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It happens at art galleries, antique shops, shows, collectives, flea markets, estate sales, and in private transactions. It happens with price guides, auction records, appraisals, expert advice, casual chit-chat, and hearsay. And now it's happing with the internet. People who own art that they're interested in selling are now using the internet to figure out how much it's worth and how much they sell it for. They know that the more information they have access to, the more accurately they can set their prices. But first, a little history.....
Way way back in the old days (like the 1960's) sellers figured out asking prices mainly by going from gallery to gallery, antique to antique, expert to expert, dealer to dealer, and auction to auction. Because of the limited access to printed information, those who lived and worked in the world's major art centers or who travelled the most and knew the most people were the most qualified to accurately price art.
Then came price guides and auction records. Locating price information became easier (for those who knew these references existed and who could afford them), but at the same time, pricing art for sale became more of an abstract process. Since using books of art prices was nothing like speaking to living breathing knowledgeable human beings and getting price information firsthand, sellers tended to take the highest prices they could find and tack them onto their art. That's the down side to price reference research. The upside is that while people can pass on wrong art price information and/or innacurately interpret that information, art price guides and auction records deal only in facts and are almost always accurate. The overall effect, then, was far to the up side in that more people than ever before could now price their art more accurately.
Now we have the internet. The advent of online pricing has distanced the process even further from the realities of the marketplace. In many cases, people researching values have no idea who posts what price information, what those posters' qualifications are, how those prices are arrived at, or under what circumstances the art is for sale or has sold. Computer searches make price misreads increasingly likely because they're arrived at without the aid of traditional research techniques. At least with price guides and auction records, you can read about the authors and understand why they're qualified to publish the price information that they have. In many cases, internet information is so difficult to qualify and the sources so untraceable and vague that the chances for innacurate pricing are greater than ever.
The upshot of all this is that if you think you've priced your art right from online data searches, you can still be wrong. This may sound like double-talk, but here's an example. Suppose you live in rural Kentucky, sell antiques out of a booth in a small collective, and are trying to price an etching by a regional Texas artist. You locate the website of a Dallas gallery, find similar etchings priced and for sale, and put a comparable but slightly lower price on yours. To assume that the gallery's prices are good anywhere and at any time can be a big mistake.
For all you know, this gallery may exclusively handle the artist's estate, be attempting to create a market for the work by asking record high selling prices, and have a $40,000 a month overhead in the best gallery district in town. The owner may be one of the most important experts and respected dealers of Texas art and artists in the country and have access to all the wealthiest collectors. Outside of that gallery, the etchings may be worth nowehere near that much.
These days, I can be visiting a shop at a cross-roads in the middle of nowhere and find prices equivalent to what one might expect from a gallery on 57thStreet in New York City or on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. This happens because a top retail price gets posted on the internet, someone copies it without understanding it, someone else copies the copy, and so on until equally ridiculous prices can be found all over the country.
Finding an art price on a computer screen does not begin to equate with in-depth market research. You also need to understand why and under what conditions it is what it is. Hopefully the next stage in the internet art pricing evolution will be the proliferation of more sophisticated and competent research techniques and a deeper understanding of pricing guidelines. Remember this-- on your way to finding out "how much" don't forget to also find out "why," "where," and "under what circumstances."
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It happens at art galleries, antique shops, shows, collectives, flea markets, estate sales, and in private transactions. It happens with price guides, auction records, appraisals, expert advice, casual chit-chat, and hearsay. And now it's happing with the internet. People who own art that they're interested in selling are now using the internet to figure out how much it's worth and how much they sell it for. They know that the more information they have access to, the more accurately they can set their prices. But first, a little history.....
Way way back in the old days (like the 1960's) sellers figured out asking prices mainly by going from gallery to gallery, antique to antique, expert to expert, dealer to dealer, and auction to auction. Because of the limited access to printed information, those who lived and worked in the world's major art centers or who travelled the most and knew the most people were the most qualified to accurately price art.
Then came price guides and auction records. Locating price information became easier (for those who knew these references existed and who could afford them), but at the same time, pricing art for sale became more of an abstract process. Since using books of art prices was nothing like speaking to living breathing knowledgeable human beings and getting price information firsthand, sellers tended to take the highest prices they could find and tack them onto their art. That's the down side to price reference research. The upside is that while people can pass on wrong art price information and/or innacurately interpret that information, art price guides and auction records deal only in facts and are almost always accurate. The overall effect, then, was far to the up side in that more people than ever before could now price their art more accurately.
Now we have the internet. The advent of online pricing has distanced the process even further from the realities of the marketplace. In many cases, people researching values have no idea who posts what price information, what those posters' qualifications are, how those prices are arrived at, or under what circumstances the art is for sale or has sold. Computer searches make price misreads increasingly likely because they're arrived at without the aid of traditional research techniques. At least with price guides and auction records, you can read about the authors and understand why they're qualified to publish the price information that they have. In many cases, internet information is so difficult to qualify and the sources so untraceable and vague that the chances for innacurate pricing are greater than ever.
The upshot of all this is that if you think you've priced your art right from online data searches, you can still be wrong. This may sound like double-talk, but here's an example. Suppose you live in rural Kentucky, sell antiques out of a booth in a small collective, and are trying to price an etching by a regional Texas artist. You locate the website of a Dallas gallery, find similar etchings priced and for sale, and put a comparable but slightly lower price on yours. To assume that the gallery's prices are good anywhere and at any time can be a big mistake.
For all you know, this gallery may exclusively handle the artist's estate, be attempting to create a market for the work by asking record high selling prices, and have a $40,000 a month overhead in the best gallery district in town. The owner may be one of the most important experts and respected dealers of Texas art and artists in the country and have access to all the wealthiest collectors. Outside of that gallery, the etchings may be worth nowehere near that much.
These days, I can be visiting a shop at a cross-roads in the middle of nowhere and find prices equivalent to what one might expect from a gallery on 57thStreet in New York City or on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. This happens because a top retail price gets posted on the internet, someone copies it without understanding it, someone else copies the copy, and so on until equally ridiculous prices can be found all over the country.
Finding an art price on a computer screen does not begin to equate with in-depth market research. You also need to understand why and under what conditions it is what it is. Hopefully the next stage in the internet art pricing evolution will be the proliferation of more sophisticated and competent research techniques and a deeper understanding of pricing guidelines. Remember this-- on your way to finding out "how much" don't forget to also find out "why," "where," and "under what circumstances."
airline miles sell, art purchases, art sells, arts sale, buy car, buy cars, buy cars for sale, buy classifieds, buy for sale, buy used car, buy used cars, classifieds sell, purchase arts, resell art, sale sell, sell auction, sell books, sell car, sell cars, sell classified ads, sell equipment, sell for cash, sell for sale, sell side, sell swg credits, sell textbooks, sell ticket, sell tickets, sell used books, sell used car, sell used cars, sell used cds, selling arts, trade sell
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