**HELP WITH APPRAISAL!!!** CONTEMPORARY ART & THE OLYMPICS

Bonham and Butterfields, who would take only 10% of the auction sale:

http://www.butterfields.com/

No, I meant that your parents probably would have paid that much originally for the set, assuming it wasn't given to them as a gift from some Olympic committee. Even if the artists donated their work, it would have cost plenty to print and archival tissue isn't cheap either.

(LightWizard had said that whatever the set had originally cost might give a big indication of the current worth.)

It probably depends on if you want the most money or the fastest money, how you'd market them. A consignment might make you more money, but Sotheby's likely has the perfect big auction this fall or winter. If you wanted to be fastest, you could get it onto eBay with a reserve and, if there were buyers interested in it, have it sold in ten days. Splitting it up, you'll have a larger range of buyers who can purchase each single piece. With the Olympics going on now, the interest in all Olympics memorabilia may be higher.

I don't know if the artists donated the work and Sotheby's would unlikely be interested in something which is too commercial for them. They owned Bonham and Butterfields at one time -- I'd have to search the site to verify that. If someone is uninterested in the original investment, I'd actually advise them to put the pieces up for sale with a reserve on EBay and at least 40% off the retail price for a quick sale. It would give one an idea of the market value if at least one or two sold right away. Then one might consider when relisting to raise the price at least 20% on the remaining prints. It's all a marketing game and is unrelated to what old and modern master's originals are bought and sold for.

Just saw the Greeks' presentation for the opening of the Olympics. Absolutely breath taking.

Argh// I contacted an art gallery in New York about selling these art works and they offered an amount so low I thought he was kidding. It was 20% of what my parents bought it for back in '89. I'm dissapointed but I guess they're worth more to me sitting in storage than for that price.

That's a typical offer. Brick-and-mortar galleries do not want to add limited edition prints to their inventory unless they can get a good enough price that they can afford to hopefully sell a few of them and sit on the rest for an indetermined time.

What is Brick and mortar galleries?

You're not aware of the terminology "brick-and-mortar?" That means a business which has a location in a business district which is open to the public. In other words, not just an art broker operating out of their house or an off-the-track office location in some industrial/commercial development but a ligitimate gallery, in this case likely in Soho, NYC based on the poster's location.

I see.. I'm not a person who knows a lot about art.. anything about art at all... I'm just stuck in a bind right now, and I was hoping I could use the money to go back to school, pay my debts.. you know? But if they're gonna be cheap-asses than forget it. I'm not a fool. That same gallery is selling one print for 6grand and they want to give me 5 for all twenty? LOL.

I just need to blow off some steam.

Limited prints are a gamble -- more so than any investment in thes stock market (which on short term is not doing very well either). When the stock market is not doing well, it dampens the art market as being even more volatile and speculative. Realistically, one would have to hold onto these prints for twenty years or so and then they might have a marketable set of prints. On the very commercial manufactured art, one could wait that long and find they have fad art that isn't worth much of anything. Typically, most art depreciates in its potential market value 60 to 80% the minute one walks out of the gallery with it or receives it in an Internet purchase unless one is wise enough to recognize a real bargain (they are very scarce).

Art cannot be sold as a secure investment and those who may be still doing it are operating outside the current art laws, many of them national laws and subject to scrutiny by the FBI.