Grendel Bronze #15/25 Obtained

[furystorm]

After a long quest, he is finally in my possession. Here, I would like to present my totally self-indulgent thread dedicated to my favorite statue of all time depicting my favorite graphic fiction character of all time. I only have my iPhone for pictures so obviously they're not going to be the best, but I have never even been able to find images of this anywhere on the internet, aside from the one production photo.

Hunter Rose as Grendel
Solid Bronze by Bowen
#15 of only 25

 

[Chapter 2099]

Fury, congrats!

I know you've been looking for this one for quite some time. Absolutely beautiful!

 

[LaMelnik]

AWESOME!!!!!

Grendel was one of the first comics I used to read when I was younger.

Congrats!!!

Your persistance paid off.

Know where I can find one of the other 24?

 

[FelMar]

Congrats, Andrew

patience paid off

 

[ComputerFly]

Congratulations! It's even better than I expected.

 

[Shai]

Beautiful piece of a Bad Ass character...How much did you pay for it?

 

[furystorm]

Know where I can find one of the other 24?

If you are serious about looking for one, in my search I did uncover three others:
#1, of course belongs to Matt Wagner, Grendel's creator and you know he is not going to part with it.
# 25 is another that regularly makes it to Comic-Con, and is in the $4000 range from what I hear. Funny that I have never come across it in seven years of attendance. But Matt himself tells me it is there, and can put me in contact with the seller.
#3, sold just over a year and a half ago from a dealer's website, and when I contacted them to find out if they still had it, they said it sold for $7000. But they could not be sure of the price after so long.

I would actually like to track down all 25. It would be interesting to me to find where these have been residing for the past 10 years, and uncover some of the biggest Grendel fans. Mine came from a nice young lady in Florida, who actually did not want to part with the statue, and had only come to learn about the character through the statue. A story for another post...

Congrats, Andrew

Thanks!

Congratulations! It's even better than I expected.

It is quite small, as you mentioned it would be. But the thing is a beast, shipping was 12 pounds, but when you pick him up there is definite heft to the piece. But it is stunning, and my photos do not do him justice, as usual. Again, thanks for pushing me in the right direction during Spook this year!

Beautiful piece of a Bad Ass character...How much did you pay for it?

Well, considering original retail was $2000 over ten years ago, I believe I was quite fortunate to pick him up for only $1600.

 

[Batman29]

Hi Fury:

Awesome piece of the Grendal, congrats on your pick-up.

You did great on the price, congrats. On top of picking up a truly artistic piece of one of your favorite characters, you also have a pretty good investment from a financial point of view.

 

[furystorm]

I'm still feel a subtle sense of awe each day when I see this piece of art residing in my otherwise very humble collection.

 

[ComicKing]

Just in case anyone here is still seeking a Grendel Statue, here's #4 of 25, currently running in my eBay auctions:

https://cgi.ebay.com/GRENDEL-BOWEN-BRONZE-STATUE-4-OF-25_W0QQitemZ150431686086QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item23066d5dc6

 

[furystorm]

Can't believe I didn't receive a COA with mine. I'll have to check the box again.

 

[ComicKing]

Can't believe I didn't receive a COA with mine. I'll have to check the box again.

It's possible you didn't see it. The COA is inserted into a black envelope just slightly larger than the COA itself.

It may still be in the box, hopefully alongside or under one of the two shipping foams.

 

[furystorm]

Dug out the box and the damn C.O.A. was not in there. I just have to be happy with all the signed hardcovers I have from Matt Wagner, and be content in not having Bowen's autograph. I'm in no way nervous that this is not an authentic piece, and for the price I paid, I can't be too upset that the C.O.A. went missing at some point in the past 13 years. Seeing as how mine was secured from a closing comic shop, I can see how something like that might be misplaced, especially since I have experience working in such a shop.

Anyway ComicKing, I see your auction is going quite high. Good luck. I for one, will be watching this one come Sunday night.

 

[ComicKing]

Anyway ComicKing, I see your auction is going quite high. Good luck. I for one, will be watching this one come Sunday night.

Thank you!

 

[furystorm]

Wow, approaching $2400, should be a fun end to this auction.

 

[ComputerFly]

Fury, I bet you're feeling better and better about your purchase now, hunh??

 

[furystorm]

Most awesome-est best-est piece in my tiny little collection. My favorite character in solid bronze, oh yeah!

I'm just a little miffed about missing the C.O.A. But then again, for $800 - $???? for just a piece of paper with two signatures on it, I think I can live without it. Every Grendel hardcover I have is signed and sketched in anyway, aside from the newest "Behold the Devil." This collection is highly recommended by the way.

 

[ComicKing]

Wow, approaching $2400, should be a fun end to this auction.

Auction ended at $3150.00!!

When you consider that there's only 25 of these, with the first two or three numbers of the production of 25 spoken for immediately, 22 statues floating in the hobby is less than 1 statue for every 2 states and $3150 may just be a super bargain for this considering the ultra-scarcity.



There are 100 of the Vader Bronze I listed in the same series of auctions and that went for $6600!! The Grendel is 4 times as rare.

 

[furystorm]

I was watching both of those ends. You have to consider that Vader is exponentially more well known and therefore that piece will be sought after by many more collectors. That would be a double edged sword for me, because while I would want Grendel to be as well known as say Sin City or even Star Wars, the fact that the character is not as well known led to me aquiring this bronze for a pretty amazing deal.

 

[ComicKing]

I was watching both of those ends. You have to consider that Vader is exponentially more well known and therefore that piece will be sought after by many more collectors. That would be a double edged sword for me, because while I would want Grendel to be as well known as say Sin City or even Star Wars, the fact that the character is not as well known led to me aquiring this bronze for a pretty amazing deal.

An interesting fact is that the winning bidder protected his winning Grendel bid with three overbids! I can't see what his protection, proxy overbids were, but with just one more serious player bidding in the final moments (or if this had been that infamous internet auction house known world-wide for in-house shill bidding a major portion of their auctions), this had the potential to be a $4000 to $5000 finish.