Bronty

when did it arrive at his place in relation to the thirty days? If the package arrived on day 33 that paints a different picture also as compared to arriving on day 5.

C'mon guys... he asked about condition and wasn't told about cut panels. All he wants is a refund. There should be no problem with that. If he waited a little while to open the package, who cares.

So image is all that matters? You comsidered nothing else in making those purchases? you didn’t consider the date and who did it and whatever other context there was? You’d pay the same for a tracing of a Kirby as a Kirby huh?

There’s no attack to your collecting style here. We both understand you buy a lot of ‘Granny’ art and that’s great; fabulous. But you’d never pay for a granny what you’d pay for a Barker... so whether we want to slice it this way or that way you’re not divorcing context from image in your own buying. In fact you’re specifically considering it as per your beingf turned off by ‘names.’ Your tastes aren’t in a vacuum because what you can afford is shaped by the buying preferences of others. You choose to date Sally because there’s ten guys asking Jill out but that doesn’t change the fact that you might ask Jill out yourself if she wasn’t already being fought over

Yeah we’re going around in circles here but that double Granny FMV is still a fraction of what you’d pay for it as a Barker , which is the whole point. Image may be driving your selection process but it’s not truly driving the price you’ll pay (except as a multiple of the already context adjusted FMV) and as such kinda meaningless. If you and I watch some girls pass by on the street , if we are considering who is the most attractive before considering personality, can we truly divorce body from face from hair from makeup from clothes etc? It’s a total package and the context of the one affects the attractiveness of the other. The same black boots might look a hell of a lot better on Sally than on Jill, and the same painting as a Barker is going to look a lot more attractive to you than as a Ethel Graumann.

The greater point is that it may not be truly possible to even consider image in a truly stand alone way stripped of all context. What we like in a 1940s comic cover is so different than what we like in a 1970s comic cover let alone a 50s abstract painting. Where and when are such important questions because they separate groundbreaking work from derivative. If somebody did a drop painting that was better than Pollock or a Marilyn that was better than Warhol’s and did them last Tuesday would anybody care? Nah.

You say you wouldn't have overpaid for a noname, and that you paid double FMV. The reasons (gift, tactile qualities, loving the artist, whatever) are not relevant. You overpaid, fine. Point is, if you take the price you paid, divide it by 2 you say to get to regular FMV... you wouldn't have paid that regular FMV for Granny's work done last Tuesday. You would have paid 1/4 of that.

You feel that way, because ego comes into it and we like to feel like we are free and liberated with our tastes sometimes, but is it really all about image for us in general, you included? Would you be paying what you paid for your Barker if it was a no name, non-famous artist? If it was done by a Granny in Hoboken last Tuesday? Maybe you would have still been interested, but at the same price? Probably not You can't divorce price from the discussion. In fact its the ultimate acid test. And image alone doesn't cut it as a price driver unless there's a whole other context, a greater body of work by the artist, a significant place of publication, whatever, for us to consider. Your Barker has it. Granny in Hoboken doesn't. Image is in many ways the best reason to buy a piece of art. But its just one of dozens of reasons to consider a piece or more to the point a piece *at a price*.

okay, thanks.. seems odd to have two different scales!

That's what they get for missing the Graphic Collectables booth!

Well, let's not pick on subjective word definitions. The point is, there's a ceiling when there aren't other valuation factors present. And... even those who buy 'only for the image' take the presence or absence of other factors into account, generally speaking, when it comes time to talk price.

9.0? Is that a new scale? I thought AFA grades were on a 100 scale (ie 90 not 9?)

Ugh. What to even think about that. Some of those items were sold before any of us were even alive. Its potentially a questionable claim when it relies solely on what may or may not have happened to ancestors in years past. Others may disagree but its difficult for us all to come to consensus on ancient items or to say they belong to this group or that group when none of us were even born yet.

Yeah. And that’s the issue when people start saying that they buy based only on image. It positions the buyer as having tastes and habits that live in a vacuum and that’s just not true of anyone. At 300 bucks, yeah okay, at any kind of substantial amount it’s a different story

I find the image itself can govern whether or not I'm interested, but other factors like nostalgia/ context whatever, govern the price I'll pay. It probably works that way for a lot of us. I love the Deadworld piece for example, but there's only so much I'm going to pay for a Deadworld piece.