Buying Art? A Guide to the Vintage Marketplace

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The trouble with buying vintage art is that it’s not like cars or real estate where there are standardized title histories, multiple sources for pricing and complete information on all known reproductions to verify authenticity. It’s not illegal to sell fakes, rip-offs and reproductions (or as they prefer to be called: “after” pieces.) Most dealers don’t know what they have. There are no consumer protection laws to help you.

Trying to figure out the difference between a real Rothko and a fake Rothko can be overwhelming if you don’t know anything about art. The good news is that you don’t need to know anything about art to make an informed decision about buying vintage art. Here are some tips on how best to protect yourself when buying or selling vintage artwork:

A) Never buy from an individual at a garage sale or flea market unless you are in possession of written documentation from a licensed appraiser verifying the provenance of the piece. Written documentation includes an appraisal, auction record, gallery label or museum registry number identifying a specific piece of work by the artist in question;

B) Never buy from someone who is selling everything in their house “to settle an estate.” Estate sales usually mean that everything is being sold as is without recourse;

I created this blog as a way to learn as much as I can about buying and selling art. As a newbie to the art world, I know I have a lot of catching up to do. And there are many aspects of the vintage market that are not well-documented. So, in creating this blog, I hope to educate myself and you, dear readers.

To do this, I have decided to start out by documenting my own journey toward becoming more knowledgeable about the vintage art market. That’s where this post comes in. I hope it will be useful and interesting for you.

Vintage art is a type of market that can be confusing to new buyers. This blog is here to help you navigate the world of buying, selling and collecting vintage art. We hope that you find it both helpful as well as entertaining.

The market for vintage art is large, competitive and highly fragmented. As a result, it is also very hard to know how much a piece of vintage art is worth.

Trying to assess the value of vintage art without expert advice or auction records can be particularly difficult, especially for buyers outside the UK. The prices of vintage art fluctuate according to a wide range of factors, including recent sales, the reputation of the artist and the type of work being sold.

Artists are often grouped into movements and periods, but there is no standard way of doing this so it’s hard to know whether you’re paying a fair price when buying vintage art.

There are now many online resources that can help, including databases of auction prices and price estimates provided by leading galleries. But these vary in quality, and it’s important to use them with caution.

In particular online resources can’t give you an accurate price estimate because they don’t take into account the condition of the artwork (how damaged it is) or its size (how big it is).

One final point: make sure you buy from a reputable gallery or dealer. Reputable sellers will provide you with information about their expertise, guarantees and returns policies and will offer proper post-sale services if anything goes wrong

Art is a broad topic, but the question of how to buy it is very specific. And unfortunately the advice from the experts is often, well, not so expert. So I decided to create this blog as a resource for people who are interested in buying art.

I started collecting art in the 1970s when I was in my early 20s. I’ve been going to auctions regularly for about 30 years and have conducted thousands of private sales.

I also have a professional background in art as an artist myself. My work has been exhibited nationally and internationally with solo shows in New York, Washington DC and Los Angeles. I was trained at The Art Students League of New York where I won numerous awards and grants including a scholarship to the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine.

The advice on this blog will be based on my personal experience and my knowledge of the art market, which I hope you will find helpful!

If you are looking for original art, vintage is the way to go. But what does “vintage” mean?

Vintage means pre-1970’s for most people who collect it. The high price tags and big profits on the art from this period is what brought an explosion of interest in collecting it. So, why did prices explode? There are many reasons, but here are some that stand out.

The artists were living during this time or were just dead so they weren’t making new work to compete with their earlier, more expensive pieces.

There was a huge spike in demand which drove the prices up to unrealistic levels. People were buying anything by anyone if they thought they might be able to sell it at a profit later on when things cooled down — and no one wanted to buy new work by these artists while they were still alive unless they were sure they could get something really good.

Up until this point in history, most art was made to hang in someone’s house or office and wasn’t really meant to be viewed as a commodity. This changed with the advent of Modernism and Pop Art which made art more popular and created more interest in the marketplaces (auctions and galleries).

High inflation and low monetary values in some countries drove the

The challenge is to find a piece that is aesthetically pleasing, has a good provenance and tells an interesting story. It can be done.

It is also important to remember that the aesthetics of a piece comes from the artist’s original intention and not necessarily from the buyer’s opinion. For example, a piece may have been considered ugly at the time it was created but through fashion or changing artistic trends later in history the same piece can become beautiful.

Trained, knowledgeable eyes are needed to discern an original work of art from a fake. This is why there are authenticators who specialize in verifying authenticity before passing judgement on price. For example, if you intend to buy a painting you should find out if it has been authenticated by someone qualified such as an artist working in that style period or an art historian specializing in that particular genre or artist.

The provenance of a painting can indicate its authenticity and worth, however, this must be verified by an expert before any value can be placed on it. A provenance lists previous owners and where they kept the artwork in its lifetime which can help determine how it was viewed by others at the time it was created. It is important to know whether an item was owned privately or publicly during this period as this will affect its

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