be having additional sales in the fall, but barring some unforeseen change in circumstance, I do not believe that these upcoming sales will feature discounted prices as generous as what we are offering you right now. Well, that's it for today. I have a wholesale order waiting to be filled for 15,000 of our overstock 1990's comics, so I have to hustle on down to the warehouse, and get to sorting a couple of pallets. Please have an excellent week, and enjoy reading your comics! Happy collecting! Chuck Rozanski, President - Mile High Comics, Inc. Advance Previews of next weeks comics from Archie PS: Here are the quick links to our most popular titles. You will still find a great many back issues on sale at 80% off in all of these titles, but you need to hurry and place your order before they are gone... Quick Links to Popular Marvel Titles Alias (2001) Alpha Flight (1983) Amazing Adventures (1970) Amazing Spider-man (1999) Astonishing X-Men (2004) Avengers (1963) Avengers (1997) Avengers/Invaders (2008) Black Panther (2005) Captain America (1968) Captain America (2004) Captain Britain and MI 13 (2008) Champions (1975) Civil War Classic X-Men (1986) Conan (1970) Daredevil (1964) Daredevil (1998) Deadpool (1997) Deadpool (2008) Defenders (1972) Doctor Strange (1966) Doctor Strange (1974) Elektra (2001) Exiles (2001) Fantastic Four (1961) Ghost Rider (1973) GI Joe Hulk (1962) Hulk (2008) Invaders (1975) Iron Fist (1975) Iron Man (1968) Iron Man (2004) Journey Into Mystery (1972) Marvel Team-Up (1972) Marvel Two-In-One (1974) Master of Kung Fu (1974) Mighty Avengers (2007) Ms. Marvel (2006) New Avengers (2004) New Mutants NYX (2003) Peter Parker (1976) Powerman/Iron Fist (1972) Punisher (1987) Punisher Max (2004) Runaways (2005) Secret Invasion (2008) Sgt Fury She-Hulk 2 (2005) Silver Surfer (1968) Silver Surfer (1987) Spider-Man (1963) Spider-Woman (1978) Strange Tales (1951) Sub-Mariner (1968) Tales of Suspense (1959) Tales to Astonish (1959) Thor (1962) Thor (1962) Thunderbolts (1997) Tomb of Dracula (1972) Ultimate Fantastic Four (2003) Ultimate Spider-Man (2000) Ultimate X-Men (2000) Ultimates (2002) Ultimates 2 (2004) Ultimates 3 (2007) Ultimatum (2008) Web of Spider-Man (1985) Werewolf By Night (1972) What If... (1977) Wolverine (1988) Wolverine (2003) Wolverine: Origins (2006) X-Factor (1988) X-Force (2008) X-Men (1963) X-Men (1991) X-Treme X-Men (2001) Young Avengers (2005) Quick Links to Popular DC Titles Action Comics Adventure Comics Adventures of Superman All Star (1976) Authority Batman (1940) Batman Family Brave and the Bold (1955) Dark Knight (1986) Detective Comics Fables (2002) Firestorm (2004) Flash (1959) Green Lantern (1960) Green Lantern (2005) Green Lantern: Rebirth Jack of Fables (2006) Jimmy Olsen (1954) Justice League of America (1960) Legion Of Super-Heroes (1980) Lois Lane (1958) Mad Magazine Our Fighting Forces (1954) Phantom Stranger (1969) Plop (1973) Secret Society Of Super-Villains Sgt. Rock Showcase (1956) Super-Team Family Superboy (1949) Superman Superman Family (1974) Tarzan (1972) Teen Titans (1966) Warlord (1976) Watchmen (1986) Weird War Tales (1971) Witching Hour (1969) Wonder Woman (1942) World's Finest (1941) Current Newsletter