Couple of hundred grand on a baseball card?
 

Nothing much at all . . .

BREAKING NEWS
Amid gasps from the crowd, Jean-Michel Basquiat's painting of a skull sold for $110.5 million at auction, a record for an American artist
Thursday, May 18, 2017 9:12 PM EDT

.....and it was bought in 1984 for 19K!! Not a bad ROI!!

. . . .and think of how many people told him it was overpriced when he bought it.

Hard to believe that painting went for as much as it did. I thought I had read somewhere that the fine art market had flattened out.

*mic drop*

This is my other love and I can tell you these prices on anything in the Pop Movement will become the norm for coming future.

The Gen X collectors started embracing this as they became more monied and the Millennials jumped on. I was lucky enough to grab a Robert Dowd study two years ago for a pittance at an auction house as they strangely put it in a philatelic auction. I have been offered 10 times the purchase price already and I am holding.

Found a poorly listed Robert Broner signed circuit print on eBay just a few months ago. An accidental find of an artist featured in The Met and MoMA is great fun. The finds are out there if you know what to look for.

I too collect art -- only original oils and more bc I love the picture than for appreciation (I bet 90% of my 200+ originals are worth no more than 20% of what I paid for them, with a few home runs thrown in). I don't understand Pop art at all... And while Basquait is iconic, I dont understand how his work brings those price tags when compared to Rockwell, let alone some of the old impressionists.

To me, the value of pop art is akin to modern cards vs pre-war cards - I just dont get it. I have digested but still dont really understand why/how a 52 Topps Mantle 3 is worth more than a T206 Speaker Drum back PSA 1, the latter of which is basically non-existent and the former of which are all over the place. Just saying....

Regarding art -- be careful. Its more ruthless than cards, and they have their share of painting doctors, bid shillers and all around frauds. The one thing we have that the art world does not is good'ol Battlefield!!

Now that's funny!!!

I agree. The first post that actually made me laugh out loud in a while. Well done.

From the NYT article on the sale: “Sotheby’s had a lot more works in the middle range round $5 million to $10 million that appealed to the market.”

That's quite the middle range for paintings.

I have mostly always collected pop and lowbrow as that is what I like to surround myself with at home. I am a museum junky and am gifted enough to have amazing collections of the masters easily accessible nearby for my appreciation. Being able to see Renoir and Monet originals on my lunch break if wanted is pretty darn nice.

This hobby started a little over 20 years ago, so I have made most of the mistakes already much like we all did in cards as well, lol. My cards just had around a 15 year head start to clear most of the screw ups :D

It was just two guys bidding against each other. A perfect storm for auctioneers. The buyer will never recoup half of what he paid.

great buy ..60 million was the estimate ,so much for that ,,

I'd personally completely disagree with this. If you follow that art market there have been multiple new records set at every big art auction for the last 12-18 months. The market is on fire for the big, hip and trendy names. This sale will only fuel the desire for this artists work and there are many people out there with more money then common sense.

Just my two cents.

Yes but if you read the account of the sale it was 2 bidders going head to head for more than 10 minutes. You would have to duplicate that scenario in order for a similar sale to take place.

That was my point. This sale will only fuel the desire to own this piece or another piece from the artist in the future. Just because these were the only two bidders today doesn't mean they would be the only two bidders if the piece was put up for auction a year from now. At times the modern art market seems to me like a giant d**k measuring contest with far more money changing hands than in our sports hobby/industry.

Again, just my personal opinion.

Ah, that is a really good point actually.

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps7a81fe47.jpg

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps3ed01b40.jpg

I started collecting prints and as my expendable income grew I now only collect originals. I specifically collect oil paintings by R. Atkinson Fox. You will see his prints all over ebay and sometimes confused with Maxfield Parrish with the same style with Art Deco girls. I now have 11 originals by Fox. Don't think I'm completely done yet. One did wander into the ARS a few years back and I'm sure you can google it.

A Very Expensive Halloween Ornament...

The Pure Definition of "STUiPED Money!!!"

IMO, the skull is Basquiat's most popular painting. This is definitely a good investment.

Ah, but is that where we're heading in the next 2, 3, or 4 decades? The most valuable coin in a very well researched book on the top 100 coins was at around $20,000,000 7 or 8 years ago--it wasn't until the 1970's, as best I can recall, that one topped $100K. Watch out for the 1914 Baltimore News Ruth!

I know we hate to be priced out of the market, but thoughts, anyone?

Regards,

Larry

Don't get too excited, everyone. It may be telling that "Tobacco" -- also by Basquiat -- only sold for $1.2m. :)
http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/...761/lot.9.html

Seriously though, here are some quotes, papers, and links to consider. No opinions on my part.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/18/a...t-auction.html

"...Mr. Maezawa, the 41-year-old founder of Contemporary Art Foundation, who last year set the previous auction high for Basquiat, paying $57.3 million for the artist’s large 1982 painting of a horned devil at Christie’s."

"Whether one active collector makes a market remains to be seen. It will take another major Basquiat to test the sustainability of this $100 million level."


http://www.brandeis.edu/departments/...ndeis_WP71.pdf

"One recent development is the third-party guarantee, also known as the irrevocable bid. The auction house finds a potential buyer who
agrees to pay a guaranteed price if the hammer price is lower. If the hammer price is higher, the seller and the guarantor split the difference after the commission, with some exceptions."

Would it be possible then, that the phone buyer was the third-party guarantor with knowledge that Mr. Maezawa would be a likely candidate to be bidding to win? Googling high-end art auction information leads one to a variety of interesting information. Several tactics in the art auction world may surprise people, myself included.

I believe the Sotheby's catalog did indicate that a third-party guarantor was utilized on this lot.

http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/...61/lot.24.html

Cheers,
Steve

Well, someone has to be the one saying it.

That painting is ugly as (expletive deleted)*
There's a few million other things I'd spend 110 mill on if I had that kind of money.

How can you tell if art is "expensive"?
If I really like it it's at least fairly expensive.
If I really hate it...it's REALLY expensive.

Steve B
*No, not actually deleted, I figured I'd save time and not write it.

Like thirty-thousand Kreindlers.

I don't get it.

Oh well.

You can say this falls into ugly, but I love it!!
Its signed/numbered by Joan Miro

Bahaha.
Me neither.

As with music, pretty subjective stuff. For myself, even if I had billions, I can't see spending that kind of money on a collectible.

Not at all, nice print!

Odd, I hadn't noticed that the painting is maybe on-topic. I'm thinking it's not a skull, but a ballplayer. That is a line score above isn't it? With the home team winning.
Now which player?

Of course, the Kreindler is pretty amazing. Wish I had the dough for one of those.

Still not getting it at all.

Steve B

Know nothing about modern art but I think it's pretty cool. All 100% subjective of course.

This is my idea of modern art..

Assumption
 

And we are assuming that either of the bidders care about what they sell it for in the future ?

As long as there is a thread on modern art, anyone know how the market for Shepard Fairey stuff eventually sorted itself out?

I have this beauty...
 

Any thoughts on value in the current market??!! :D

Not sure what the question is, are you looking for values?

I heard the Mona Lisa would grade a PSA A and be a POP 1, would be nice to see it in a holder...buy the painting not the holder..

In art the term would be "Buy the art not the artist". There are a lot of "collectors" who would spend thousands of dollars on a peace sign drawn by Picasso and not even think about buying a painting they actually like if there's not a brand name attached to it.

I'm glad I didn't come across this painting in a garage sale , I would have thrown it in the garbage and lost millions. It is ugly, ugly, ugly !. I just don't understand art. If I drew that in Kindergarden , I would have received an "F". The letter "A" is crossed out etc. I can't believe people actually think this is a good painting.

What is a good painting? There aren't stats you can look up to define one.

So that are sort of like exhibit cards with no stats on the back...

Just sort of price trajectory? After the 2008 Obama campaign and growth of street art, I was curious if he remained hot and his prices appreciated or he really cooled off?

There are a whole bunch of prints on eBay.

Well, personally I think he has overproduced so other than prints that hold personal interest to a specific buyer I do not see room for growth and likely a massive crash.

To many collectors his art was already overdone well before 2008, I have one of his first prints I bought in 96' which is now worth maybe a few thousand. Before he overproduced the hell out of everything it was in the 5-6k range.

I still like it because it is an Andre the Giant piece and I love Andre, lol.

I felt like adding this because it's funny after saying that, I work in this building:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...8bb8b67dd3.jpg

Nice. I remember seeing a lot of his Andre stuff plastered around Austin back in the 90s. Good times.