Post #19704 by mig on Wed, Jan 15, 2003 11:21 AM

Here's the scoop on past Departure/Stopover/Arrival sales... and also info about the trend of Shag print prices in general. (People tracking Shag auctions, I keep meaning to give you this info, so here it is!)

In April 2002, a copy of it went for $1900 (and if I remember, it was either $1895, or $1900 even). It had been a few hundred dollars lower than that; but two bidders drove the price WAY up in the last two minutes.

April 2002 was in the early season of high Shag print prices on eBay. Before about March 2002, Shag prints weren't as prolific on eBay. (You could do a search and maybe find one, if any at all.) A few started cropping up in February-- which is about when Shag really started to become popular-- and then in March the Shags on eBay started to bloom. In April there were a lot; and the prices were starting to go up. Prices of $350-$600 were not uncommon... and a lot of the auctions were by print clearing houses that were trying to capitalize on the craze. Then the $1900 Departure/Stopover/Arrival happened and blew the lid off it all.

Upon seeing that one sell ($1900), I decided I would rather have a similar amount of money than my own copy of D/S/A, which had been rolled up in a tube for a couple years.

Prices for Shags peaked in May/early June. As they started to slow down a bit in June, I decided I needed to get off my ass and list mine-- so I listed mine in early July.

According to discussion here-- we were all very curious to see how much it would go for. As it was not just a print, but an Artist's Proof-- one of, to the best of our knowledge in Tiki Central, only two in existence for this print-- I had serious dollar signs in my eyes. I made sure to very prominently mention its uniqueness in the auction. (Incidentally, the other a.p. for this is owned by Monkeygod.)

I put mine on eBay, with a reserve of $1498... and hoped that it would actually go higher than $2000, since it was even more rare than the one that went for $1900.

The price crept up, but wouldn't go above about $1100 or $1200, even up to the last minutes. In the last few minutes, someone bid $1500, and got it.

The person that got it actually lived 5 minutes from my house-- which saved a lot of trouble trying to ship it-- so I delivered it to him. (I told him about TikiCentral too-- he was interested! Although I never found out if he joined.) I gave him a break on the price because of saving me the trouble, plus he gave me a money order rather than a check.

The buyer filled in all the blanks for me: for the D/S/A that went for $1900, he had been outbid at the very last minute... by someone (I'll call him "Mr. X") who, if I remember his explanation right, seemed to have a weird niche he was going for: Mr. X seemed to only like Shag prints that had the Dr. Zaius character, but he would pay seriously top dollar for them... Mr. X had, in the few weeks prior to the $1900 bid, won another eBay auction for a Dr. Zaius Shag print and it had gone for a very significant amount of money. (I don't remember how much... but it was one of the highest ones at the time.)

So where are Shag prints at now? After about July, prices started falling... I'm guessing that this coincided with the sudden increase in all sorts of Shag merch. (At first, you could only get prints, at $100+... but once all the greeting cards, etc. came out, that probably satisfied the average person, leaving prints to the realm of the hardcores.)

Currently, there are fewer and fewer Shag prints up on eBay... and they are not nearly going for the money that they once were. They are still going for $150-$300 or so... but it seems like we're pretty well past the days of the $500-$700 Shag prints.

That "original painting owners only" one is great-- not only quite rare because of that, but it's also a gorgeous print. Can't wait to see how much it goes for. I also can't wait to see how much the D/S/A goes for.

Kind of long-winded-- thanks for reading my old war stories.

-mig