Another year is coming to a close and with it another crop of impressive auction results. Scoop talked to Doug Schmell, president and CEO of Pedigree Comics, about 2016 and into 2017. He discussed which books and artists saw big draws in 2016, how his first art auction did, surprising prices of 2016, and what he anticipates for 2017.  

Scoop: How many auctions did you hold in 2016?
Doug Schmell (DS): I had six. It’s usually bimonthly.

Scoop: Let’s talk about pricing trends of the year for comics. Which titles excelled in 2016?
DS: Good question. All the Fantastic Fours have been hot. Strange Tales. All the good Marvel titles, I’ve noticed – Amazing Spider-Man is still consistent. Incredible Hulk #1-6, the early Silver Age Hulks are doing very well right now. X-Men. It seems like all the flagship titles are still going very strong, especially at high grade. There’s a lot of individual books from the Bronze Age that are still doing very well. Marvel Premiere #15, Incredible Hulk #181, Amazing Spider-Man #129, Hero for Hire #1, Special Marvel Edition #15, Iron Fist #14, Iron Man #55, Avengers #55. There’s just a lot of these great Bronze Age, early to mid-’70s books that have been doing just incredibly well. The list seems endless. Those are all books that have maintained value over the past few years and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to slow down.

Scoop: Which first appearances saw the biggest draw?
DS: It seems like Hero for Hire because Luke Cage was in the Jessica Jones Netflix TV show. Daredevil #1 has also been a key seller for me. It came out in April 1964 way past X-Men #1, Avengers #1, AF #15, Spider-Man #1, Fantastic Four #1, Hulk #1, Strange Tales #110 - and it’s always been the least valuable, but it’s doing incredibly well lately. There are so many great first appearances issues that are hot and a lot of them are the Bronze Age ones I just touched upon.

As far as Silver Age, Strange Tales #110 has always been a great book, especially in high grade. Right now I see a lot of demand for Amazing Spider-Man #1. I have one that’s in my vault section of my website, so there’s no list price, but people can contact me.

Scoop: You had your first original art auction in October. Was it successful?
DS: In August I had the full DC auction and I followed that up with one of my typical, strong all Marvel auctions, but I also had the art as part of the Grand Auction. It did very well. We had art ranging from $100 to $100,000. The only problem, if you will, is that we were trying to get as many consigners as we could because it was the first art auction, we allowed them to put reserves. Even though in the comic part of the auctions we do allow reserves, I usually talk consigners against it because most guys won’t bid on the comics with a reserve because they’re so available on other websites. They’re usually, kind of, bidding against themselves when there’s a reserve and they don’t know where they stand, so they’ll go on to the next book.

So we wanted the consigners for the artwork to have that sort of security where they knew that they were not going to be selling any piece of art for less than the price that they want. And that’s when the reserve came in, because you cannot sell for less than the reserve. A lot of the pieces did not sell. The ones that did, did well. We had a Fantastic Four #43, might’ve been page 23, it went for about $19,000. It did very well. We listed it with a reserve and the consigner was very happy so we’re getting a lot more pieces from him.

For this upcoming auction in January, we have a phenomenal piece. It’s actually page 2 of Daredevil #1, which is actually the first appearance of Daredevil in costume. We expect that to go for six figures, for sure.

Scoop: Did any particular artists draw more bidders than others?
DS: Yeah, it’s usually Jack Kirby, Neal Adams, obviously Wrightson. We’re hoping to get some more of John Romita’s artwork. We have some Modern artists that we’ve seen some nice, strong demand for. We also list the artwork on our daily exchange. Sometimes the ones that don’t sell on the daily exchange crossover to the auction. We’ve had some nice sales in the daily exchange as well. We’re just getting our feet wet with the artwork, but so far I’m very encouraged by the amount of consigners we have. It was our first art auction and we had literally over 300 pieces, which is really amazing for a first auction.

Scoop: What prices surprised you this year?
DS: There was a sale in the last auction that a lot of people didn’t believe. This was a Marvel Spotlight #5, which is the first Ghost Rider. Now, it’s kind of rare in 9.8. You see Ghost Rider #1 in 9.8, there’s, like, 23 copies of that and that’s only, say a $2,000 or $3,000 book. There’s only, I believe, three Marvel Spotlight #5s and that is a much tougher book. It has a black cover and it’s very hard to find in 9.8. When the consigner first called me, he asked if I’d want to call one of my big guys and I thought of a guy immediately that I thought would be interested. I asked him if he really wanted to limit himself to one guy. He had a price in mind, about $25,000, he asked if I thought we could get that and I did. But why would we limit to one guy when I had an auction coming up. I had an auction in two weeks. I didn’t have much time to promote it. It went for, I believe, $48,500. It was incredible. The consigner couldn’t believe it. We had about four or five high-end bidders bidding on it until it hit the $30,000 to $35,000 mark and then it was two guys. When I saw that it was over $48,000 I couldn’t believe it.

I had an Amazing Spider-Man #23 in 9.6, which I figured would go for $7,500, it went for $11,000. That was another big sale. I had an Iron Man #55 9.8 that went for over $6,000. I had a Hulk #181 that did very well, but they always do. As far as books that really blew me away, nothing like that Marvel Spotlight #5 happened in a long time.

Scoop: Did you see a lot of growth in your customer base throughout 2016?
DS: Most of the customers I have are repeat buyers. It’s very rare that I have a guy who buys one book and then I never hear from him again. There’s a lot of new collectors that I see. They could just be investors. It’s funny because I had a guy who emailed me recently who has a friend that wants to get involved in buying books as an investment. He wanted to start off by buying about $100,000 worth of books. So I got him a list of books I thought he might be interested in, but I didn’t know what his collecting taste would be. The guy saw the vault section on the website and was interested in ten books for his friend. These are great, investment quality books, and he’d already bought two of them for his friend.

Scoop: What are your expectations for next year? Can you forecast any titles, characters, or artists that will be big sellers in 2017?
DS: I think there are a few collections that still haven’t come to market. I have a feeling there will be a couple new collections coming to market. There really hasn’t been an original art collection that has come to market the past year or so. I just get the feeling that 2017 is going to see some major collection and that’s always good for the hobby. You have new buyers who are interested in buying books from an original owner collection. So I foresee that happening, because, let’s face it everybody knows about CGC and CBCS, a lot of people have had books for a while, they’re holding them and then they pick up a Price Guide and they find out about certification and realize this is the way to go, “I have to have my books certified.” Then hopefully I get the call, but it could be one of my competitors and good luck to them, it’s just a question of getting the material. It’s usually a high grade type of collection that hits the market, that causes a bit of a frenzy. Then you’ll hear about it, they’ll get certified, and then they’ll be in somebody’s auction.

Scoop: Can you give us a preview now of art and comics you’ll offer next year?
DS: As far as me personally, I’ve got some great books in store for my January auction. It features a really unbelievable group of Neal Adams DC covers. Now, I got them from a consignor who doesn’t live too far from me, and he’s put these together for a while. It’s an amazing collection. There’s over 150 of these Neal Adams issues with the covers and their all 9.6 and 9.8. It’s truly unbelievable. Now, there’s a couple of 9.4s, but it’s like a handful. Everything else is 9.6 and 9.8. And all the titles that you can imagine – Action Comics, Adventure Comics, Superman, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane, Tomahawk, Green Lantern, World’s Finest Comics, Unexpected, Witching Hour, House of Mystery – they’re all there and the covers are beautiful. They’re all Neal Adams covers and they’re usually the highest or second highest graded copy. I’d say half of them are the highest certified copy, so that’s the highlight of this coming auction. We also have non-Neal Adams issues from DC and those are phenomenal too. I also have some great nice Bronze Age Marvels coming in, the usual Amazing Spider-Man #129 in 9.8, Amazing Spider-Man #121 in 9.8, Marvel Premiere #15 9.8, Iron Fist #14 in 9.8 – the first appearance of Sabretooth. All those great 1970s early books I have a lot of them in 9.8 – I have an X-Men #94 9.8, that should do phenomenally well. It’s a great mixture and I’m very excited for my January auction.

Going forward the next auction will probably be March or maybe April. I think I had touched base with you the last time we spoke in San Diego, I’m sitting on an incredible collection of Gold Key and Dells. They’re all 9.4, 9.6, 9.8. They’re beautiful. They haven’t hit the market yet. I must have about 200 issues of these books that I’m just sitting on. I’ll probably do an auction for all of them, maybe that will be my March or April auction. They’re all the funny animal and photo covers and they are really hard to find in high grade.

To wrap it up, I’ll tell you this: the market’s strong, the market’s great. I see a lot of new customers. Every time somebody new registers on my website I get an email, this way I can track it. And every time I have an auction, before the auction starts, I see more and more of those emails for first time registers, and it’s just wonderful.