Original Ditko Art?

I was surfing earlier today and saw that Heritage Auction Galleries have just put up a number of original pieces of comic book art on eBay. They won't start accepting bids until November 18, so it will give people plenty of time to scrape some cash together for the auctions.

Why would one need to scrape, you ask? Included in the collection is the following piece...
In case you're wondering, that's Amazing Spider-Man #8 page 1 from 1964. As you can clearly see from the credits: pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Steve Ditko.

First off... whoa.

A splash page from the dawn of Marvel Comics drawn by two of the men that defined what Marvel Comics were? Holy frickin' cow! That's right up there with finding hen's teeth! No wonder the estimate for the final price on this is upwards of $42,000! Heritage's own web site notes a minimum bid of $35,000... and nine people have already placed silent bids!

Secondly... original Ditko art!?! That's even more rare than hen's teeth! Geez, I'm surprised that it's being estimated ONLY at $42,000!

There is NO chance in hell that I could ever get my hands on this, but this is just phenomonal to try to study. The image I have posted here was pulled from Heritage's web site, and they do a stellar job at providing super-high-quality scans of their artwork. I go through their archives periodically just to study the craftsmanship that has gone into each piece, and this one is no exception. I suggest opening up this large (1.6 MB) image just to study the processes used to create this page.

Mind-blowing on so many levels here...

Wow.

Just... wow.

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