Looking for info on COOL LINES ARTWORK

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I was interested in a DPS that had been sitting on one of the auction sites for at least 2 years for $3900 with no takers. I e-mailed asking what their bottom line was and they told me "$7500, but if you buy it now you can have it for $6800" What balls it takes to try to pull something like that off.

Yet they're still in business after all of these years

The tactic is working on someone (many someones!)

 

I was interested in a DPS that had been sitting on one of the auction sites for at least 2 years for $3900 with no takers. I e-mailed asking what their bottom line was and they told me "$7500, but if you buy it now you can have it for $6800" What balls it takes to try to pull something like that off.

Did the same thing to me. Doubled the price quote of what I saw the eBay listing for. So after I called them on it, when that auction ends a few days later, they didn't relist it. The Brothers are scumbags, plain and simple.

I think I've had something like three separate encounters with the Brothers D, as a would-be customer.

First one was when I place a maximum bid on one of their eBay auctions.

The art in question failed to meet the reserve, and I received an after-auction offer of a direct sale at a much higher price than the maximum bid I placed.

I just said that my maximum bid was exactly that - and the artwork was worth no more to me. End of discussion.

Another time I enquired after a Don Heck western cover that was on display in Steve's CAF. To his credit, Steve responded promptly with a price I thought was over-inflated - so I didn't pursue.

Third and final time I e-mailed Steve for a price on a low-interest cover I personally considered to be in the $300 - 500 price range (at the time).

Steve responded, wanting to explore trade possibilities with me. He expressed interest in a number of covers I own/owned, including a Wally Wood Weird Science cover (that I have since sold). He said he could do me a deal on the cover I'd enquired about, if we could do some trading as a side-deal.

It was kind of ridiculous . . . I simply wanted a price on something that would probably struggle to find a buyer . . . and I was expected to jump through hoops and yield a number of high-end pieces of my own to qualify as a buyer!

At that point I decided to treat the whole scenario as a joke and what followed over a number of weeks was an exchange of infrequent e-mails in which I humored Steve's unrealistic expectations. Talks eventually fizzled-out.

Some collectors seem to be okay with how the Brothers D operate and, in all fairness, they certainly seem to thrive and do okay for themselves.

Maybe you need to have masochistic tendencies to want to do business with them?

Me, I hate pain and prefer to deal with strait-shooters.

Yet they're still in business after all of these years The tactic is working on someone (many someones!)

Or they have other sources of income. They've always struck me as collectors more than serious dealers, i.e., someone driven to turn inventory.

Yet they're still in business after all of these years

I agree with this statement.

They seem more like collectors who take their collection on a world tour of conventions for any number of reasons, maybe to brag, boast and feed their own egos as owners of artwork nobody else can own, like a museum. Or maybe they're looking to expose their artwork for trade and laying the bait out there. Or possibly, they're looking for that one buyer who money is no object that's willing to not negotiate and just simply buy on the impulse.

At the conventions they're friendly. Some of their prices aren't too outrageous if it's a piece someone has to have.

I doubt if you're ever going to find hidden treasure or any opportunity to resell their artwork at the prices they charge, but they're not a clearing house either, so I guess it's their prerogative to charge what they want.

Unfortunately for them, they've built a somewhat negative reputation within a rather small hobby, so even when they quote a price, I think many feel it's like entering a used car dealership where, even if a deal sounds good, you're all to suspicious to think the dealer would ever give you a good deal,and something is afoul.

I think many feel, when they ask and inquire about a piece these dealers are like sharks sensing blood in the water and no matter if it's cardboard trash or cardboard treasure, they're going to maximize their profit potential by exploiting the fact that they equate an inquiry as a trigger to the laws of supply and demand and react as if they're selling a hot commodity.

The "please inquire" model obviously does not sit well nor work with most collectors. They're better off putting up a price that's what they want, but adding "or best offer" if they're willing to negotiate down, so at least there's a baseline context to the pricing of their artwork rather than what's happening now, which is seasoned veteran collectors as well as newbies entering the hobby who have heard the legends of their pricing tactics are now either scared or jaded to the point that nobody will eventually ever "inquire" even if they happen to have fair deal pricing. So, I'm guessing there's a lot of people who've not dealt with Coolines that if you asked them about Coolines would have nothing good or nice to say, not out of experience but based on the viral reputation of what they've read about the Donnelly Brothers, which is a shame they've let this happen to themselves.

I don't think it's too late for them to re-invent themselves and endear themselves to the hobby as legitimate dealers that the masses enjoys patronizing. They just need come off their very inconsistent pricing and turn around the negative reputation and perception.

Otherwise, I think they should just reposition themselves not as dealers or resellers, but just as collectors with a nice collection of artwork that for the most part is "NFS" Not For Sale, unless someone offers them a price they can't refuse and leave it at that, rather than pretend to have a mainstream business. Or who knows, maybe Coolines was designed as a business for tax purposes, so sole purpose is to acquire art, not sell art with some sort of financial benefit, so in fact they do what they do and act the way they act for a strategic reason.

Yet they're still in business after all of these years The tactic is working on someone (many someones!)

 

Or they have other sources of income. They've always struck me as collectors more than serious dealers, i.e., someone driven to turn inventory.

I'm a new OA collector and have noticed something strange with one of Cool Lines Artwork's pieces. If you look at this piece on CAF ( link ) and then this one on their site ( link ) you'll notice that the one on CLA's site has the word bubbles added...why is that? Also...the piece on CAF's site was $375 obo and CLA is asking $850

they add art on overlays, it often is not apparent. But I would confirm that it is an overlay before buying and that the art has not been altered

Also, with any art today, regardless of who's selling it, you should clarify the issues of:

Preliminary

Pencils Only

Inked Over Pencils

Original Inked Over Bluelined (Copy) Pencils

So, one piece may exist as a single piece of original art, or may exist legitimately as two (2) separate pieces.

Some artists use the preliminary pieces as well then lightbox the artwork and ink over that. These prelims are sometimes on smaller paper, sometimes really rough thumbnails, or can be quite tight pencils and elaborate (still part of the production process but not the final art).

With the digital age of both artistry and delivery, you'll find some artists send their artwork to inkers electronically, then it's printed out and inked over (reproduced copy), or some artwork only exists as light pencils and it's inked/colored in post-production digitally, so the original can be a shell of what the final published piece looks like. Some pages only have a few panels of original art and other panels that repeat a scene are left blank (before, they'd have paste-up's, and now I'm seeing collectors put their own paste-ups to make the page more complete and aesthetic looking).

they add art on overlays, it often is not apparent. But I would confirm that it is an overlay before buying and that the art has not been altered

I enjoy chatting with the Donneley's at Cons and managed a trade once so far....yes selling art is not their sole source of income

I agree with this statement.

 

They seem more like collectors who take their collection on a world tour of conventions for any number of reasons, maybe to brag, boast and feed their own egos as owners of artwork nobody else can own, like a museum. Or maybe they're looking to expose their artwork for trade and laying the bait out there. Or possibly, they're looking for that one buyer who money is no object that's willing to not negotiate and just simply buy on the impulse.

 

At the conventions they're friendly. Some of their prices aren't too outrageous if it's a piece someone has to have.

 

I doubt if you're ever going to find hidden treasure or any opportunity to resell their artwork at the prices they charge, but they're not a clearing house either, so I guess it's their prerogative to charge what they want.

 

Unfortunately for them, they've built a somewhat negative reputation within a rather small hobby, so even when they quote a price, I think many feel it's like entering a used car dealership where, even if a deal sounds good, you're all to suspicious to think the dealer would ever give you a good deal,and something is afoul.

 

I think many feel, when they ask and inquire about a piece these dealers are like sharks sensing blood in the water and no matter if it's cardboard trash or cardboard treasure, they're going to maximize their profit potential by exploiting the fact that they equate an inquiry as a trigger to the laws of supply and demand and react as if they're selling a hot commodity.

 

The "please inquire" model obviously does not sit well nor work with most collectors. They're better off putting up a price that's what they want, but adding "or best offer" if they're willing to negotiate down, so at least there's a baseline context to the pricing of their artwork rather than what's happening now, which is seasoned veteran collectors as well as newbies entering the hobby who have heard the legends of their pricing tactics are now either scared or jaded to the point that nobody will eventually ever "inquire" even if they happen to have fair deal pricing. So, I'm guessing there's a lot of people who've not dealt with Coolines that if you asked them about Coolines would have nothing good or nice to say, not out of experience but based on the viral reputation of what they've read about the Donnelly Brothers, which is a shame they've let this happen to themselves.

 

I don't think it's too late for them to re-invent themselves and endear themselves to the hobby as legitimate dealers that the masses enjoys patronizing. They just need come off their very inconsistent pricing and turn around the negative reputation and perception.

 

Otherwise, I think they should just reposition themselves not as dealers or resellers, but just as collectors with a nice collection of artwork that for the most part is "NFS" Not For Sale, unless someone offers them a price they can't refuse and leave it at that, rather than pretend to have a mainstream business. Or who knows, maybe Coolines was designed as a business for tax purposes, so sole purpose is to acquire art, not sell art with some sort of financial benefit, so in fact they do what they do and act the way they act for a strategic reason.

Good post.

Yet they're still in business after all of these years

There's nothing about their "business" that proves buying/selling art is how they make their living

Maybe loan-sharking is their main source of income?

I'd like to preface this with that my relationship with Coollines Art has been only through e-mail and while we've never struck a deal they have always been prompt and polite.

That said, they do things differently than I would and one of those is "restoration" of their art. One example is Curt Swan's cover for Superman Annual #7.

This Curt Swan piece was sold on Heritage in 2007 -

As I understand it, the Heritage buyer sold/traded it to the Donneleys.

They now show it on their site as:

A conversation on the Curt Swan FB fan page led to an e-mail conversation with Steve.

Steve told me in that note that:

As our web site mentions, the large center Superman figure by Curt Swan was the only original art ever created for this cover. The four side images were stats taken from images of earlier reprinted stories and were missing from the original when I bought it.

 

"The 4 side images on the 1963 annual were originally stat'ed from earlier Superman stories and were hand redrawn for this cover"

 

So, I had the missing stats redrawn and placed on the original art board in the exact position that the DC production material would have gone!

So, they restored the cover to its original state by re-creating stats.

An interesting point was made on the Swan FB page by Ray Cuthbert about Steve's assumption:

Steve's information to Alex above shows an incorrect assumption. All of the images for that cover were drawn especially for that cover by Swan & Klein. They were not stats unless they were drawn by Swan and Klein and then statted for publication purposes. The stories reprinted were not all drawn by Swan, let alone all inked by Klein. There is no way that those were stats from story panels originally. I have no idea if it was done on two separate boards, but I suspect so, since only the "statue" part was done in ink wash, to make it look distinctive.

While I would not have mounted "replacement stats" on the original Swan piece, I might have done it on an overlay.

There are several takeaways here:

1) People do try to "restore" art and Coollines is one place that does.

2) Proper restoration is hard.

3) Be an informed buyer

PS. If you are interested in the Swan FB Fan Page, let me know.

I've done a grand total of one deal with Steve for 2 pages. The prices he quoted were about 50% higher than market value at the time. He did give me a bit of a break on the package deal, though.

Interesting thing is that we did this deal in January 2010, and he still has the two pages listed on his site. They're marked as "sold", but why leave them up there for nearly 3 years after the deal? It makes sense if these were covers or splash pages, but they were fairly run of the mill interior panel pages.

I wrote to him about a year ago and asked him to take them down, but I never heard back.

Andrew

While I would not have mounted "replacement stats" on the original Swan piece, I might have done it on an overlay.

 

There are several takeaways here:

1) People do try to "restore" art and Coollines is one place that does.

2) Proper restoration is hard.

3) Be an informed buyer

 

Great advice, I did not realize restorations (recreations?) went into that extent!

I notice that art on their site seems bone white, do they bleach as part of restoration?

The same art in the Heritage archive shows a much darker color from tanning.

Art often changes its' appearance after they buy it. Until you ask or see the art in person it is difficult to determine what has been done. stats, restorations, from this observer's perspective all seems to be in play. I have had (what turned out to be) unfounded fears in the past, but after hearing that tale above about the Swan I would assume NOTHING from now on. The art sure looks better afterwards but the steps taken to get there need to be more clear. The degree of disclosure in that Swan story seems to be the exception and not the rule in my experience as well.

The fact that they do so much restoration is one of the things that makes me consider them a collector willing to trade; rather, than a dealer.

For example, I have a Swan Legion page that is missing a word balloon. I want to get it replaced and I am torn between:

1) Replacing and mounting on the board

2) Mounting on an overlay.

It's actually a tough call for me since it's just the one balloon. I did have Chris Ivy add the cover blurbs to my DeCarlo Archie as an overlay, but that was much more substantial. I do need a scan of the piece without the overlay though.

Yeah, I've sent inquiries to Cool Lines, and their prices were way above average, and in a couple of cases absolutely outrageous.

On 11/12/2012 at 5:18 AM, alxjhnsn said:

I'd like to preface this with that my relationship with Coollines Art has been only through e-mail and while we've never struck a deal they have always been prompt and polite.

 

That said, they do things differently than I would and one of those is "restoration" of their art. One example is Curt Swan's cover for Superman Annual #7.

 

 

 

This Curt Swan piece was sold on Heritage in 2007 -

 

 

As I understand it, the Heritage buyer sold/traded it to the Donneleys.

 

They now show it on their site as:

 

 

A conversation on the Curt Swan FB fan page led to an e-mail conversation with Steve.

 

Steve told me in that note that:

 

 

So, they restored the cover to its original state by re-creating stats.

 

An interesting point was made on the Swan FB page by Ray Cuthbert about Steve's assumption:

 

 

 

While I would not have mounted "replacement stats" on the original Swan piece, I might have done it on an overlay.

 

There are several takeaways here:

1) People do try to "restore" art and Coollines is one place that does.

2) Proper restoration is hard.

3) Be an informed buyer

 

PS. If you are interested in the Swan FB Fan Page, let me know.

Updated the image and link to the Coollines site for the "cover."