Rembrandt CSI

This print is hard to find and easy to sell to a smart collector.

Well, I did want to post another round of funny and interesting ESCAPE! videos, but this rather important thing came up, about original 17th century Rembrandt etchings.

Look, Rembrandt etchings are traded like stamps, coins, sports cards and memorabilia — it’s all about Scarcity, Desirability and Condition, the “Big 3” of collectible trading.

I have a number of interested possible buyers for the few Rembrandts I have posted in my tiny collection in my virtual gallery, but it’s tricky — I can’t and won’t sell to an amateur. I’ve had that flavor of sale, and eschew it rabidly.

I don’t actually OWN a bunch of Rembrandt etchings — I don’t have to, because I sell them first, and THEN I FIND and buy them and ship them, see? That way, there’s no money up front, no risk of loss of the originals, and no storage issues or insurance problems, and I can have hundreds of Rembrandts up for sale without owning a single one of them.

The trick is, you have to know that you can get hold of what you sell, and you know who has it and at what price. Continue reading

Whatever Happened to What’s-His-Name???

 

Degas rare canceled incomplete plate “women in laundry”

Whatever happened to what-s-his-name??? Well, now, that’s always been one of those questions best left unanswered. In the meantime, while you’re waiting, let’s tackle the biggest problem in marketing, which can be summed up as “The JUNO Principle:

“What’s the sense trying to scare people if they can’t even see or hear you?”

See, that is the problem. You can have the best item in the world, the most attractive advertising and promotion, but if nobody sees you or your ads or your product, it’s as if you were a tree falling in the forest, and you can quote me on that. Continue reading

Nevada City Tours

Old Fire Station, Broad Street, Nevada City, photo by E.J. Gold.

If you click onto nevadacitytours.com, you’ll note that the first listing takes you to zazzle, where you’ll initially see postcards, views of Nevada City and environs, that I took when I was regaining my walking skills after the second surgery in 2002.

The gallery is well within view here — it’s just to the right of the middle of the photo, inside the historic and very haunted New York Hotel. We feature very high-end ORIGINAL art by Chagall, Miro, Picasso, Degas, Manet, Gauguin, Matisse, Rembrandt, van Ostade and many more.

Our first offering will be a very rare and very personal Jasper Johns 0-9 lithograph in colors, pencil-signed and numbered, but the most important aspect of this offering is that it came from Sotheby’s and carries with it all the documentation from Sotheby’s auction house in New York City.

You’ll see at my gallery — and have a chance to buy or help sell — museum-grade art, which could be purchased by an art patron in your hometown, on the public’s behalf, then bequeathed to your local art museum. There may be tax benefits to the estate by so doing, but the social and cultural benefits far outweigh personal wealth. This can be a legacy that you can leave for future generations, or help facilitate if you can’t buy.

Here’s an example:

This is a very unusual form of Jasper Johns’ zero through nine series; it’s pencil-signed and numbered by the artist. It’s small, personal, and very, very limited in the edition size. JASPER JOHNS — Zero Through Nine (0-9) — color lithograph — Ca. 1978 — Edition 60 — Signed – Numbered – Dated – C 160×124 – S4 – G 781 – Full Margin — Sotheby New York – 05/13/87 – # 833. Continue reading

A Jazzy Show Catalogue of Renaissance & Modern Art

mirosmall

JOAN MIRO — Original Mourlot Hand-Pulled Stone Lithograph printed on wove paper, it is the back cover of ” XXe Siecle #4″, published in 1954; edition size about 5,000, probably a few hundred circulating around nowadays, or far less, as a result of many of them falling into a permanent collection of a library, university or museum. A very rare original print with lots of early primitivism and strong paint strokes. The double “X” signifies the “twentieth century” aspect of the famous high-grade French art “magazine” of the Golden Age of Art. Condition is Extra-Fine.

Bidding Range: $950 – $1500

SIDE-NOTES: This is hard to find, and expensive to buy, with no hope of “fast turnover”. It may take years to sell a print in a gallery. There are  some XXe Siecle originals on eBay, and a lot of things that people THINK are XXe Siecle that are also there. Some prints are as low as $30 bucks or so, when the seller is unaware of the value of the print, and when the artist is not as well-collected, highly valued or among the “Big Name Artists” like Rembrandt, Renoir, Chagall, Miro, Picasso, and Matisse. It’s not a good idea to seek out bargains in the art market. You pay for what you get, and you get what you pay for. Continue reading

Important Art Auction Update!!!

g&m12f

This is an original signed Picasso copperplate etching. It’s one of many “Blue Chip” art pieces I sacrifice to bring people into an art auction. It makes no money for the charity, does nothing to help the finances, and must be replaced with something equally pricey for the next auction. It is strictly a “Loss Leader”, intended to attract an audience, and I’d frankly be happier without them, and I’ll tell you why:

First of all, nobody but an art dealer would know that these things are even for sale, and very few of them even have an inkling of what they’re worth, where to find them and how to authenticate them beyond doubt — you DON’T want returns.

Continue reading

To Rembrandt or Not To Rembrandt — The Money Issues

To Rembrandt, or not to Rembrandt

These are original 17th century lifetime impressions produced by Rembrandt van Rijn in Holland, about 1640-ish. They come from very powerful collections with great and unusually clear provenance, meaning they can be traced back to previous owners quite far in the past. Pieces like this generally sell for anywhere from $24,000 to $150,000 for the very rare “St. Jerome in a Dark Chamber”, which came from the collection of Theodore Donson, the world’s most famous Rembrandt collector today. So how come if you brought these into a gallery or a dealer, the best they could offer would be a hundred bucks each, and that’s FRAMED!!! If you don’t get what the game is, tune in Saturday morning at 6;30 a.m. for a serious tutorial on selling stuff into a bad economy. There’s an ART to it, not just dumb luck or running full-tilt against a brick wall. See you on the ICW. If you don’t know how to join us there, ASK!!!

Peace,

gorby