Ric Binkley Science Fiction Illustrations, ca. 1950
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GUEST:
Mary Betty Binkley lived next to my family growing up, and she was the sister of the artist Ric Binkley. We took care of her as, as she continued to get old, and, and then, as she was moving into a nursing home, she said to my mom, "I'm not sure what to do with these. I guess you, you could just throw them away." My mom said, "There's not a chance we're going to do that. They're just way too beautiful." And so Mary Betty gave them to my mom to give to me.
APPRAISER:
Well, in illustration art, there are so many different niches. There's pin-up art.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
There's children's book illustration. But sci-fi is really a big area lately.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
And there's been a resurgence in the interest in this. You have some that already have the book covers on them, identifying the name of the book, who the author was. And then what I like about these is that they're all Avalon, which is the primary publishing house that he worked for. Because he died early, he's one of the lesser-known illustrators, but that doesn't make him any less wonderful in the work of art. Um, what, um, is so interesting in this particular market is that 50% of the value is the artist and 50% of the value is the author.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
So if these weren't sort of B paperbacks, um...
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
If it was Arthur Clarke or Isaac Asimov, that would add also to the value of the works.
GUEST:
I see.
APPRAISER:
So the ones that are easily identified to a particular paperback cover, those in his range would be between $2,000 and $3,000 at auction.
GUEST:
Wow, wow.
APPRAISER:
Now, these, if we can identify them to a certain book...
GUEST:
Uh-huh, right.
APPRAISER:
They'd be the same value.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
If, of course, you can't, and they're just illustrations in the marketplace... Right. ...they're going to be about half the cost.
GUEST:
I see, wow.
APPRAISER:
These are extraordinarily collectible. Thank you so much for saving them.
GUEST:
Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
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