RE keeping great works and hanging them or storing - the Homers/Willauers have a number of great canvases in vaults which they rotate, only hanging a few at a time. One time during a visit, Doris pulled an unprotected hand painted tile out of her purse (Homer was a member of the Tile Society) and just handed it to me. It was in a black wooden frame that was falling apart and was more of a liability. I was terrified - she nearly dropped it! It was a rooster on top of a globe crowing loudly. It was meant to be his brother Charlie, who had won awards for inventing Valspar. The two had a bit of a brotherly competitive spirit. Around this time, after returning from Europe, Charlie as again talking about his accomplishments. Winslow was listening and also rolling out a recent watercolor on the tip-top table he used to lay his paints out on. I sat in it many times. Anyway, while listening, Homer quietly put paperweights on the watercolor to keep it open. Homer's "paperweights" were several gold medals he received at the 1893 Colombian Exposition for his paintings. I am sure Charlie noticed!
Each painting is unique. That's rarely the case for 99% of US coins....and slight variations in strike, marks, luster don't quite qualify as "uniqueness" unless you're looking at the finest knowns.....which do have a price track record siimilar to fine art. Coins were orig intended for commerce and spending. Art has always been about the finer things in life. That painting could have taken weeks to make.....the industrial age coin was struck in almost no time.
A rare US silver dollar vs. a large painting is like a 3 cent silver vs. a silver dollar....no contest. Size matters. Also explains how the rarest of classic cars bring tens of $Millions as well. Big art, antiques, furniture, etc can bring big money. The not so big art, tends to bring a lot less (ie things you can hold in the palm of your hand).
I would love to be the guy in the crowd who raises his arm and pushes the go-zillion-aire to $50million on one of these paintings, that would be shweet!!
<< <i>Not at all, IMO. Once I was explaning to my uncle the concept of why some would pay $$$ for a 1955 doubled die; "for a coin that was a mistake?" was his reaction -- he thought it was BS and said as much. I didn't mind a bit, and he certainly was as qualified as anyone to comment on what a particular thing (coin in this case) was worth, to him. I personally feel the blue field number 5 might be worth, oh, $40.00 or so in a yard sale, to me. Don't feel the least bit unqualified to make said comment, either.
Now of course, though utterly lacking in any artistic skill of particular merit, the authors of such works do excel at the chutzpah required to convince fools with too much money -- then and now -- that it's worth it. More about the bragging rights than the utter lack of artistic merit in the works themselves. >>
No one said you weren't qualified to opine on how much the painting in question would be worth to you. The point is that the art market doesn't know who you are and couldn't care less what you think.
I might also point out that the authors of "such works" don't generally engage in a sales presentation to prospective bidders prior to their pieces going up for auction. No chutzpah or convincing involved...
The market value is clear: $142.4M - that's what it just brought. Something is worth what you can get for it. This is why I always laugh at the comments of moderns haters on some threads in this forum blasting the price that a modern coin brought. Talk about modern - this painting is from 1969 but I digress. >>
If a 1969 coin comes into a coin shop they call it junk and tell the owner to spend it and everyone wonders why coins don't sell for more. New art collectors aren't told that anything modern is just crap.
Coins are mass produced so might never get the value a painting does but they can be just as beautiful and just as rare. They can certainly be more important historically and say more about cultures.
Interesting fun fact about Sir Francis Bacon. He died of pneumonia while doing experiments preserving chicken by packing it in snow, thus proving that although cold temperatures may preserve chicken, it did not preserve bacon.
I cant imagine that US coins have the world wide fame and recognition of fine art, just simply a bigger collector base. I can remember having art history in high school and college. No one ever mentioned medals, coins, etc. in the lectures.
In my HS we studied Augustus St. Gaudens and a heck of a lot more. That was before I was in Independent Study. They allowed me 4 periods of art! The first 4, in a row - I did not have to be in the classroom It was wonderful. I taught myself. I made my own curriculum, my own tests and I graded them. I did not abuse this (although I did not get to class until 3rd or 4th period...home room and then breakfast in the teachers lounge ). I was very fortunate - my mentor was mentored my Marget Meade, knew NY, was on this board and that in NYC, restored train stations on Queens BLVD, knew about getting grants, Rockefeller peoples, Joseph Campbell and those folks and worked for The Donald. I was allowed to help - I did a bar in brass and goatskin (this was the early 80's)...
Anyway - I don't understand. No one slammed coins. Some of the responses are like anger or hate or bafflement. The price was set by a market - adults placed a value on an item and one of them paid it, not unlike a coin. How is that harmful or irritating? Coins contain many, many qualities shared with paintings. Even down to AT and dipping - in-painting and varnish removal are quite close. Coins have symbolism, design, composition, color, texture, history, surface qualities and finish and so on, just like a painting or other work. Rembrandt was a sort of Dan Carr of his day - doing the good work, getting commissions, making connections, working it - making money while creating something he believes in. In the end, no matter with what intent or intensity, the market will decide what it is worth...individuals will decide and pay, or not, accordingly. Just like Dan Carr's work. Removing the controversy that surrounds his work to some, as it has no bearing to this analogy, and what is the real difference? I can't believe it is because Bacon brought home the bacon...it brought so very much more money. I can't believe it is because people don't understand it, because we all love design, symbolism, history - you know what I am going to list - it is so very much alike in many ways.
I don't "get" varieties - I am shocked at the number of seemingly endless versions and slight variations of this or that. But I do not know about such things and when one brings a great sum I hardly get upset or threatened whatever is happening in this thread to some. From a further vantage a collectible, with many qualities like our own collectibles, just sold for a huge amount - this should be good for us? Why would we want to distance ourselves from this? Imagine it was a big medal by St. Gaudens.
Eric
Daniel - I am in no way suggesting that you, like Rembrandt, create mostly assembly line work using cheap materials, store bought junky substrates and adulterated garbage for colors with nasty additives to make things dry quick so you can make even more, resulting in work that doesn't even remotely look as it did when it was created. No. I meant it as a sincere compliment from one creative entity to another - an increasing habit
<< <i> Anyway - I don't understand. No one slammed coins. Some of the responses are like anger or hate or bafflement. >>
Perhaps I did overreact but I wonder where the art market would be today if the common wisdom is modern art is junk or they haven't made real art since Rembrandt.
It seems like we have expensive art, cars, and coins!
<< <i>Ferrari GTO Becomes Most Expensive Car at $52 Million
A 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO racer has become the world’s most expensive car, selling for $52 million.
The red competition car, formerly owned by the Greenwich, Connecticut-based collector Paul Pappalardo, was acquired by an unidentified buyer in a private transaction, said three specialist traders who independently confirmed the purchase and price to Bloomberg News. Recently, the car has been owned by a Spanish collector, the car website Barchetta said.
The price is a 49 percent increase on the record for any auto, achieved last year for another 250 GTO. Values of classic cars, particularly Ferraris of the 1950s and 1960s, continue to grow, attracting new enthusiasts, investors and speculators -- and prompting fears of a bubble in the market.
“Today the GTO is considered the top car to own,” the California-based dealer Don Williams of Blackhawk Collection said in an interview. “It’s like the Mona Lisa. It has a mystique. If you have a GTO, you have a great collection.”
The car was acquired by Pappalardo in 1974, restored and subsequently driven by the collector in many historic races, including the 2002 Le Mans Classic, before being sold on. “We don’t confirm these things,” Pappalardo said when telephoned last night. “I have no comment.”
Stirling Moss
The Italian marque’s 250 GTO, created in 1962 to compete at the Le Mans 24-Hour and other Grand-Touring car races, is the world’s most desirable and expensive car. Only 39 were produced. An apple-green version, made for the British race driver Stirling Moss, was sold privately for a record $35 million, Bloomberg News reported in June 2012.
The latest record-breaking GTO, chassis number 5111, has a distinguished competition history, having won the 1963 Tour de France road race with the French driver Jean Guichet at the wheel. New buyers have been attracted by classic cars’ investment potential, as well as the chance they give to participate in concours and racing events.
The bellwether auctions in California timed to coincide with the annual Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance raised a record $301.9 million in August. The total, which included $27.5 million for a 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4*S NART Spyder convertible, was the highest for a series of classic-car sales anywhere in the world, according to the Michigan-based Hagerty database.
Pink Floyd
The highest prices for investment-grade autos have been achieved through discreet private sales. Owners of other Ferrari GTOs, who include Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason, have recently received offers between $40 million and $50 million from prospective purchasers, dealers said.
Mason was among the GTO owners convening for a 50th-anniversary get-together in France in July 2012. He was joined by the Goldman Sachs banking scion Peter Sachs; Rob Walton, chairman of Wal-Mart; and Lawrence Stroll, the financier who built Tommy Hilfiger into a global brand in the 1990s.
“It’s a cult car,” the London-based Ferrari dealer Joe Macari said in an interview. “If you’re a billionaire, you feel you have to have one. I don’t understand the appeal of them. They’re not very beautiful and they never won Le Mans. I’d rather have a Testa Rossa.”
The HAGI F index of private and public sales of rare Ferraris was up 54.52 percent for the year, the London-based Historic Auto Group said in a report in August.
Sustainable Rises
“Nothing goes up like that in the mid-term,” HAGI founder Dietrich Hatlapa said in an interview. “Price rises of 55 percent aren’t sustainable in any market. We’re not saying the market is going to collapse. It will probably average out over time.”
Hatlapa said that prices of the rarest Ferraris have risen at an average annual rate of 15 percent for more than 30 years.
The current excitement in the classic Ferrari market has been confirmed by other individual owners.
The Belgian-based collector Johan van Puyvelde exhibited an unrestored 1948 Ferrari 166 Inter-Sport Corsa competition car in the Salon Prive concours show at Syon House, London, last month. That Ferrari had been bought from a Californian private seller for between $2 million and $2.5 million last year. Van Puyvelde was recently offered $4 million for the car, the Belgian collector said in an interview.
“It is a bubble for certain cars,” said van Puyvelde, surrounded by well-heeled Salon Prive visitors, enjoying their complimentary Pommery champagne and barbecued lobster lunches. “The people who buy the top things do use them. The market is driven by genuine enthusiasm. They want to take part in events like this. I don’t think that many people are buying just for investment.” Muse highlights include Jason Harper on cars, Rich Jaroslovsky on technology and Amanda Gordon’s Scene Last Night. >>
<< <i> Anyway - I don't understand. No one slammed coins. Some of the responses are like anger or hate or bafflement. >>
Perhaps I did overreact but I wonder where the art market would be today if the common wisdom is modern art is junk or they haven't made real art since Rembrandt. >>
Hello - I was not actually thinking of you...in all honesty I don't know what you said, but I will look. To me, Rembrandt is not very much. 1626 self portrait was wonderful, certain self portraits...by 1656 he was degraded and making a lot of mud along with some wonders but they all suffer from lack of knowledge or caring about how you do things. There are very strict rules for the application of paint if you want permanence and the best effects. What I wrote is true. Rembrandt used lots of low end store bought materials and very cheap junk for pigments. It might seem funny to imagine an regular art store with pre-primed canvas and paint in pig bladders (tubes took a while yet) in 1660, but they were there. Especially where he was. But he was unable to tell if he was even using genuine lapis. There are chunks of unbound pigments and just crap in his paint layers - things mixed to already ground paint and not milled in. Bad business. His techniques reveal a very weak hand technically in terms of sound construction and things lasting. He could handle white lead and ocher very well in painting. His work really used to look quite different, but the backgrounds are now all gone black. Imagine them lighter, with architectural archways and other stuff going on behind the figures.
Vermeer...that is a whole different plane. Several whole steps up.
<< <i>I have often pondered this same question. Why so much for Art relative to other fine collectables. Makes no sense to me. Esp. for this ugly 1969 work. A work by one of the old Masters at least I could understand - a little. >>
Well, for one - I don't see how often a coin can serve as an album cover or a print or t-shirt or a movie cover or...that list just goes on. Look at Sunflowers and all the applications it has seen. Those diamond folks DeBeers -when they created the fake diamond market they used impressionist paintings in the imagery. They way they made people think they had to have a diamond when it was not the norm...even in Japan. BTW, the Mets Vermeer, the $ one, Woman in Blue, was $80 when purchased in 1887 or whenever. Most people did not even think it was by Vermeer. Now? It could not be calculated I dare say.
<< <i>I would love to be the guy in the crowd who raises his arm and pushes the go-zillion-aire to $50million on one of these paintings, that would be shweet!! >>
The problem with this gambit is that you could easily wind up buying that painting. How sweet would that be?
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
Comments
Eric
A rare US silver dollar vs. a large painting is like a 3 cent silver vs. a silver dollar....no contest. Size matters. Also explains how the rarest of classic cars bring tens of $Millions as well. Big art, antiques, furniture, etc can bring
big money. The not so big art, tends to bring a lot less (ie things you can hold in the palm of your hand).
<< <i>Not at all, IMO. Once I was explaning to my uncle the concept of why some would pay $$$ for a 1955 doubled die; "for a coin that was a mistake?" was his reaction -- he thought it was BS and said as much. I didn't mind a bit, and he certainly was as qualified as anyone to comment on what a particular thing (coin in this case) was worth, to him. I personally feel the blue field number 5 might be worth, oh, $40.00 or so in a yard sale, to me. Don't feel the least bit unqualified to make said comment, either.
Now of course, though utterly lacking in any artistic skill of particular merit, the authors of such works do excel at the chutzpah required to convince fools with too much money -- then and now -- that it's worth it. More about the bragging rights than the utter lack of artistic merit in the works themselves. >>
No one said you weren't qualified to opine on how much the painting in question would be worth to you.
The point is that the art market doesn't know who you are and couldn't care less what you think.
I might also point out that the authors of "such works" don't generally engage in a sales presentation to
prospective bidders prior to their pieces going up for auction. No chutzpah or convincing involved...
<< <i>
The market value is clear: $142.4M - that's what it just brought. Something is worth what you can get for it. This is why I always laugh at the comments of moderns haters on some threads in this forum blasting the price that a modern coin brought. Talk about modern - this painting is from 1969 but I digress. >>
If a 1969 coin comes into a coin shop they call it junk and tell the owner to spend
it and everyone wonders why coins don't sell for more. New art collectors aren't told
that anything modern is just crap.
Coins are mass produced so might never get the value a painting does but they can
be just as beautiful and just as rare. They can certainly be more important historically
and say more about cultures.
Art is hung on walls in houses and offices.
Coins are put in slabs and SDBs.
It's harder to share appreciation of coins than art.
In my HS we studied Augustus St. Gaudens and a heck of a lot more. That was before I was in Independent Study. They allowed me 4 periods of art! The first 4, in a row - I did not have to be in the classroom
Anyway -
I don't understand.
No one slammed coins.
Some of the responses are like anger or hate or bafflement.
The price was set by a market - adults placed a value on an item and one of them paid it, not unlike a coin. How is that harmful or irritating? Coins contain many, many qualities shared with paintings. Even down to AT and dipping - in-painting and varnish removal are quite close.
Coins have symbolism, design, composition, color, texture, history, surface qualities and finish and so on, just like a painting or other work.
Rembrandt was a sort of Dan Carr of his day - doing the good work, getting commissions, making connections, working it - making money while creating something he believes in.
In the end, no matter with what intent or intensity, the market will decide what it is worth...individuals will decide and pay, or not, accordingly. Just like Dan Carr's work. Removing the controversy that surrounds his work to some, as it has no bearing to this analogy, and what is the real difference?
I can't believe it is because Bacon brought home the bacon...it brought so very much more money. I can't believe it is because people don't understand it, because we all love design, symbolism, history - you know what I am going to list - it is so very much alike in many ways.
I don't "get" varieties - I am shocked at the number of seemingly endless versions and slight variations of this or that. But I do not know about such things and when one brings a great sum I hardly get upset or threatened whatever is happening in this thread to some. From a further vantage a collectible, with many qualities like our own collectibles, just sold for a huge amount - this should be good for us? Why would we want to distance ourselves from this? Imagine it was a big medal by St. Gaudens.
Eric
Daniel - I am in no way suggesting that you, like Rembrandt, create mostly assembly line work using cheap materials, store bought junky substrates and adulterated garbage for colors with nasty additives to make things dry quick so you can make even more, resulting in work that doesn't even remotely look as it did when it was created. No. I meant it as a sincere compliment from one creative entity to another - an increasing habit
<< <i>
Anyway -
I don't understand.
No one slammed coins.
Some of the responses are like anger or hate or bafflement.
>>
Perhaps I did overreact but I wonder where the art market would be today if the common wisdom
is modern art is junk or they haven't made real art since Rembrandt.
<< <i>In my HS we studied Augustus St. Gaudens and a heck of a lot more. >>
Great sculptor
<< <i>Ferrari GTO Becomes Most Expensive Car at $52 Million
A 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO racer has become the world’s most expensive car, selling for $52 million.
The red competition car, formerly owned by the Greenwich, Connecticut-based collector Paul Pappalardo, was acquired by an unidentified buyer in a private transaction, said three specialist traders who independently confirmed the purchase and price to Bloomberg News. Recently, the car has been owned by a Spanish collector, the car website Barchetta said.
The price is a 49 percent increase on the record for any auto, achieved last year for another 250 GTO. Values of classic cars, particularly Ferraris of the 1950s and 1960s, continue to grow, attracting new enthusiasts, investors and speculators -- and prompting fears of a bubble in the market.
“Today the GTO is considered the top car to own,” the California-based dealer Don Williams of Blackhawk Collection said in an interview. “It’s like the Mona Lisa. It has a mystique. If you have a GTO, you have a great collection.”
The car was acquired by Pappalardo in 1974, restored and subsequently driven by the collector in many historic races, including the 2002 Le Mans Classic, before being sold on.
“We don’t confirm these things,” Pappalardo said when telephoned last night. “I have no comment.”
Stirling Moss
The Italian marque’s 250 GTO, created in 1962 to compete at the Le Mans 24-Hour and other Grand-Touring car races, is the world’s most desirable and expensive car. Only 39 were produced. An apple-green version, made for the British race driver Stirling Moss, was sold privately for a record $35 million, Bloomberg News reported in June 2012.
The latest record-breaking GTO, chassis number 5111, has a distinguished competition history, having won the 1963 Tour de France road race with the French driver Jean Guichet at the wheel.
New buyers have been attracted by classic cars’ investment potential, as well as the chance they give to participate in concours and racing events.
The bellwether auctions in California timed to coincide with the annual Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance raised a record $301.9 million in August. The total, which included $27.5 million for a 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4*S NART Spyder convertible, was the highest for a series of classic-car sales anywhere in the world, according to the Michigan-based Hagerty database.
Pink Floyd
The highest prices for investment-grade autos have been achieved through discreet private sales. Owners of other Ferrari GTOs, who include Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason, have recently received offers between $40 million and $50 million from prospective purchasers, dealers said.
Mason was among the GTO owners convening for a 50th-anniversary get-together in France in July 2012. He was joined by the Goldman Sachs banking scion Peter Sachs; Rob Walton, chairman of Wal-Mart; and Lawrence Stroll, the financier who built Tommy Hilfiger into a global brand in the 1990s.
“It’s a cult car,” the London-based Ferrari dealer Joe Macari said in an interview. “If you’re a billionaire, you feel you have to have one. I don’t understand the appeal of them. They’re not very beautiful and they never won Le Mans. I’d rather have a Testa Rossa.”
The HAGI F index of private and public sales of rare Ferraris was up 54.52 percent for the year, the London-based Historic Auto Group said in a report in August.
Sustainable Rises
“Nothing goes up like that in the mid-term,” HAGI founder Dietrich Hatlapa said in an interview. “Price rises of 55 percent aren’t sustainable in any market. We’re not saying the market is going to collapse. It will probably average out over time.”
Hatlapa said that prices of the rarest Ferraris have risen at an average annual rate of 15 percent for more than 30 years.
The current excitement in the classic Ferrari market has been confirmed by other individual owners.
The Belgian-based collector Johan van Puyvelde exhibited an unrestored 1948 Ferrari 166 Inter-Sport Corsa competition car in the Salon Prive concours show at Syon House, London, last month.
That Ferrari had been bought from a Californian private seller for between $2 million and $2.5 million last year. Van Puyvelde was recently offered $4 million for the car, the Belgian collector said in an interview.
“It is a bubble for certain cars,” said van Puyvelde, surrounded by well-heeled Salon Prive visitors, enjoying their complimentary Pommery champagne and barbecued lobster lunches. “The people who buy the top things do use them. The market is driven by genuine enthusiasm. They want to take part in events like this. I don’t think that many people are buying just for investment.”
Muse highlights include Jason Harper on cars, Rich Jaroslovsky on technology and Amanda Gordon’s Scene Last Night. >>
<< <i>
<< <i>
Anyway -
I don't understand.
No one slammed coins.
Some of the responses are like anger or hate or bafflement.
>>
Perhaps I did overreact but I wonder where the art market would be today if the common wisdom
is modern art is junk or they haven't made real art since Rembrandt. >>
Hello - I was not actually thinking of you...in all honesty I don't know what you said, but I will look. To me, Rembrandt is not very much. 1626 self portrait was wonderful, certain self portraits...by 1656 he was degraded and making a lot of mud along with some wonders but they all suffer from lack of knowledge or caring about how you do things. There are very strict rules for the application of paint if you want permanence and the best effects. What I wrote is true. Rembrandt used lots of low end store bought materials and very cheap junk for pigments. It might seem funny to imagine an regular art store with pre-primed canvas and paint in pig bladders (tubes took a while yet) in 1660, but they were there. Especially where he was. But he was unable to tell if he was even using genuine lapis. There are chunks of unbound pigments and just crap in his paint layers - things mixed to already ground paint and not milled in. Bad business. His techniques reveal a very weak hand technically in terms of sound construction and things lasting. He could handle white lead and ocher very well in painting. His work really used to look quite different, but the backgrounds are now all gone black. Imagine them lighter, with architectural archways and other stuff going on behind the figures.
Vermeer...that is a whole different plane. Several whole steps up.
There is no such thing as bad taste.
Eric
<< <i>I have often pondered this same question. Why so much for Art relative to other fine collectables. Makes no sense to me. Esp. for this ugly 1969 work. A work by one of the old Masters at least I could understand - a little. >>
Well, for one - I don't see how often a coin can serve as an album cover or a print or t-shirt or a movie cover or...that list just goes on. Look at Sunflowers and all the applications it has seen. Those diamond folks DeBeers -when they created the fake diamond market they used impressionist paintings in the imagery. They way they made people think they had to have a diamond when it was not the norm...even in Japan.
BTW, the Mets Vermeer, the $ one, Woman in Blue, was $80 when purchased in 1887 or whenever. Most people did not even think it was by Vermeer. Now? It could not be calculated I dare say.
Eric
<< <i>I would love to be the guy in the crowd who raises his arm and pushes the go-zillion-aire to $50million on one of these paintings, that would be shweet!!
The problem with this gambit is that you could easily wind up buying that painting. How sweet would that be?
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
Artists may come in and out of favor but I don't see Warhol ever losing his iconic status as the most astute observer of 20th century Americana.
It is quite the opposite for rare paintings and neat looking autos
Look no further for your answer
<< <i>From my perspective, I see the coin market acting in this manner. And personally, I don't like it. >>
I agree. "Wealth" has already damaged numismatics.