Re: Editioning .... worthless...

I like that bit of history; and to bring it up to date with the example of
Michael Kenna:

He numbers his prints and ACTUALLY MAKES forty-five prints, puts them in a
box and sells in a 'step value.' As the numbers sell, the remaining become
more expensive. So the original buyers have a $200 print and by the time
the popularity has increased to number forty, his charge has raised the
value of those with lower numbers; because his number forty to forty-five is
several thousand dollars.

One of his collectors remorsed, "Now that [Kennn] sold number forty, my
number 15 is so valuable compared to what I paid, it becomes difficult to
consider keeping it."

That's a dilemma!

Oh, well.

S. Shapiro
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Cremati" <johnjohnc@core.com>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
Sent: Sunday, July 04, 2004 3:14 AM
Subject: Editioning .... worthless...

> Although not a photographic limited edition in the world of graphic
> art collecting the term limited "edition" has basically become a
useless
> meaningless word. Much of the so called limited edition market for the
> collector and investor has been destroyed and may never fully recover.
> How this happened is that graphic publishers at one time issued a "
> limited edition of usually 250 to 400 prints.. The collectors ( many of
> them investors) would base the value and expenditure for a print
typically
> at $250 to $600 on that low numbered " edition" as being relatively
unique
> it the world and would be considered possibly a good investment from a
> noted artist......
> Times have dramatically changed that market ... A common practice
now
> is that at the beginning of a so called " Limited Edition" a publisher
> will
> send a " sample print" to all the participating galleries for
> display....In the US this number is considerable... It is then stated , as
a
> example , that on the first day of January 2004 the " Limited edition "
> will open. The "limited " edition will then close 30 or 90 days
> latter.....
> Because of this practice the edition would sometimes go into the
> thousands.......The collector investor all of a sudden was paying $250 to
> $600 for a print with a number of 3526! The investor collector then
began
> to back out of this market....
> John Cremati
>
>
>
Received on Sun Jul 4 11:32:54 2004