THE SPECIALISTS COLLECTIBLES COLUMN: TNA Selling Rare Signed Artwork; Jeff Hardy & Don West comment exclusively to PWTorch
Jan 12, 2012 - 1:38:31 PM
PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT TO BOOKMARK US & VISIT US DAILY
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.”
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."
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.
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.
THE TORCH REACHES MORE COMBAT ENTERTAINMENT FANS THAN ANY OTHER SOURCE
PWTorch editor Wade Keller has covered pro wrestling full time since 1987 starting with the Pro Wrestling Torch print newsletter. PWTorch.com launched in 1999 and the PWTorch Apps launched in 2008.
He has conducted "Torch Talk" insider interviews with Hulk Hogan, The Rock, Steve Austin, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Eric Bischoff, Jesse Ventura, Lou Thesz, Jerry Lawler, Mick Foley, Jim Ross, Paul Heyman, Bruno Sammartino, Goldberg, more.
He has interviewed big-name players in person incluiding Vince McMahon (at WWE Headquarters), Dana White (in Las Vegas), Eric Bischoff (at the first Nitro at Mall of America), Brock Lesnar (after his first UFC win).
He hosted the weekly Pro Wrestling Focus radio show on KFAN in the early 1990s and hosted the Ultimate Insiders DVD series distributed in retail stories internationally in the mid-2000s including interviews filmed in Los Angeles with Vince Russo & Ed Ferrara and Matt & Jeff Hardy. He currently hosts the most listened to pro wrestling audio show in the world, (the PWTorch Livecast, top ranked in iTunes)
REACHING 1 MILLION+ UNIQUE USERS PER MONTH
500 MILLION CLICKS & LISTENS PER YEAR
MILLIONS OF PWTORCH NEWSLETTERS SOLD
PWTorch offers a VIP membership for $10 a month (or less with an annual sub). It includes nearly 25 years worth of archives from our coverage of pro wrestling dating back to PWTorch Newsletters from the late-'80s filled with insider secrets from every era that are available to VIPers in digital PDF format and Keller's radio show from the early 1990s.
Also, new exclusive top-shelf content every day including a new VIP-exclusive weekly 16 page digital magazine-style (PC and iPad compatible) PDF newsletter packed with exclusive articles and news.
The following features come with a VIP membership which tens of thousands of fans worldwide have enjoyed for many years...
-New Digital PWTorch Newsletter every week
-3 New Digital PDF Back Issues from 5, 10, 20 years ago
-Over 60 new VIP Audio Shows each week
-Ad-free access to all PWTorch.com free articles
-VIP Forum access with daily interaction with PWTorch staff and well-informed fellow wrestling fans
-Tons of archived audio and text articles
-Decades of Torch Talk insider interviews in transcript and audio formats with big name stars. **SIGN UP FOR VIP ACCESS HERE**