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COLLECTIBLES COLUMN: TNA Selling Rare Signed Artwork; Jeff Hardy & Don West comment exclusively to PWTorch

Jan 12, 2012 - 1:38:31 PM
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By Michael Moore, PWTorch Collectibles specialist

In Brief: Artist Mike Lavallee has turned Jeff Hardy, Rob Van Dam, and Velvet Sky into his latest "Skelebrities."

Beginning Thursday, TNA will be selling signed lithographs that are unlike any wrestling collectible that has been offered before.

Jeff Hardy, Velvet Sky, and Rob Van Dam are the latest “Skelebrities” from artist Mike Lavallee. Skelebrities are paintings that depict various celebrities as skeleton-human mash-ups; Lavallee’s Skelebrities depiction of Clint Eastwood has become a well-known piece.

“He’s done everybody from Johnny Depp to Jesse James,” TNA’s Don West said in an interview with PWTorch. “He’s also done so many things in the auto and motorcycle worlds.”

rvd_1.jpg



West originally met Lavallee at a TNA live event in Seattle in 2011. He saw Lavallee’s art, and thought Skelebrities of various TNA personalities would be great additions to the items sold at ShopTNA.com.

“It just seemed like a perfect fit, especially with Jeff Hardy, and the person he is,” West said.

West and Lavallee unveiled the original Skelebrities artwork in an online video posted last week with the three wrestlers depicted in the paintings. The artwork generated quite a bit of buzz online, especially the Jeff Hardy piece. (See the video here .)

TNA is selling 100 lithograph prints of each portrait exclusively at ShopTNA.com. The lithographs are printed on a parchment-type paper. Each one is framed and matted, measuring approximately 12x18 inches, and signed by the wrestler and the artist. Each lithograph is being sold for $99.99 plus shipping and handling.

Lavallee has hand numbered each lithograph, and a limited number of matching serial numbers will be reserved for customers who buy all three.

West said that the lithographs should be available at ShopTNA.com after tonight’s Impact. They may be posted earlier, so anyone interested in them should check the website regularly.

“This is one of the coolest projects I’ve done since I’ve been here,” West said. “It’s going to be a free-for-all. That Hardy is going to go so fast.”

West is considering auctioning or selling the original paintings, but both Hardy and Van Dam have expressed interest in buying their respective pieces, so that may not be possible.

"Skelebrities are the perfect mix between life and death, decomposition and health,” Hardy said in an email to PWTorch. “They are the perfect example of what a skeleton and the human body mixed would look like."

jeff.jpg



West hopes these three Skelebrities will be the first in a series of TNA wrestlers.

“With (Lavallee), the possibilities are limitless,” West said. “He can do (portraits of) the different talent, he can make the skeletons fighting in the ring, he can do a lot of really cool things.”

Moore’s Analysis: West knows his stuff. He very much understands TNA’s fans and what they want. Conventional wisdom might have been to include Hulk Hogan or Sting in this series of paintings, but TNA was right to include Velvet Sky instead. Her autographs and collectibles are among the most popular and highest selling on the secondary market of all TNA personalities. West is right when he says the Hardy piece won’t last long – his collectibles have been among the most popular in all of wrestling for the last five years or so. Signed trading cards, plaques, and pictures come along every day, but there isn’t a lot of signed artwork out there that appeals to wrestling fans. With only 100 lithographs of each wrestler made, there is likely to be far more demand than supply for these Skelebrities.

velvet.jpg



Question of the Week: Where do you buy your wrestling collectibles? Do you primarily buy from retail stores, hobby shops, eBay, conventions, or the companies's official websites?

Send your answers of 250 words or less to michaelmoorewriter@gmail.com. Selected responses will be posted in next Tuesday’s collectibles column at PWTorch.com.


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