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>>> Crater of Diamonds visitor finds 4.38-carat yellow diamond
UPI
9-30-21
By Ben Hooper
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/09/30/Crater-of-Diamonds-State-Park-Noreen-Wredberg-yellow-diamond/6331633032710/
Sept. 30 (UPI) -- A California woman visiting the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas found a 4.38-carat yellow diamond after less than an hour of searching, officials said.
Arkansas State Parks said Noreen Wredberg of Granite Bay was visiting the park with her husband on Thursday and had been looking for gems in an open field for about 40 minutes when she spotted something shiny on the surface.
"I didn't know it was a diamond then, but it was clean and shiny, so I picked it up," Wredberg recalled.
Wredberg's husband, Michael, took her find to the Diamond Discovery Center, where it was identified as a 4.38-carat yellow diamond.
"When I first saw this diamond under the microscope, I thought, 'Wow, what a beautiful shape and color,'" Park Superintendent Caleb Howell said. "Mrs. Wredberg's diamond weighs more than four carats and is about the size of a jellybean, with a pear shape and a lemonade yellow color."
Officials said Wredberg's discovery is the largest diamond found at the park since October 2020.
Wredberg said she hasn't yet decided whether to have the diamond cut or to leave it as-is.
"I don't even know what it's worth yet. It's all new to me," she said.
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>>> Spider-Man’s First Comic Brings $3.6 Million, Likely a Record
The Amazing Fantasy No. 15 from 1962 leaps past Superman to sell for what is believed to be the highest price for a comic book.
The New York Times
By George Gene Gustines
Sept. 9, 2021
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/arts/spider-man-comic-auction-record.html
Spider-Man has just reached a new level of amazing. A copy of the Marvel hero’s first comic book appearance sold at Heritage Auctions on Thursday for $3.6 million. The comic book — Amazing Fantasy No. 15 from 1962, when it sold for 12 cents — was in near perfect condition. With this sale, Spider-Man leaps ahead of Superman for what is believed to be the highest price for a comic book.
Earlier this year, a copy of Action Comics No. 1 from 1938 sold privately for $3.25 million. Amazing Fantasy No. 15, written by Stan Lee and drawn by Steve Ditko, introduced the world to Peter Parker and his wall-crawling alter ego in a 10-page story. In it, Peter evolves from selfish to selfless when a personal tragedy teaches him that “with great power there must also come — great responsibility.”
The Man of Steel will have another shot at an auction record soon. A copy of Action Comics No. 1 will be available for bid from Heritage Nov. 18-19.
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I could put one of them next to my pet rock?
>>> NON-FUNGIBLE TOKENS ARE DEAD, LONG LIVE INVISIBLE $18,000 SCULPTURES
Summer 2021
Highsnobiety
BY SARAH OSEI
https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/salvatore-garau-invisible-sculpture-sale/
Italian artist Salvatore Garau just sold an invisible sculpture for $18,000. The work, titled Io Sono or "I Am," doesn't exist except in the artist's imagination. No, seriously.
According to Garau, the sculpture doesn't not exist per se, rather it exists in a vacuum, Newsweek reports. "The vacuum is nothing more than a space full of energy," Garau explained. "And even if we empty it and there is nothing left, according to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, that 'nothing' has a weight. Therefore, it has energy that is condensed and transformed into particles, that is, into us."
Per as.com, the sculpture's initial price was set between €6,000 and €9,000. However, the price was raised after several bids were placed. In the end, it reportedly sold for €15,000 (approximately $18,300) to an unnamed buyer – because who would want to be identified after dishing that kind of cash on invisible art?
Since you can't just imagine you paid, the buyer gets a stamped certificate for the payment proving that, erm, the nothing they bought does in fact belong to them now. With the NFT market reportedly on its knees, perhaps such conceptualizations could become the latest art fad.
Garau instructs that the sculpture will need to be displayed in an unobstructed area that is five feet by five feet. It should also be displayed in a private home. And it may be displayed in any light since it's not there.
This is not the first immaterial sculpture that Garau has created, although it is reportedly the first that he has sold. Last month, Garau displayed another immaterial sculpture titled, "Buddha in Contemplation," in the Piazza della Scala in Milan, near the entrance to the Gallerie d'Italia. Garau posted a video of the "statue" to his Instagram page, writing, "Now it exists and will remain in this space forever," says the video. "You do not see it but it exists. It is made of air and spirit."
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>>> Pebble Beach’s ‘Bombastic’ Car Auctions Show a Red-Hot Market
The $343 million haul during Monterey Car Week revealed the discerning appetites of billionaires jostling for the best of the best.
Bloomberg
By Hannah Elliott
August 16, 2021
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-16/monterey-car-auction-results-show-red-hot-vintage-market-at-pebble-beach?srnd=premium
After a year of record-breaking online-only sales, the auctions during Monterey Car Week and the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance roared back as strong as ever, showing no sign of abatement in the collectible car segment.
Five auction houses brought in a total of $343 million across three days of sales—up 37% over the same array of opportunities in 2019. (Monterey Car Week was canceled in 2020, due to the coronavirus pandemic.)
“It was spastic and bombastic,” says Peter Brotman, a longtime specialty car broker to ultra-high-net-worth clients. Brotman sold four client cars during the annual auction series near Carmel, Calif.
Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance Classic Car Show And Auction
Monterey’s high sales numbers were even more impressive, considering that 25% fewer cars were offered than in 2019. A higher-than-normal sell-through rate of 80%, compared to 59% in 2019, contributed to that result, but so did the recognized high quality of many cars on offer. The average sale price of a vehicle sold in 2021 was $428,004, up from $334,114 in 2019, according to Hagerty.
“The collector car market has weathered the pandemic and then some,” said Brian Rabold, vice president of automotive intelligence for Hagerty, in his auction report. “We forecast 2021 will be the best year ever for auctions.”
Top Dogs
Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance Classic Car Show And Auction
A 1995 McLaren F1 Coupe was this year’s top seller, bringing in $20.5 million, including buyers premiums, at the Gooding & Co. auction. (That price beat the $19.8 million McLaren F1 that scored the high mark in 2019.)
A 1959 Ferrari 250 California LWB Competizione Spider sold for $10.8 million at the same sale, while a 1962 Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato rounded out the top three sellers by taking $9.5 million at RM Sotheby’s.
“Monterey provided a reminder that live auctions continue to serve an important role, especially as a venue for exceptional top-dollar cars,” Rabold wrote.
As usual in blue-chip automotive auctions, a large portion of the top sellers across all sales were Ferraris; five of the top 10 cars sold were vintage Ferraris. But modern analog supercars sold well, too.
“Enthusiasts recognize that era [of supercar] is gone and not coming back,” Rabold noted. A 2012 Lexus LFA Nuerburgring drew $1.6 million, setting a record for a Japanese road car at auction; a 1995 Nissan R33 Skyline GT-R sold for nearly twice its auction high-estimate and 91% more than its associated value in the Hagerty Price Guide; and a 1994 Bugatti EB110 SS sold for $2.8 million, setting a record for the model.
“There has been great diversification in the market,” says Steve Serio, the founder of Bond Group and insider in million-dollar Aston Martins, Porsches, and obscure European marques such as Iso Grifo and Bizzarrini. “Everyone is eager to pay cash for what they want. No one is borrowing money to spend money.”
Not all of the big cars that should have sold did so, however.
The biggest surprise of the weekend was the 1970 Porsche 917K that did not even make its reserve price. It went unsold by RM Sotheby’s, with a high bid at $15 million. Buyers may have been lured by options with stronger provenance, despite the 917K being an iconic race car; this lot had been crashed and re-bodied.
Similarly, a second racing icon of a similar era, the 1966 Ford GT40 Alan Mann Lightweight race car, also failed to meet reserve, with a high bid of $5.1 million at the Gooding & Co. auction. It, too, had been crashed and re-bodied, making it less desirable than an unblemished GT40.
“These are educated, intelligent, thoughtful buyers,” Brotman says. “They are eager to buy, but they want to buy the best. So this is healthy growth.”
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Volvo 1800S (1966) - >>> The cars that did a million miles - on one engine
MSN
https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/enthusiasts/the-cars-that-did-a-million-miles-on-one-engine/ss-AAMEEAp?li=BBnb7Kz#image=19
The grand-daddy of all private high-mileage vehicles is Irv Gordon’s Volvo 1800S. Gordon, a schoolteacher, collected the car from the Volvoville dealership in Huntington, New York, on a Friday evening in June 1966 and took it back for its scheduled 1500-mile checkover the following Monday.
He was mentioned in the Guinness Book of Records for the first time in 1998, having covered 1.69 million miles, and hit three million in Alaska in September 2013. By the time he died in November 2018, aged 77, the total had reached 3.2 million, or 61,500 miles per year on average.<<<
>>> Mystery buyer spends $12.3M on a 101-carat diamond -- and pays in cryptocurrency
CNN
by Megan C. Hills
7/12/2021
A 101-carat diamond has become the most expensive jewel ever purchased with cryptocurrency, according to Sotheby's, the auction house behind the sale.
The pear-shaped gemstone sold Friday for the equivalent of $12.3 million, after the auctioneer announced it was accepting offers in bitcoin and ethereum, in addition to traditional forms of payment. Sotheby's would not disclose which of the two cryptocurrencies had been used to make the purchase.
The diamond, dubbed "The Key 10138," went to an "anonymous private collector," according to a press release.
In a press statement, Sotheby's deputy chairman for jewelery in Asia, Wenhao Yu, said the sale had attracted "new clients well beyond the traditional pool of collectors," adding cryptocurrency purchases appealed to a "digitally savvy generation."
Remarkably rare in its own right, the stone is the second largest pear-shaped diamond ever to come to market, according to Sotheby's.
It is classified as a "D color" diamond, the highest such grade awarded to white diamonds, meaning it appears colorless to the naked eye. It is also verified as internally and externally "flawless," meaning it is completely clear with no visible blemishes. It is one of only 10 diamonds of its quality weighing over 100 carats ever to appear at auction.
A number of auction houses have begun welcoming cryptocurrencies for big-ticket items, which have included paintings and NFTs -- the blockchain-backed tokens increasingly used to transfer ownership of digital artworks and collectibles.
Earlier this year, Sotheby's opened the sale of Banksy's "Love is in the Air" to payment via bitcoin and ethereum. The famed artwork, which depicts a masked man throwing a bouquet of flowers like a Molotov cocktail, eventually sold for $12.9 million, though the auction house did not reveal whether they buyer eventually used a cryptocurrency.
In June, Christie's also announced that it was accepting bitcoin and ethereum for an untitled Keith Haring work. The painting, which depicts a figure with a computer for a head, sold for £4.3 million (nearly $6 million) though, again, the auctioneer did not disclose the payment method.
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>>> Sotheby’s will accept bitcoin or ether for $15 million diamond sale
MarketWatch
July 7, 2021
By Bérengère Sim
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/sothebys-will-accept-bitcoin-or-ether-for-15-million-diamond-sale-11625649263?mod=article_inline
Recently minted cryptocurrency millionaires, unsure of what to do with their newfound wealth, can now bid for a $15 million 100-carat diamond at Sotheby’s auction — a first for a gem that valuable.
Sotheby’s 9 July auction comes as the art world and cryptocurrencies become more interlinked, with non-fungible tokens, which are smart contracts built on blockchain networks, selling for millions.
Those interested in buying the pear-shaped diamond can pay with either ether ETHUSD, +2.29% or bitcoin BTCUSD, 1.96%, and cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Commerce will facilitate the payment.
“The most ancient and emblematic denominator of value can now, for the first time, be purchased using humanity’s newest universal currency,” said Wenhao Yu, deputy chair of Sotheby’s jewelery in Asia, in a statement.
“Never was there a better moment to bring a world-class diamond such as this to the market.”
The diamond, which is being auctioned as part of Sotheby’s “luxury edit” sale series in Asia, is on display at its Hong Kong gallery from 3 to 8 July. It is the second-largest pear-shaped diamond ever to appear on the public market, the auction house said. Bidding online started on 25 June.
“The fact that cryptocurrency is to be accepted as payment also marks a significant moment in the evolution of the market: no other physical object with an estimate even approaching the US$10-15m (HK$78-118 million) estimate this diamond carries, has ever been publicly offered for purchase with cryptocurrency,” the auction house’s statement said.
Digital high-net-worth individuals have diversified their investments during the pandemic, with many buying rare editions of trainers, vintage sports cards and jewelery.
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I am surprised GME is still holding most of the gains. It would be fun if RIBT is planned for a Reddit? I think I posted to you the RIBT/NTZ comparison of the boiler room spikes before it really took off. But NTZ did not have a Reddit, but my thoughts are that "the powers that be with NTZ was they were chasing traders away before the big move to help them load up cheap.
Yes, I like to dream, lol.
Yes, looks like a stock to avoid, unless the Reddit crowd return for a second go round.
When this Reddit/Robinhood phenomenon first started it seemed interesting, with everyone searching for the next short squeeze moonshot. But after a couple days, I gave up on the idea. Better to stay conservative and leave the wild west gun-slinging to others :o)
I barely looked into it, I've seen enough, lol, very scary.
Takung Art Co - >>> These Meme Stocks Have Made People Millionaires in 2021
Retail investors have had the last laugh... for now.
Motley Fool
by Sean Williams
May 30, 2021
https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/05/30/these-meme-stocks-made-people-millionaires-in-2021/?source=eptyholnk0000202&utm_source=yahoo-host&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=article
For the past 15 months, investors have enjoyed a historic bounce-back rally on Wall Street. Since the widely followed S&P 500 hit its pandemic low on March 23, 2020, it's surged by as much as 88%. To put this figure into context, the very long-term average annual total return (including dividends) for the stock market is about 7%.
But for some retail investors, these gains would represent peanuts.
Beginning in January, retail investors on Reddit and a handful of other social media platform began piling into stocks that were heavily short-sold by institutional investors and/or had very small floats (the amount of tradable shares). By purchasing shares and call options in these stocks, retail investors were able to effect short squeezes, leading to skyrocketing share prices.
Though many of these meme stocks -- companies that have been lauded for their popularity on social media, rather than their operating performance -- have given back most of their early year gains, three stand out for making a lot of retail traders millionaires in 2021.
GameStop: Up 1,187% year to date
Perhaps it's only fitting that the meme stock which started it all makes the list: video game and accessories retailer GameStop (NYSE:GME). With GameStop up 1,187% since the year began, through May 26, it would have taken a roughly $78,000 investment into GameStop on Dec. 31, 2020 to hit millionaire status today.
When Reddit retail investors flocked to GameStop back in mid-January, it was because the company had the highest short interest, relative to float, of any publicly traded company. This, along with a short ratio (also known as "days to cover") of around 6 made it the perfect candidate for a short squeeze. In a matter of days, GameStop's stock catapulted from around $20 to nearly $500.
Yet, whereas most meme stocks have fallen out of favor, GameStop remains a favorite among young investors.
Fundamentally speaking, there have been positives to latch onto. For example, GameStop grew its e-commerce sales by a healthy 191% last year, including a better-than-quadrupling in e-commerce sales during the always-important holiday season. GameStop also raised $551 million in gross proceeds from a recent share offering that'll wipe clean its remaining debt and give the company more than enough capital to continue with its digital transformation.
Then again, sales for GameStop declined more than 21% in 2020, even with the aforementioned 191% boost in e-commerce revenue. The company closed 12% of its physical stores and comparable-store sales of those that remained open declined 9.5%. The plain truth is that GameStop waited far too long to shift away from brick-and-mortar and toward digital gaming. As a result, sales are going to be stagnant for years as the company closes underperforming stores to reduce its operating expenses.
Takung Art: Up 1,205% year to date
Shares of Hong Kong-based Takung Art (NYSEMKT:TKAT) did rise in January and February, but they didn't really catch fire with retail investors on Reddit and other social media platforms until mid-March. As of May 26, Takung was the top-performing stock on a year-to-date basis, with gains of 1,205%. A roughly $76,600 investment in Takung Art on Dec. 31, 2020 would have made you a millionaire today.
Whereas GameStop attracted retail investors due to its high short interest, Takung was valued more for its low float. When less shares are available to be traded, it can make it easier, with ample liquidity and interest, for traders to wildly push a company's share price up or down. With only 9.3 million shares in its float, Takung was taken for a ride by momentum chasers.
The "why?" part of this share-price surge has to do with speculation regarding Takung's interest in non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. An NFT a digital certificate of ownership found on blockchain for digital assets. Since blockchain is both transparent and immutable, it shows clear ownership of digital assets. Takung operates an online platform that allows artists and art dealers to trade and sell pieces of artwork. In theory, it wouldn't be all that difficult for Takung to include NFTs on its platform.
The issue is that Takung Art hasn't said anything about including NFTs on its platform -- Reddit investors are merely hyping the idea up in chatrooms.
Furthermore, Takung's operating model has been in decline for years. According to income statements, the company failed to produce $4.6 million in sales last year, even with people stuck in their homes and turning online for a significant portion of their purchases. For comparison, the company brought in more than $4.6 million in revenue in a single quarter back in late 2016. In short, this rally doesn't have any substance.
AMC Entertainment: Up 823% year to date
Lastly, movie theater chain AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC) has made its fair share of millionaires in 2021. With gains of 823% since the year began, an investment of $108,400 on Dec. 31, 2020 in AMC is what it would have taken to make you a millionaire as of May 26.
Meme stock AMC was piled into by Reddit traders for essentially the same reasons as GameStop. It had a higher level of short interest and the recipe for a short squeeze in late January was just right. It's worth noting that AMC was mere days from bankruptcy in January before raising the necessary capital to keep the lights on via share offerings and debt issuances. This forced pessimists betting on a quick bankruptcy to scurry for the exit at once.
But unlike GameStop and most other meme stocks, AMC's balance sheet is a train wreck. This is to say that other meme stocks have been able to raise significant capital during these rallies, and they're now sitting on healthy net cash positions. AMC raised nearly all of its capital under less-than-ideal circumstances and has well over $4 billion in net debt that it probably doesn't have a chance of paying back when it comes due in five years (or less). During the first quarter, the company's net interest expenses on corporate borrowings more than doubled from the year-ago quarter.
And it's not just debt that's worrisome. AMC had $473 million in deferred rent obligations, as of the end of March. The company's 10Q plainly states that, even if business returns to pre-coronavirus levels, it's going to need additional concessions from its landlords and lenders. Translation: Rental costs are going way up in 2021 (and beyond).
There's a mile-long list of reasons why AMC is one of the worst stocks to own right now, and then there's the single metric that retail investors are focused on: short interest. The gamblers are winning for now, but investors will almost certainly give AMC's share price a big haircut over the long run.
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Thanks. I see Takung Art Company was one of those Reddit meme stocks (see next post), which would explain its meteoric rise in March.
The company does have an interesting business model, although this part seems exorbitant -"the artwork's owner or the offering agent pay Takung a one-time offering fee of 22.5 to 48 percent of the artwork's offering price "
Regular auction houses tack on a sizable chunk on top of the 'hammer price', but 48%, yikes, and it's paid up front. I see the newly discovered Picasso that recently sold had an added 24% buyer's premium (sold through Liveauctioneers.com), and I thought that seemed high, but nothing like 48%..
>>> OVERVIEW
http://www.takungart.com/about/overview.html
Based in Hong Kong, Takung Art Company Ltd. provides a secure and easy way for art collectors and investors to acquire shared ownership in Asian and other fine art - including paintings, calligraphies, jewelry and precious gems - and participate in the booming international art market without fear of price manipulation and forgery.
The ability to trade these valuable assets on Takung's proprietary online trading platform has attracted a significant number of fine art investors - including many ordinary people without substantial financial resources. This novel platform significantly expands the number of interactions between sellers and buyers of fine art far beyond those generated by art galleries and auction houses alone.
For providing this unique service, Takung Art Company earns multiple streams of revenue, including listing fees, trading commissions, management fees and authorized agent fees.
Takung's business model is to continually add to its fine art listings by offering collectors units in carefully selected items. First, an artwork - either an individual piece or portfolio of several pieces - is presented to Takung by an authorized agent, who helps get the artwork professionally appraised. After making its own assessment, if Takung believes it is clearly marketable and will likely appreciate near-term, the company will - after receiving all offering documents - list the artwork on its site and divide it into equal ownership units based on its appraised value. For this listing the artwork's owner or the offering agent pay Takung a one-time offering fee of 22.5 to 48 percent of the artwork's offering price and a refundable listing deposit of roughly 20 percent of the offering price. In addition, Takung charges trading commissions for the online purchase and sale of artwork units, as well as management fees covering the insurance, storage, and transportation for artwork. Takung may also receive substantial annual fees from those agents authorized to list products on the company's platform.
Traders utilize our platform through a client app available for download from the company's commercial website. Currently, most of our traders are located in mainland China. To expand our number of traders, Takung has employed various online promotion strategies and also entered into an agreement with an arts marketing agency that has a broad network of both amateur and professional art traders and dealers. In July 2016, the company initiated its first major expansion of operations outside of China when it introduced the trading platform to residents of Russia, Mongolia, Australia and New Zealand.
As of June 30, 2017, Takung had 210 art listings trading on our platform, with an aggregate initial listing value of US$51.9 million. Most of the listed pieces and portfolios have traded actively and shown significant appreciation since their introduction on the site. The purchase and sale of ownership units of Takung's listed artwork generated a total transaction value of US$4.12 billion in the second quarter of 2017 versus US$1.27 billion transacted in the comparable year-ago period.
Each of our artwork listings will remain intact for ten years, after which it will be sold and the proceeds paid to the unit holders.
Takung was incorporated in late 2012 and went public in October 2014.
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TKAT Takung Art Co., Ltd. Not saying I like the stock, but the 5th best gainer an all listed exchanges the last 2 years.
https://www.barchart.com/stocks/performance/percent-change/advances?timeFrame=2y
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TKAT/profile?p=TKAT
Yes indeed, please watch the video and read the presentation, you'll be impressed even more ;)
$POETF looks interesting, TY
DD Collection POET Technologies Inc. (TSX.V) $PTK.V (OTCQX) $POETF
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=164663376
>>> The Picasso Discovered in a Closet After 50 Years Sold at Auction
Bloomberg
July 1, 2021
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-01/picasso-kept-in-maine-house-closet-for-50-years-is-sold
Amesbury, Mass. (AP) -- A mixed-media painting attributed to Pablo Picasso has been sold after spending 50 years in a closet in a house in Maine.
John McInnis Auctioneers, based in Massachusetts, confirmed that the painting entitled “Le Tricorne” sold on Saturday, the Boston Globe reported.
The 16 x 16 inch (40 x 40 centimeter) painting is signed and dated in the year 1919. It is believed to be a study for the stage curtain Picasso painted for a ballet of the same name that debuted that year in London, according to the New-York Historical Society. That curtain has been on display at the historical society in New York City since 2015.
The website liveauctioneers.com reported the sale price of the painting was $150,000, plus a 24% buyer’s premium.
Neither the buyer nor the seller was named, but the seller gave a statement on the website saying the painting was found in a closet of a home his father inherited from a female relative who studied art in Europe in the 1920s.
“This painting was discovered in a house owned by my great aunt which was passed down to her from her uncle in the late 1930s,” the statement reads. “There were several paintings kept in a closet for 50 years (including this example) which were left by her at the time of the passing of the house to my father and now to me.”
The buyer will have at least 120 days to authenticate the painting with The Claude Picasso Administration, which is managed by the artist's son.
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That dumpster story made my email list, including Andy
TY
>>> 17th century European paintings found in roadside dumpster
CNN
By Sheena McKenzie
CNN
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/17th-century-european-paintings-found-in-roadside-dumpster/ar-AALddme?ocid=uxbndlbing
Police are appealing for information on how two original paintings from 17th century European artists, ended up in a roadside dumpster in southeast Germany.
A self-portrait of the artist Pietro Bellotti, one of two 17th century paintings found in a roadside dumpster.
The framed oil paintings were found by a 64-year-old man at a highway service station in the Bavaria region last month. The man later handed the paintings to police in the western city of Cologne, the police department said.
Officers have launched an appeal for the owner of the paintings. An initial assessment from an art expert concluded the paintings were likely original works, police said.
One of the paintings is a smiling self-portrait of Italian artist Pietro Bellotti, dating back to 1665.
Bellotti is best known for painting portraits. According to the Galleria Canesso in Switzerland, the artist "worked for highly prominent families in Venice and beyond" including patrons such as Cardinal Ottoboni and the Governor of Milan.
The other painting is of a grinning boy in a red cap, date unknown, by the Dutch artist Samuel van Hoogstraten.
Hoogstraten was a painter and writer who trained under Rembrandt in Amsterdam, according to the Leiden Collection, one of the world's largest private collections of works from the Dutch Golden Age.
In the later part of the 17th century, the elite of Hague "lined up to sit" for Hoogstraten's portraits, said the Collection.
The artist also wrote an "Introduction to the High School of the Art of Painting," which was published the year he died, in 1678.
It includes reminiscences of his stay in Rembrandt's studio, and is what the UK's National Gallery called "a valuable source of information about Rembrandt's views on painting."
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He's an excellent artist, thanks for the links. Concerning glaucoma, in addition to the regular eye drop approach, they can now do a laser procedure that can help lower the pressure a lot. My dad had it done and the improvement was pretty dramatic. I'm not sure if losing weight can help lower eye pressure, but it can vastly improve his overall health, although from that picture he doesn't look especially overweight.
Concerning vinyl records, after everything went to CD, people were giving away their old records. For a long time you could find near mint albums for $1, first pressings and rare albums. Now that stuff is through the roof.
Vintage concert posters are also great to collect, combining the art and music aspects, plus nostalgia and the historic side. However I lost some interest after learning how the CIA had supplied much of the LSD during the 'counterculture' years. Sounds crazy, but the basic idea (as now) is to screw up society, weaken the cultural supports of traditional family, religion, morality, etc. Makes sense if you are a revolutionary or are trying to build a 'new order', you first must break down the underpinnings of society.
gfp, you are really into this this, I am a more "casual" fan of art an music. Like in 1999 I gave all my vinyl to a nephew for Christmas since I had gone to CD's, lol.. He is like 30 years younger than me but was getting into 70 and 80's music. He went nuts looking at them all and kept saying repeatedly loudly, "This is original cut, This is original cut" "Casual" me had no idea I was giving him a great collection.
Sounds like you and Andy would really hit it off in the art world. I hope his eye problems don't end all of his sight. I will send him Dr. Grundy info. He owns a couple of gold mines in Alaska(maybe not worth much), his son in the US mainland has a gold barge he uses up in the Nome area every summer. Andy is into politics, knows and helped Sara Palin campaign. sold her a painting and sold one to Jon Voight, another good conservative.
I don't know if this link works>>>
http://www.hehnlin.com/
I got a little carried away with the Roger Dean collection, but figure it's better than chasing floozies and getting into bar room fights, lol. Had enough of that back in college..
Collecting also has an investment side, and 'collecting' stocks is fun and interesting, though lately the S+P 500 has been the main stock vehicle.
Btw, some of the vinyl albums listed have done amazingly well as investments. One that cost $22 is now worth ~ $300, and many have doubled/tripled. But mainly I just like the artwork and the music.
Fun board gfp, we have a lot in common. It will take a while to gather all the new info here on the board.
>>> Florida doctor’s sports card collection expected to set records at auction
by Steve Gardner
USA TODAY
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb/florida-doctors-sports-card-collection-expected-to-set-records-at-auction/ar-BB1gSxtS?li=BBnb7Kz
A collection of vintage baseball, football and hockey trading cards -- including what may be the most valuable baseball card in history -- will go on the auction block next month.
Included in the group, estimated to be worth more than $20 million, are a rare 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth card and a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle rookie card.
The memorabilia belonged to Florida neurologist Thomas Newman, who died in January of COVID-19 complications at the age of 73. His widow, Nancy Newman, says the almost daily effort her husband put in over the past five decades was a labor of love.
Three of the most valuable items in Dr. Thomas Newman's collection are (from left) a 1916 Sporting News Babe Ruth rookie card, a 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth card and a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle rookie card.
"It was something that gave him so much pleasure," she tells USA TODAY Sports. "He wouldn’t sell a card unless he acquired a better (version of that same) card."
The result is an impressive collection totaling over 1,000 -- from Newman's childhood in the 1950s, going back to Ruth's rookie year in 1916 and some even dating to the 1880s.
“One of the 1933 Babe Ruth cards (Goudey #53, PSA 9) in this collection is the finest known of its kind and we expect it to break the record of $5.2 million for any sports card," says JP Cohen, president of Memory Lane Auctions, which will be conducting the online sale from June 21 to July 10.
But for Dr. Newman, the value of the cards was secondary.
"That wasn’t the reason why he did it," Nancy Newman says. "It was an investment for his family’s future, but not anything that he saw himself gaining from."
His hobby began in typical fashion -- when his mother tossed out his collection after he went off to college. However, none of those cards had any significant value because he played with them all the time.
"As soon as he was an adult out of c
ollege, he started collecting, started building sets, getting better ones than he had," she says. "Until he died, I didn’t really have a figure (on their value). It was surprising. I did know it was a lot, but not this many millions."
As the collection grew, so did the space needed to store them. Newman says they had a safe in their Tampa home where the most valuable cards were. ("I think I’ll have to take a wall down now that it’s empty," she says.) Others could be found locked in closets and cabinets. He also had an entire room on the top floor of his office he used for storage.
"He was just a quiet collector. He didn’t brag about it to anybody. Only his friends and close family really knew it," she says. "He’d get them out and play with them. He called them his ‘paper babies.’”
Now that her husband is no longer around to enjoy them, Newman hopes the auction will give other card collectors an opportunity to do the same.
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>>> Digital artist Beeple sells NFT art for $69 million in Christie’s auction
CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” team discusses how digital artist Beeple just sold more NFT art for $69 million.
CNBC
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2021/03/11/digital-artist-beeple-sells-nft-art-for-69-million-in-christies-auction.html
__________________________________________________________
>>> What Collectors Need to Know from the Art Market 2021 Report
Benjamin Sutton
Mar 16, 2021
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-collectors-art-market-2021-report
The art market shrank by 22% in 2020, down from $64.4 billion in sales in 2019 to $50.1 billion last year. That drop, reported in economist Clare McAndrew’s “The Art Market 2021” report (published today by Art Basel and UBS), puts a figure on the enormous impact of COVID-19, which forced much of the art world to shift online only almost exactly one year ago.
The report also quantifies the art market’s digital pivot. Online sales value doubled, from $6 billion in 2019 to $12.4 billion in 2020; they also more than doubled as a share of all sales by value, going from accounting for 9% of the overall art market in 2019 to a full quarter of all sales by value in 2020.
“I know it sounds terrible, but it was a positive finding for me that things didn’t go worse than they did,” McAndrew said, recalling that her special mid-year report found that gallery sales had dropped 36% in the first six months of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. “Galleries really did turn it around in the second half of the year. People realized they were going to be living with some of these issues for a longer period, and that they had to ramp it up in terms of their digital marketing and digital sales.”
The report notes that despite significant losses in sales and jobs—the number of people employed by galleries dropped by 5% in 2020, while auction houses’ employment dropped 2%—dealers remained relatively optimistic. Only 20% of gallerists surveyed felt their businesses had performed poorly in 2020; 58% of dealers expected their sales to increase in 2021, while just 15% expected them to decrease.
Galleries adapt
Dealers’ ramping up of digital efforts like online viewing rooms was reflected in galleries’ expenditures. Spending on IT rose significantly in 2020, while spending on art fairs dropped from accounting for 26% of galleries’ overall costs in 2019 to 16% in 2020. Cutting expenditures, doubling down on digital outreach, and seeking loans or government support helped many dealers survive an exceptionally challenging year. In all, 68% of dealers surveyed for McAndrew’s report said they’d accessed some kind of government loan or credit, and 48% said they’d received business loans.
“The fact they could pull back all those expenses—like travel and fairs—was obviously huge,” McAndrew said. “But it’s not just when we’re away, it’s when we’re here—entertaining people and having big openings and dinners and all these things that go along with running a gallery. For smaller galleries, those expenses are quite substantial on top of travel and everything, and by cutting them back, they managed to either stabilize their position, or in some cases—not the majority by a longshot—did a little bit better than the year before.”
About half of the galleries surveyed for the report either held steady or actually increased their profits: 18% of dealers maintained their net profit level from 2019, while 28% were more profitable in 2020 than the previous year.
Billionaires thrive
Another factor helping to soften the blow for art businesses was that many high-net-worth individuals saw their fortunes grow last year. The report notes that while the number of billionaires fell by 30% in 2009 during the great recession and their collective wealth shrank by 45%, the number of billionaires in the world rose by 7% last year and their wealth increased 32% year over year. The rush of galleries opening outposts in places like Palm Beach, East Hampton, and Aspen reflects dealers’ efforts to reach large groups of high-net-worth individuals in the places many of them opted to ride out the worst of the pandemic.
“People were there and they had money, especially at the high end, and were really looking for ways to spend it,” McAndrew said. “There weren’t that many other outlets for more discretionary purchasing.”
Of the more than 2,500 high-net-worth individuals surveyed for the report, two-thirds said the pandemic had increased their interest in collecting. Among those high-net-worth collectors, millennials were the biggest spenders, with 30% of them reporting they’d spent more than $1 million on art in 2020. Such figures are encouraging, but the report also suggests dealers were largely focused on making sales to existing clients last year, while finding and nurturing new collectors proved more challenging, especially in the absence of in-person fairs and with many galleries’ showrooms closed for months. Galleries’ collector bases went down from an average of 64 clients in 2019 to 55 clients last year.
“A lot of galleries really relied on their existing client base to make sales, and they pushed sales with clients they knew already,” McAndrew said. But “people do become maxed out, people won’t buy every single year. Galleries need to keep on refreshing their clients over time, or they don’t have those established clients for the future.”
Auction sector shakeup
While gallery sales fell 20% year over year, public auction sales dropped 30%, totaling $17.6 billion in 2020. The world’s three biggest auction markets—the United States, United Kingdom, and Greater China (mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan)—once again accounted for the lion’s share of global auction sales by value (81%), but their relative performance varied significantly. In 2020, Greater China surpassed the U.S. to become the world’s biggest auction market, accounting for 36% of public auction sales by value.
This partly reflects the fact that China reopened and resumed in-person events much more quickly than the U.S. and U.K., where most auctions have taken place virtually for the past year. Many observers also noted the strength of auctions held by Phillips and Sotheby’s in Hong Kong in the second half of 2020. According to one report, the city’s contemporary art sales surpassed those held in London last year, making Hong Kong the second-biggest market after New York. Overall, sales in Greater China fell in 2020, but the 11% drop in the region’s auction sales by value was much smaller than the U.S. auction market’s 44% drop and the U.K.’s public auctions sales total shrinking by a third.
“It’s partly about the strength of what came onto the market, especially toward the end of the year: there were some very high-quality, high-end works that just haven’t been around in China for the last little while,” McAndrew said. “When you add up the private and public sales, the U.S. may come back, but it’s really up for grabs on the public auctions side, because the long-term wealth dynamics and economic dynamics in China are still really strong.”
While much of the traditional art market has been operating at a reduced cadence for the past year, the market for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has seen astronomical growth on digital marketplaces like OpenSea, Nifty Gateway, and SuperRare. This development culminated last week in the sale of an NFT artwork by Beeple for an astonishing $69.3 million at Christie’s, making the mononymous digital artist (real name Mike Winkelmann) the third-most expensive living artist at auction behind blue-chip stalwarts Jeff Koons and David Hockney.
For McAndrew, these developments could help unlock a sector of the art market that has long been hampered by technical issues. “Previously, collectors didn’t really feel like they owned something—what they’re buying might be an original or limited-edition work, but it could just be copied,” she said. “It’s a hugely positive development for digital art creators and collectors.”
Whether or not the art market reaps benefits from the NFT boom, it will take time for business to return to its pre-pandemic level—which itself was largely stagnant. With in-person art fairs poised to resume and auction houses lining up eight-figure lots for their spring sales, there are reasons to be optimistic. But it will be a gradual recovery and, McAndrew cautions, COVID-19’s full impact on the art industry may not come into view until 2022.
“The difficult thing is going to be this year and next year, especially in this transition period where events and fairs are not back to normal by any stretch. It’s not quite as lively as it has been in other years, but all of the help has dried up for businesses,” she said. “This is going to be the really tricky time.”
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>>> Bob Dylan Sells His Songwriting Catalog in Blockbuster Deal
Universal Music purchased his entire songwriting catalog of more than 600 songs in what may be the biggest acquisition ever of a single act’s publishing rights.
New York Times
By Ben Sisario
Dec. 7, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/arts/music/bob-dylan-universal-music.html
Bob Dylan’s memoir “Chronicles: Volume One” opens in 1962 with the signing of his first music publishing deal — a contract for the copyrights of the budding songwriter’s work. The terms of that agreement, brokered by Lou Levy of Leeds Music Publishing, met young Dylan’s approval.
“Lou had advanced me a hundred dollars against future royalties to sign the paper,” he wrote, “and that was fine with me.”
Fifty-eight years, more than 600 songs and one Nobel Prize later, the cultural and economic value of Dylan’s songwriting corpus have both grown exponentially.
On Monday, the Universal Music Publishing Group announced that it had signed a landmark deal to purchase Dylan’s entire songwriting catalog — including world-changing classics like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “The Times They Are A-Changin’” and “Like a Rolling Stone” — in what may be the biggest acquisition ever of the music publishing rights of a single songwriter.
The deal, which covers Dylan’s entire career, from his earliest tunes to his latest album, “Rough and Rowdy Ways,” was struck directly with Dylan, 79, who has long controlled the vast majority of his own songwriting copyrights.
The price was not disclosed, but is estimated at more than $300 million.
“It’s no secret that the art of songwriting is the fundamental key to all great music, nor is it a secret that Bob is one of the very greatest practitioners of that art,” Lucian Grainge, the chief executive of the Universal Music Group, said in a statement.
The deal is the latest and most high-profile in this year’s buzzing market for music catalogs, as artists both young and old have sold their songs, while publishers and investors have raised billions of dollars from both public and private sources to persuade writers to part with their creations.
Last week, Stevie Nicks sold a majority stake in her songwriting catalog for an estimated $80 million to Primary Wave Music, an independent publisher and marketing company. Hipgnosis Songs Fund, a British company that has made a rapid run in the market in just two and a half years, recently disclosed that it had spent about $670 million from March to September acquiring rights in more than 44,000 songs by Blondie, Rick James, Barry Manilow, Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders and others.
Dylan’s catalog, though, is a special gem, revered in a way that perhaps no other popular musician has achieved. His trove of songs have reshaped folk, rock and pop, and he maintains an almost mythic status as the bard of the current age. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016 “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”
Yet to a degree that still surprises and shocks his audience, Dylan has long been aggressive about marketing his music, including pursuing licensing deals to place his songs in television commercials.
In 1994, Dylan let the accounting firm Coopers & Lybrand — predecessor of the current giant PricewaterhouseCoopers — use Richie Havens’s rendition of his 1964 protest anthem “The Times They Are A-Changin’” in a TV spot. Fans, media commentators and even other artists reacted in horror; Time magazine wrote about the controversy with the headline “Just in Case You Hadn’t Heard — The ’60s Are Over.”
The Coopers & Lybrand spot was far from Dylan’s last commercial license: He did a prominent deal for a Victoria’s Secret TV spot in 2004, and later worked with Apple, Cadillac, Pepsi and IBM. Two years ago, he launched a high-end whiskey brand, Heaven’s Door.
Since Universal now controls his work, Dylan will no longer have veto power over how his songs will be used. After the deal was announced early Monday, users on Twitter had a field day with corny puns suggesting how Dylan’s work could be exploited. “Pay Lady Pay,” one user quipped. “Tangled Up in Blue Cross/Blue Shield,” wrote another.
Still, Universal insisted it would be tasteful in its use of Dylan’s work.
Jody Gerson, the chief executive of Universal’s publishing division, said, “To represent the body of work of one of the greatest songwriters of all time — whose cultural importance can’t be overstated — is both a privilege and a responsibility.”
Dylan is the kind of writer whose work music publishers tend to salivate over. Not only has it stood the test of time, but most of his songs were written by Dylan alone and have been frequently covered by other artists — with each use generating royalties. According to Universal, Dylan’s songs have been recorded more than 6,000 times.
Music publishing is the side of the business that deals in the copyrights for songwriting and composition — the lyrics and melodies of songs, in their most fundamental form — which are distinct from those for a recording. Publishers and writers collect royalties and licensing fees any time their work is sold, streamed, broadcast on the radio or used in a movie or commercial. (The recent sale of Taylor Swift’s first six albums covered only that material’s recording rights. Swift signed a separate publishing deal with Universal in February.)
Streaming has helped lift the entire music market — publishers in the United States collected $3.7 billion in 2019, according to the National Music Publishers’ Association — which has drawn new investors attracted to the steady and growing income generated by music rights.
Dylan’s deal includes 100 percent of his rights for all the songs of his catalog, including both the income he receives as a songwriter and his control of each song’s copyright. In exchange for its payment to Dylan, Universal, a division of the French media conglomerate Vivendi, will collect all future income from the songs.
Dylan had no comment on the deal.
Music publishing has been a little-known cornerstone of much of Dylan’s career. The songs he recorded with the Band in 1967, for example, which were widely bootlegged at the time and later collected in Dylan’s 1975 album “The Basement Tapes,” were intended as demos to be shopped to other recording artists.
And much of Dylan’s business empire is operated through the Bob Dylan Music Company, a small office in New York that administers his publishing rights in the United States. (Elsewhere around the world, his catalog has been administered by Sony/ATV, which will continue to do so until the expiration of its contract in a few years.)
The deal includes more than 600 songs spread across a number of publishing companies that Dylan has had over the years. With the exception of his original Leeds Music deal — which included seven songs, among them “Song for Woody” and “Talkin’ New York” — Dylan eventually took full control of all his copyrights from those catalogs; Leeds was sold in 1964 to MCA, which became Universal.
The Universal deal also includes Dylan’s shares in a number of songs he has written with other songwriters, although of the more than 600 titles included in the deal, there is only one in which Dylan is not a writer, but still owns the copyright: Robbie Robertson’s “The Weight,” as recorded by the Band.
But the agreement does not include any of Dylan’s unreleased songs. It also doesn’t cover any work Dylan writes in the future, leaving open the possibility that he could choose to work with another publisher for that material.
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>>> Taylor Guitars Take On a Shade of Green
The California-based company is using wood sourced from cities in the state to produce a more eco-conscious instrument.
Bloomberg
By Kevin Miller
November 27, 2020
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-taylor-guitars-sustainability/?srnd=premium
In the 170 years or so since acoustic guitars took on their modern form, luthiers have combed the world’s forests for materials that combine both tone and beauty: the Adirondacks and Alps for spruce, South America for rosewood and mahogany, Hawaii’s mountains for koa, and Africa for ebony.
And now—the suburban streets of California?
Taylor Guitars Inc., founded by Bob Taylor in 1974, recently introduced three “Urban Ash” models, made from trees culled by municipal governments in California and Arizona. Instead of being turned into mulch or firewood, Grandma’s curbside shade tree might be transformed into a musical instrument—specifically as one of Taylor’s signature six-string guitars.
This twist on urban forestry has a couple of benefits: It uses a resource that would otherwise be squandered, and it helps musical-instrument makers put more distance between themselves and a global logging industry whose history is tainted with colonial abuse or tree-poaching. While guitars never account for more than a rounding error in the tropical-wood trade, especially compared with goods such as furniture, the instruments are high-profile: They are beautiful, played in most cultures, paraded on stage and screen, and frequently cross international borders while regulators watch for endangered-species violations. Under President Barack Obama, in 2009 and again in 2011, federal agents staged raids on the maker of Gibson guitars over its ebony-procurement practices.
Making a guitar from a non-traditional wood is one thing, but persuading a player to shell out $3,000 for it is another. Co-founder Bob Taylor, 65, already had bucked traditions set more than a century earlier by pioneers such as C.F. Martin and Orville Gibson; he persuaded buyers to try an adjustable bolt-on neck, rather than a rigid one.
Taylor also encouraged something that, while it seems like a small change, has real-world implications for conservation in the world's fragile tropical forests: using wood that isn't perfectly black on the fingerboard, the flat slab of wood on a guitar's neck that holds the frets. Taylor says in an interview that he saw the impact first-hand after buying into an ebony operation called Crelicam in the West African nation of Cameroon in 2011.
Given the preferences for perfectly black ebony in goods such as furniture and instruments, cutters might eliminate 10 trees in search of the perfect one, leaving the logs to waste on the forest floor. Taylor saw opportunity in the discarded wood, for his company to be a better steward. It would require educating consumers about variegated, or striped, woods.
Rather than throw these striped ebony fretboards on lower-price models, which might diminish their perceived value, Taylor placed them on his high-end 800-series line. “We put it on our flagship guitar, basically to let people know that we’re proud of it,” he says.
The so-named Ebony Project in Cameroon, which includes efforts to help local workers benefit economically from their natural resources, resulted in Taylor winning an Award for Corporate Excellence from the U.S. State Department in January 2014. “Bob and Taylor Guitars have fundamentally changed the entire ebony trade,” then-Secretary of State John Kerry said in presenting the annual award, which was created in 1999.
This year, Taylor’s Ebony Project met one of its key goals: planting 15,000 ebony trees in the dense forests that make up much of Cameroon. Those trees will benefit future generations, as they take the better part of a century to mature.
Taylor has three models that use what’s marketed as “Urban Ash” for their bodies and sides: the Builder’s Edition 324ce, released in March with a street price of $2,999; a 326ce that went on sale in July; and a brand-new, small-body shape called GT that debuted in October for $1,400. All are built at Taylor’s El Cajon, Calif., factory using trees harvested by West Coast Arborists Inc., an Anaheim-based contractor that maintains trees for more than 300 municipal governments in California and Arizona.
John Mahoney, who manages West Coast’s Street Tree Revival program and is the son of the business’s owner, said the urban woods his company collects are used or tested by customers, including furniture company Room & Board and Fender, another famed California-based guitar maker. WCA manages an inventory of about 10 million trees. It plans to plant about 20,000 this year and remove roughly an additional 16,000.
Scott Paul, who leads Taylor’s sustainability initiatives, helped connect WCA and the guitar maker. Bob Taylor and Paul visited Mahoney at West Coast’s log-sorting yard, joined by Andy Powers, Taylor’s chief designer and one of three current co-owners. After hours of searching and cutting samples, Taylor and heir-apparent Powers settled on a tree that mirrors the story of modern California itself: Shamel ash. The species was popularized in the early 20th century by U.S. Agriculture Department citrus expert Archibald Shamel, whose work with shade trees in Riverside provided a model for the boom years of California real estate development.
California’s Shamel ash may be the signature wood on the BE324ce model Taylor introduced in March, but the guitar still has an international pedigree. Taylor says its top—the vibrating part of the guitar perhaps most responsible for making sound—is made of Honduras mahogany that comes from India. The neck also is derived from mahogany, and the fretboard comes from Taylor’s Cameroon mill.
The fretboard on Taylor's Builder Edition 324ce guitar comes from a co-owned ebony mill in Cameroon. A historic bias for all-black ebony used to leave timber rotting on the forest floor. The so-called Ebony Project has helped popularize color variations.
Taylor markets the wood on the back and sides as “Urban Ash,” harvested by a municipal contractor from the streets and parks of California and Arizona. The actual species is known as Shamel ash for the expert who popularized it in the early 1900s.
The top, or sound board, of the guitar comes from a species commonly known as Honduran mahogany, but it’s not cut from Central American forests. It’s obtained from India, where the species was planted.
Taylor’s Builder Edition 324ce guitar was introduced in March with a list price of $2,999.
Taylor expects Urban Ash guitars to account for about 4,000 of the 150,000 guitars his company will build this year at its El Cajon factory, east of San Diego, and at a plant just across the border in Tecate, Mexico. That’s down from about 165,000 last year due to Covid-19 shutdows. The company predicts revenue of about $115 million for 2020.
“We definitely want people to just have a guitar that if we weren’t living in a day where it’s unusual that something was sourced and cut and processed sustainably, that it would go unnoticed,” Taylor says. “We don’t want it to be unusual one day.”
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>>> Ferrari Sets Record for Most Expensive Car Ever Sold Online
During the pandemic, summer car auctions go online. It’s a mixed bag of results.
Bloomberg
By Hannah Elliott
August 12, 2020
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-12/ferrari-sets-most-expensive-record-as-summer-car-auctions-go-online
In an auction that ended Aug. 7, Gooding & Co. sold a 1966 Ferrari 275 GTB the color of a white sand beach for $3.08 million. Even more unbelievable: It was done online. The uniquely engineered, 1-of-40 coupe commanded the most expensive sum ever paid for a car sold on the Internet.
Such a high sale for a car not actually seen in person is a canny indicator of the relative health of the collector-car market in the midst of Covid-19. But not a surprise.
“I think this car is virus-proof in the sense that it is a really, really exceptional 275. It’s basically an all-original car with an original interior, a lot of original paint, and long-term ownership,” David Gooding, auction house president and chief executive officer, said in an interview before the sale. (In true auction house discretion, Gooding & Co. declined to identify the person who purchased the vehicle.) “It’s special—pandemic or not.”
A rare 1966 Ferrari 275 GTB Long Nose, one of the very last two-cam 275 GTBs built, sold for $3.08 million at a Gooding & Co. auction in August.
Indeed, the best Ferraris are faring very well in the pandemic world: They constituted four of the top five lots at the Gooding auction, and six of the top 10 results of RM Sotheby’s “Driving into Summer” sale in May, which saw a 2003 Ferrari Enzo alone sell for $2.64 million—until last week the highest price paid for a car in an online auction. Three of the top 10 sellers in a Barrett-Jackson online auction in July were Ferraris, a critical anomaly for an outfit known almost exclusively for selling American muscle cars and rough and ready trucks.
The results sent a strong “Yes, you can!” message to any industry collectors and enthusiasts wondering if their cancelled summer sales would hold up in an online format—especially for the most elite and perfect collectable cars, such as racing Aston Martins, Jaguars, and racing Ferraris.
“There is serious, armor-plated Kevlar protecting the 1 Percent who give a toss about this car passion,” says Steve Serio, a car broker to the rich and famous.
“Vehicles above that $100,000 price point—think, cars that sell at Pebble Beach—or the parts of the economy not as closely tied to the oil industry, [will] see little change,” echoed Hagerty’s John Wiley in a recent report on the effects of the novel coronavirus on the collecting world.
All told, more than $70 million worth of classic and collectable cars have been sold online by the world’s top auction houses since the start of the pandemic.
At RM Sotheby's, a 2003 Ferrari Enzo sold for $2.64 million. A Ferrari 288 GTO from the 1980s sold for $2.3 million in the same sale.Photographer: Karissa Hosek
Some Cooling Off
Sales results of individual, extremely special cars have generally pleased during the pandemic. (It should be noted that a record online sale has little precedent, since significant Ferraris have never been sold online.) But there have been pockets of pain. Just 36 of 54 lots at the Gooding auction sold, a 67% sell-through rate. Sotheby’s July online auction sold 38 of 53 car lots, a 71% sell-through rate. At Bonhams, which held its second in a series of live online motoring auctions on July 25, the sell-through rate barely crested 70%. Pre-Covid-19 sell-through rates were as high as 75% to 80% in live auction sales.
An unrestored 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing did not meet reserve in this summer's online Gooding auction. The estimate had been $1.2 million to $1.4 million.Photographer: Mike Maez, courtesy of Gooding & Company
The message: Collectors are willing to buy cars, but only the best. They’ll happily leave the rest alone.
In any downturn, compromised cars and low-level collectibles get punished, Serio echoed in a market analysis column on April 2. The world’s wealthiest—those least affected by pandemics and who remain unaffected by downturns—weren’t buying them, anyway. “The weak get weaker,” Serio says. And the strong get stronger.
A 1961 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Roadster sold for $946,000 at the Gooding “Geared Online” sale. Source: Gooding & Company
Porsche, Popped
Porsches in particular have taken a hit. At the most recent Gooding sale, a 1984 Porsche 911 Carrera and a 1978 Porsche 928 failed to reach their low-price reserves and did not sell; an over-hyped 1971 Porsche 911 in rally-style livery also stalled out, with a final high bid at $630,000—half its $1.2 million high estimate.
At RM Sotheby’s in May, a 1978 Porsche 911 Turbo custom car, a 1960 Porsche 350, and a 2008 911 GT3 all failed to sell online; in July, a 1968 Porsche 912 Targa, a 1991 Porsche 911 Turbo, and a 1988 Porsche 944 also failed to sell, among others.
Such results indicate that the Porsche bubble that pushed 911 Turbos and their vintage brethren to Everest heights over the past years
has officially popped. Serio has long described the cooling of the Porsche market as a “healthy” correction.
In General, Modern Cars Fare Better Online
Several lesser-known Ferraris at recent online auctions have failed to sell, too, victims of optimistic pandemic pricing that expected them to follow the lead of rarer examples.
Ditto a gaggle of prewar coaches and a Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing that Gooding failed to sell—a particular disappointment, although instructive as to which types of cars sell better online than in person.
Mercedes 300SLs generally serve as “gold standard” indicators about the health of the collector car market, Gooding says, but those that are less than immaculate don’t present as well online as they do in person. All things being equal, newer and better-known cars fare better in online sales than older cars. The modern ones can offer the benefit of Carfax and other ownership data, which confer peace of mind about a vehicle’s mechanical stability and reliability.
“That Gullwing is an unrestored car, so it really takes a special person [to own one],” Gooding says. “Pandemic online sales are still a new world. There is still a lot of unknown. The market is good and strong, but you can’t just be totally bullish about everything.”
Remain Calm. It Was Already Happening
A market correction was bound to happen after the exuberant sales figures of 2017 and 2018. In fact, it was already happening, Hagerty analysts noted in January. Even before Covid-19 hit, Arizona Auction Week, which ended Jan. 16 in Scottsdale, Ariz., saw $244.1 million in overall sales, a 3% decrease from 2019’s $251 million tally, despite a 17% increase in the number of cars being sold. In August last year, Monterey car week suffered similar declines, with sales totals across all auctions lagging behind 2018 results by 34%, according to Hagerty.
After peak years of multimillion-dollar auctions in exclusive golf clubs at Pebble Beach, Calif., and at Frank Lloyd Wright-designed hotels in Scottsdale, 2019 involved several ultra-high-net-worth speculators easing out of the collecting frenzy, which relieved some of the high-price pressure.
The challenging environment for collectors has to do with the larger economy. The wave of investment dollars that flowed into collecting after the Great Recession has slowed, and tax advantages that allowed collectors to roll gains from car sales into other cars have been eliminated over the past few years.
Gooding remains sanguine. “When Pebble got canceled,” he says, “everything sped up. I’ve found that lately, people are actually more open-minded about pricing. These are clients who have a long history with us. Online or otherwise, things have a way of working out. The demand of quality cars has not faded during such uncertain times.”
It seems that some people still want to kick the proverbial tire before they buy, too. Gooding just announced that its postponed “Passion of a Lifetime” sale will proceed—live—in the U.K. early in September. (Bidders unable or unwilling to travel internationally can bid via phone.) RM Sotheby’s will also hold a live sale for bidders only in Auburn, Ind., on Sept. 3-5. Bonhams will do the same on Aug. 14 in Los Angeles.
Car lovers may end up the real winners on either count. If the pandemic and ensuing lockdowns have helped cool off an overheated market, being able to bid, either in real life or virtually, means they have a better chance of finding that dream lot.
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>>> Rembrandt, Miro fetch millions at Sotheby's virtual auction
By SYLVIA HUI
Associated Press
Jul 28, 2020
https://madison.com/entertainment/rembrandt-self-portrait-sells-for-18-7-million-at-sothebys/article_8660fa33-8a89-5f9a-9730-d594ea707b6d.html
LONDON (AP) — A self-portrait by Rembrandt sold for 14.5 million pounds ($18.7 million) at a Sotheby's virtual auction Tuesday — a record price for a self-portrait by the Dutch master, the auctioneer's said.
Sotheby's said that the top end of the art market was “in rude health” and that its new live-streamed auction format, introduced because of the coronavirus pandemic, brought in a total of $192.7 million Tuesday.
“Self portrait wearing a ruff and black hat," from 1632 when Rembrandt was aged 26, was sought by six bidders. It fell within the 12 to 16 million pounds estimate. The last self-portrait by Rembrandt to appear at auction was sold for 6.9 million pounds in 2003, Sotheby's added.
The painting sold Tuesday was one of only three self-portraits by the painter to remain in private hands, and “the only one ever likely to come to auction." It measures about 22 by 16 centimeters, or about 8 by 6 inches.
The sale was part of a live-streamed global auction featuring dozens of pieces of artwork spanning five centuries of art history, from Rembrandt to Picasso, and from Joan Miró to Banksy. The event saw staff from the auction house’s New York, London and Hong Kong offices furiously gesticulating and whispering into phones as bidders vied to outdo each other.
The top-selling item was Miró’s “Peinture (Femme au chapeau rouge)” (Woman in a Red Hat) from 1927, which fetched 22.3 million pounds ($28.9 million). Sotheby's said the painting, which came to auction for the first time since 1966. set the highest sale price in Europe so far this year.
The sale also includes a triptych by elusive street artist Banksy called “Mediterranean Sea View,” painted in 2017. Presented in elaborate traditional frames, it features seascapes dotted with orange life jackets and alludes to the lives lost at sea during the European immigration crisis. The paintings fetched 2.2 million pounds — almost double the top estimated price — and the proceeds are meant to raise funds for a hospital in Bethlehem.
Helena Newman, chair of Sotheby’s Europe, said the wide range of art on sale caters to “a new generation of collectors (who) show less concern with the traditional art market categories of the past.”
“With the global art world calendar having shifted, we too have seized the opportunity to do things differently,” she said.
Sotheby’s London said some two-thirds of the works on sale have never been at auction before. Of the rest, most had been off the market for two decades.
Five works sold for over $10 million. That included a bronze sculpture of a female figure by Alberto Giacometti, which fetched 10.7 million pounds ($13.8 million), doubling the estimated price.
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>>> West Hollywood man sentenced in $6-million art fraud scheme
Philip Righter of West Hollywood tried to sell this fake artwork by Jean-Michel Basquiat, authorities say.
LA Times
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
JULY 16, 2020
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-07-16/west-hollywood-man-sentenced-modern-art-fraud-scheme
A West Hollywood man who authorities say tried to sell $6 million worth of phony paintings by such artists as Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat and other modern masters has been sentenced to five years in federal prison.
Philip Righter, 43, was sentenced Wednesday in a federal court in Miami after pleading guilty to wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and tax fraud, the U.S. attorney’s office said.
Righter was given 60 months in prison in a case that was filed in Los Angeles.
The judge also handed down a five-year sentence in a Florida case in which Righter acknowledged trying to sell forgeries to the owner of a Miami art gallery.
Both sentences will be served at the same time.
In a plea agreement, Righter acknowledged trying to sell counterfeit art that he claimed was genuine and using some fakes for income tax write-offs or as collateral for loans he never repaid.
Richter sold the bogus artworks from 2016 through June 2018, creating phony authentication documents, prosecutors said.
Some of the documents were stamped with counterfeits of the embossing stamps used by the estates of Basquiat and Keith Haring to authenticate pieces, prosecutors said.
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>>> Prince’s ‘Blue Angel’ Cloud 2 Guitar Sells for $563,000 at Auction
Kurt Cobain’s MTV Unplugged acoustic guitar set for auction Saturday
6-20-20
Rolling Stone
By DANIEL KREPS
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/prince-blue-angel-cloud-2-guitar-auction-1018190/
Prince’s "Blue Angel" Cloud 2 electric guitar sold for a high bid of $563,000 Saturday, exceeding pre- auction estimates.
Julien's Auctions
The 1984 custom-made instrument, long thought to be lost, was played by Prince on the tours in support of Purple Rain, Parade, Sign O’ the Times and Lovesexy, as well as television appearances in the second half of the 1980s.
“In a sea of Clouds — because there are a lot of them — the thing that brings a collectible guitar the most value is how much mojo it has,” Julien’s Auctions consulting specialist Laura Woolley previously told Rolling Stone. “Prince came into the collective consciousness in the Eighties and this was one of his primary performance guitars at that time. So it’s got a lot of mojo.”
Auction house president Darren Julien called the “Blue Angel” the “most significant Prince guitar that’ll ever come up for auction,” although it didn’t break the record for highest-selling Prince guitar: A green model of the Cloud design sold for $700,000 in 2019.
Other notable items sold at Julien’s Auctions’ Music Icons event Friday included Elvis Presley’s stage worn ivory macrame belt with accented reflective stones ($298,000, nearly 30 times its pre-auction estimate of $10,000), Johnny Cash’s Valencia acoustic guitar signed by Cash and his fellow Highwaymen Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson ($57,600), Madonna’s “Vogue” white satin gown ($179,200) and more.
Kurt Cobain’s acoustic guitar from Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged concert will hit the auction block Saturday, with bids already reaching $1 million.
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>>> Fugitive Art Dealer Arrested on Pacific Island in Fraud Case
Bloomberg
by Bob Van Voris and Katya Kazakina
https://www.bing.com/search?q=Inigo+Philbrick+arrested&filters=tnTID%3a%22B07B53A4-1D48-42bf-B2EB-0DDBAEAD7549%22+tnVersion%3a%223567335%22+segment%3a%22popularnow.carousel%22+tnCol%3a%225%22+tnOrder%3a%22f4270d11-3134-411c-9505-3b688db7e573%22&FORM=BSPN01&crslsl=0
(Bloomberg) -- An art dealer with galleries in London and Miami was arrested on U.S. charges that he defrauded victims of more than $20 million to finance his business.
Inigo Philbrick, who specializes in post-war and contemporary fine art, was arrested Thursday in the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, about 8,400 miles from New York, where he was charged. He is expected to be presented in U.S. court in Guam on June 15, prosecutors said in a statement.
Philbrick, 33, was “a serial swindler” who ripped off art collectors, investors and lenders, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said in the statement. From 2016 to 2019, Philbrick sold the same art works to different investors, sometimes using the works as collateral on loans while hiding others’ ownership interests, prosecutors said.
The art dealer had been missing for months, following a slew of lawsuits last year in London, New York and Miami, including by the billionaire Reuben brothers. The case has roped in major auction houses and an art-finance firm linked to billionaire George Soros. Companies in Asia, Europe and the U.S. have staked claims, some competing, to various pieces.
A lawyer for Philbrick couldn’t immediately be located for comment. Two Miami attorneys who had stopped representing him in civil litigation didn’t return phone and email messages seeking comment.
One Singapore-based art investor, LLG PTE Ltd., told a London judge Philbrick holds about $70 million of assets and that the combined value of the art managed by his businesses may be as much as $150 million.
Love for Pumpkins
Among the artworks contested by investors is a $12.5 million painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Yayoi Kusama’s installation sold to the Saudi royal family, a 2010 untitled painting by the Christopher Wool, and an untitled 2012 portrait of the artist Pablo Picasso by Rudolf Stingel. Another is Kusama’s immersive work, “All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins,” which was sold to the Royal Commission for Al-Ula about a year ago.
By late 2019, investors and lenders were discovering that Philbrick had lied and created fraudulent records, the government said. German art investment firm Fine Art Partners sued Philbrick and his gallery in September, alleging breach of contract and seeking the return of $14 million of art he purchased on its behalf, including the pumpkin room.
Prosecutors say Philbrick fled the U.S. for Vanuatu in October. Once a regular at Art Basel and other events, Philbrick failed to appear for court hearings in Miami and London. His galleries in Miami and London were shuttered, and his assets were frozen by a London judge.
Philbrick is charged with one count each of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. The wire fraud charge carries a top sentence of 20 years in prison.
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>>> Counterfeit Battles Continued in May
Numismatic News
June 7, 2020
https://www.numismaticnews.net/article/counterfeit-battles-continued-in-may
One of the 10 fake silver American Eagles sold to an unsuspecting victim who responded to an unsolicited advertisement on Facebook. (Image courtesy of fraud victim.)
A fraudulent advertisement for bullion coins on Facebook, fake encapsulation holders, and requests for expert help from federal agencies kept the non-profit Anti-Counterfeiting Educational Foundation busy during May 2020.
“Among the cases, we’re investigating is the sale of 10 fake one-ounce silver American Eagles,” said Doug Davis, director of the ACEF Anti-Counterfeiting Task Force. “They were unsuspectingly purchased by someone who responded to an advertisement that popped up while he was checking his Facebook account. All 10 coins he received in response to his order were counterfeit.
“The victim provided us pictures showing one coin being cut in half to reveal it was composed of base metal, not silver,” explained Davis, a former Texas police chief. “We have provided information about the seller and the potential manufacturer to the U.S. Treasury Office of Inspector General, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and to the Secret Service.”
Another case ACEF officials received in May involved counterfeit coins housed in fake Numismatic Guaranty Corporation (NGC) and Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS) encapsulation holders. The victim spent $8,000 responding to an offer made on Mercari, an e-commerce platform. ACEF contacted NGC and PCGS to verify the holders were not genuine, and the information has been provided to federal law enforcement.
ACEF, which operates solely on donations from the public, cautions that the number of websites offering counterfeits for sale continues to grow.
“Analysis indicates that many of the websites are staying operational for only a few days and then shutting down, making it difficult to trace,” said Davis. “However, we have been able to determine they just turn around and open a new website under a different name. We have also been able to identify other third-party platforms that are being used to distribute counterfeit coins.
“We have been requested by CBP to send a list of websites selling counterfeit coins and precious metals so their investigators can use this intelligence information to identify manufacturers and importers,” he explained. “CBP and Secret Service have several cases being worked in the Los Angeles/ Long Beach area, and volunteers from the ACEF Anti-Counterfeiting Task Force have provided expert assistance there.”
ACEF volunteers also are providing expert help to Secret Service agents in San Francisco who are working on counterfeiting cases there and to CBP agents investigating seized numismatic fakes in the El Paso, Texas, area.
“Remember, if you don’t know precious metals, you’d better know a reputable seller, such as experts affiliated with the Accredited Precious Metals Dealer program,” said Davis.
More information on the program is available at www.APMDdealers.org.
Collectors, dealers, and the general public are encouraged to report any counterfeits or counterfeit fraud activity by email to Davis at the Anti-Counterfeiting Educational Foundation at Doug@ACEFonline.org.
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Ferrari - >>> One Car Maker That Will Emerge Stronger From the Pandemic. It’s Not Who You Might Think.
Barron's
By Al Root
May 7, 2020
https://www.barrons.com/articles/the-auto-industry-is-suffering-ferrari-will-emerge-stronger-from-the-pandemic-51588850101?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo
There is one automotive company that will emerge unscathed from the coronavirus crisis—and actually come out stronger than before the outbreak. It sounds impossible, but that’s what Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas believes about one of the companies he covers.
There have been some bright spots among car makers lately. General Motors stock (ticker: GM) jumped after the company reported better-than-expected first-quarter earnings Wednesday. Tesla (TSLA) has strung together a few impressive quarters, sending shares up more than 200% over the past year. But it’s neither of those.
The company in question is Ferrari (RACE). And Jonas has five reasons backing up his argument.
The Balance Sheet
Ferrari will generate positive free cash flow in 2020. Jonas models about $150 million in free cash flow, while Wall Street consensus calls for about $200 million. Mainstream auto maker Ford Motor (F), on the other hand, will burn through about $2 to $3 billion this year, according to analysts.
New Models
Ferrari is launching four models in 2020, including the SF90 Stradale, the 812 GTS, F8 Spider and the Roma grand touring model. The Roma has a V-8 engine, generating more than 600 horsepower, and the car starts at $220,000. Two more models are coming in 2021, according to Jonas. New products should help simulate new demand, regardless of the economic environment.
Formula One Racing
This benefit isn’t obvious. But some new rules for the highest level of auto racing have been pushed out until 2022, keeping costs down. That’s saving Ferrari money over the near term. The company doesn’t break out its Formula One spending in its annual report.
The Brand
“The pedigree of the Ferrari brand is more relevant than ever now,” wrote Jonas in a Wednesday research report. He sees more licensing opportunities in the future. What’s more, the company can bring a new generation of Ferrari enthusiasts into the fold by focusing on esports.
Achievable Financial Guidance
Ferrari reported quarterly numbers on May 4. It did something unique regarding guidance: It actually gave some. Most companies have withdrawn full-year 2020 guidance because Covid-19 has made the outlook too murky.
Looking ahead, the company expects to generate about $1.1 billion in Ebitda, short for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. Management’s initial guidance was about $1.4 billion.
Ferrari actually missed earnings estimates when it reported on May 4, but the stock jumped 7% anyway. Weak earnings in the first and second quarter of the year aren’t a surprise. Italy, after all, is one of the countries hit hardest by the Covid-19 outbreak.
Cases in Italy topped 210,000 and deaths surpassed 29,000. The government locked down much of Northern Italy in early March, including Modena. Ferrari’s primary manufacturing location is in Maranello, Italy, just south of Modena.
Ferrari production was halted for seven weeks, and company management addressed a May restart on their quarterly conference call, stressing caution. “We now have the capacity to perform 800 voluntary blood tests a day to cover both our employees and their families,” said CEO Louis Camilleri.
In addition to all the points Jonas makes, it probably helps that Ferrari only sells about 10,000, incredibly valuable sports cars each year. Ferrari is a luxury goods company as much as it is a car maker.
So it makes sense that Ferrari trades like a luxury stock. Shares fetch about 35 times estimated 2021 earnings. GM stock, for instance, trades for 5 times estimated next year’s earnings. LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (MC.France), a luxury stock, trades for 23 times estimated 2021 earnings. That’s lower than Ferrari, but LVMH is buying jewelry giant Tiffany (TIF) for about 30 times 2021 earnings.
Investors, it seems, remains confident the richest consumers will keep spending.
Jonas, for his part, rates Ferrari shares the equivalent of Buy. His price target for the stock is $180, about 15% higher than recent levels.
Ferrari shares are down about 5% year to date, performing a little better than comparable drops of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500.
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Gold is up over 1700, and has broken out on the futures chart. Looks like it will be headed for the all time highs before too long. The miners look like they are ready for some serious action too.
The cheapest gold Eagles I see out there are $1860. The premiums over spot on these have been running in the $160 range lately, compared to $60-65 during 'normal' times. There were some gold Philharmonics late last week for $1725, but they didn't last long. 1 oz bars have been sold out everywhere for weeks, with only the 10 gram size and smaller still available, plus the large and expensive 100 gram bars.
Check out this Isle of Man coin (only 100 of these minted each year) -
>>> A New Rembrandt Was Just Discovered.
Multimillion dollar valuations may keep things exciting, but old masters reappraisals aren’t as rare as you may think.
Bloomberg
By James Tarmy
February 21, 2020
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-21/rembrandt-discovery-at-allentown-art-museum-an-old-masters-quirk?srnd=premium
Rembrandt's Portrait of a Woman from 1632, before cleaning (left) and after.
Earlier this February, Pennsylvania’s Allentown Art Museum posted an Instagram video announcing that a work in its collection attributed to Rembrandt’s studio was in fact by the master himself.
Sent away for a cleaning, layers of varnish and overpaint (a fancy word for touch-ups) were removed by conservators and like a particularly high-stakes episode of Antiques Roadshow, the portrait of a rosy-cheeked woman in exquisite lace from 1632 had its attribution changed for the better. The painting, which was previously worth thousands, now potentially has a multimillion dollar valuation.
A dramatic “rediscovery” along these lines is actually nothing new, dealers say. “It happens quite often,” says the British dealer Simon Dickinson. “Rembrandt is an artist who’s being reappraised all the time. I remember in my early days at Christie’s we sold a Rembrandt for a lot of money, and then it was not accepted by the [now-disbanded] Rembrandt committee. Then about three years later, it was re-accepted.”
This instability in the market is something insiders take for granted. In the most extreme case in history, a painting was bought at auction for a few thousand dollars and then, after cleaning and restoration, determined to be a work by Leonardo da Vinci. It sold in 2017 at Christie’s New York for $450 million.
For the broader public however, these questions of connoisseurship can come as something of a surprise. The art world has literally had centuries to hash it all out. And unlike contemporary art, where values are determined by fashion and hype, the old masters market is supposed to be static. After all, by definition, you can’t make them anymore.
But with works’ attributions constantly in flux, how should the casual observer attempt to understand an artwork’s value?
“It can be quite a subjective area, and that’s what makes people nervous about old masters as a field,” says Charles Beddington, whose Mayfair old masters gallery specializes in Canaletto. “Opinions can change. But it doesn’t happen that often.”
Why Attributions Change
Many of the Italian and Dutch old master painters who are famous now—Rubens, van Dyck, Rembrandt, Canaletto and others— were just as famous when they were alive, and most had massive studios with dozens of painters churning out commissions.
Some of these commissions would be painted by the artists themselves; others would be executed by their studios, after which the artist would add some finishing touches; still others would be done entirely by the studio. (The same thing happens today with marquee artists such as Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Damien Hirst, and official Obama portrait artist Kehinde Wiley.)
On top of that, these artists would often have imitators—can’t afford a Canaletto? No problem, there were plenty of other reasonably-priced Venetian cityscapes to choose from.
As a result, there are artworks that are famously, indisputably by Rembrandt, and then there “are a number of borderline Rembrandts, which some people accept and others don’t,” Dickinson says. “But if it’s a great picture, it’s unlikely to have its attribution overturned.”
And that leaves the not-necessarily-great paintings, of which there are many, dispersed across the globe.
“There’s the old joke, Rembrandt painted 300 pictures, of which 600 are in America,” says the dealer Johnny van Haeften. “And certainly in the days before great scholarship, if it was a portrait of an old man in brown it was a Rembrandt, and if it was a landscape with a blue sky it was a Breughel.”
Now though, he says “we can narrow it down to a much more precise authorship.”
When Attributions Change
“Discoveries are what make this field interesting” Beddington says. “I think there are many more discoveries than one ever hears about."
By discoveries, Beddington is referring to paintings that, for whatever reason, have been mis-attributed, and are thus valued at virtually nothing.
“The best way to do it is find something in a smaller sale that’s completely mis-catalogued, and no one’s spotted it,” he says. “Maybe it can be bought for way less than it’s worth. But it works both ways, because often you find things that [sell for] far more than they ought to, because you've got several people thinking they’ve made a fantastic discovery.”
Last January, a drawing “recently recognized by a number of leading scholars as an autograph work by Raphael” sold at Sotheby’s New York for $795,000.
In 2015, a New Jersey auction house estimated a painting at $500 to $800; it sold for $870,000 after two bidders correctly identified the work as a Rembrandt.
Similarly, in 2007 a painting described as a 17th century copy of a Rembrandt was valued at about $3,000 at a regional auction house in England; it sold for about $4.5 million, after which it was also authenticated as the real thing. The Getty Center in Los Angeles later purchased the work for a reported $25 million.
And then, of course, there’s that $450 million Leonardo, now cruising on a super yacht.
Despite these high profile sensations, the market can still be fertile ground.
“I bought something by a very big-name artist for nothing in a small sale the other day,” Beddington says. “I was absolutely astonished that no one else noticed.”
What It Means For You
Continuous reappraisal in the old masters market is, from the right angle, only good news for an interested public.
The Rembrandts in the Rijksmuseum are not going to be uncovered as fakes any time soon, but there’s an element of mystery and endless potential for the dozens of paintings and drawings that may or may not be the work of a genius.
Moreover, this uncertainty can add an organic element to a field that laypeople often consider musty, even boring in comparison to the dynamism and drama of contemporary art.
“When the really, really reliable expert on Frans Hals died at an advanced aged, suddenly a year or two later there were a lot of new Frans Hals paintings popping up," Beddington says. “The new Frans Hals expert has a totally different approach than the old Frans Hals expert” to authentication.
Old masters paintings, in other words, can change with the times just like everything else.
“Some things do reappear,” Van Haeften says. “That’s part of the excitement of dealing with old masters. You just have to think out of the box and keep an open mind.”
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>>> Leverage Is Exploding in the Fine-Art World
Investor Dan Sundheim has an estimated $300 million collateral pool
(Yes, but look what passes for 'art' lol. Not exactly Monets or Rembrandts)
Bloomberg
By Katya Kazakina
February 5, 2020
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-05/leverage-is-exploding-in-the-fine-art-world?srnd=premium
"Dustheads" (1982) by Jean-Michel Basquiat
A $28 million Warhol. A $35 million Basquiat. A $70 million Twombly.
Hedge-fund manager Daniel Sundheim has acquired all these works — and more — while wielding one of the most powerful tools in finance: leverage.
Time was, art aficionados rarely talked openly about borrowing money against their paintings to build collections, make investments or just pay the bills.
But Sundheim, 42, is part of a new breed of collectors who are eagerly pledging artworks in exchange for lines of credit and, in the process, leveraging the $67 billion art market as never before.
In a few short years, Sundheim has emerged as a major trophy hunter, gaining entry to the board of the Museum of Modern Art alongside New York’s elite. As he built his collection, he pledged the top works against a credit line from JPMorgan Chase & Co., according to regulatory filings with the New York Department of State.
As of April, his collateral pool included 29 artworks, valued at an estimated $300 million based mainly on public prices paid, according to Beverly Schreiber Jacoby, president of BSJ Fine Art, a New York-based consulting firm with 30 years of experience with borrowers and lenders.
Like corporations and consumers, many top-end art collectors have been borrowing like crazy given this era’s ultra-low interest rates. Art-secured loans have jumped 40% since 2016, to at least $21 billion globally, according to Art & Finance Report 2019 by Deloitte.
Andy Warhol’s “Most Wanted Men No. 11, John Joseph H, Jr.”
Sundheim is hardly the only Wall Streeter to get in on the action. Money managers Steve Cohen and Michael Steinhardt also have pledged art as collateral against cheap credit lines, according to the regulatory filings.
“The collector base tends to come from credit-savvy, market-driven industries: private equity, hedge funds, tech, big data,” said Evan Beard, art-services executive at Bank of America Corp. “They built their companies using debt, and now they apply the same methodology to building art collections.”
Art bankers are happy to oblige. Often these specialists are part of broader wealth-management teams that target the very rich. Banks use the client’s total assets to determine the credit line and typically lend as much as 50% of the collateral value. They also allow billionaires to keep their art and offer 1% interest loans to a select few. For the rest, boutique lenders offer quicker turnaround and charge higher rates.
Some collectors are looking for arbitrage opportunities: They use art-backed loans to make other types of investments, including real estate, hoping to generate fatter returns. And some want access to dry powder on short notice to purchase another artwork or even a stake in a sports team.
“It’s exactly the same as why people have a mortgage against their house,” said Freya Stewart, who heads financial services at The Fine Art Group, an art adviser and boutique lender. “They are not necessarily buying another house. They are using the money to do something else.”
A spokesman for Sundheim declined to discuss the size of the credit facility backed by his art or how he uses the funds, but a person familiar with his thinking said he keeps the collateral as a working-capital line.
"Leda and the Swan"Source: Christie's
His collateral pool has grown 10-fold from about $30 million in 2013, according to appraisers who reviewed the list of art that backs his line. The pieces include Cy Twombly’s signature blackboard canvas “Untitled (New York City)” and “Leda and the Swan” as well as Andy Warhol’s “Most Wanted Men No. 11, John Joseph H, Jr.,” which fetched a total of more than $150 million at Christie’s and Sotheby’s auctions.
Sundheim started buying art around 2010 and opened his credit line with JPMorgan in 2013. He works with art adviser Sandy Heller, whose other clients have included Cohen and the Russian tycoons Roman Abramovich and Dmitry Rybolovlev.
The filings suggest Sundheim has become an active player at the top end of the art market, trading out of lesser works to make more significant blue-chip purchases. He owns a 1977 Willem de Kooning “Untitled XXXI,” which he bought for $21.2 million at Christie’s in 2014. The following year, he pledged a group of seven works to Sotheby’s to pay for Twombly’s “Untitled (New York City),” which sold for $70.5 million.
His Basquiats include “Dustheads” (1982), which he bought in 2016 at a steep discount from the price paid by Malaysian fugitive Jho Low three years earlier. Sundheim also owns a 1981 Basquiat self-portrait as a warrior king, brandishing a sword. That piece fetched $34.9 million in 2014, and Sundheim later purchased it in a private transaction.
The money manager has slowed his acquisitions since the launch of his hedge fund, D1 Capital Partners, in July 2018, according to a person familiar with his activities. The fund more than tripled in size since the launch to $9.3 billion in November, a rare blockbuster debut at a challenging time for the industry.
Cy Twombly's "Untitled (New York City)"Source: Sotheby's
Still, Sundheim has jumped on some opportunities. In the fall of 2018, he picked up a drawing by Basquiat for $4.6 million at Phillips and a new Mark Grotjahn canvas from the artist’s solo show at Gagosian Gallery, where prices ranged from $3 million to $5 million. The two works were among 11 new pieces of collateral backing Sundheim’s credit line with JPMorgan, according to the latest filing in April.
Getting access to cheap money has become so popular that even old-school collectors are jumping into the fray.
Suzanne Gyorgy, head of art advisory and finance at Citi Private Bank, said a client who long opposed using art for collateral recently raised the subject.
“Why now?” Gyorgy recalled asking.
The client’s answer: “I’m at a dinner party with my friends — everyone has it but me.”
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>>> Another Day, Another Billion-Dollar Museum Heist
The unwritten rules of the art market ensure that crimes like this week’s Dresden jewelry theft will keep on happening.
Bloomberg
By Leonid Bershidsky
November 26, 2019
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-11-26/art-thefts-like-the-dresden-jewelry-heist-aren-t-going-away?srnd=premium
The management of Dresden’s Green Vault, where the biggest museum heist in post-World War II German history took place on Monday, has declined to estimate the market value of the stolen jewelry “because it is impossible to sell.” That, sadly, is not true. Stealing art and antique artifacts pays, and even seemingly well-secured museums like the Green Vault will be robbed from time to time.
The Green Vault, one of the world’s oldest museums, first opened to the public in the early 18th century. Unlike the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the scene of a $500 million art heist in 1990, it had a proper alarm system, but the thieves apparently disabled it by setting fire to a nearby electrical distribution hub (which should teach museum managers everywhere never to depend on a single power source). Then they acted fast, cutting through a fence, breaking a window and making off with a number of small but immensely valuable diamond-studded items that could be worth up to $1 billion. The jewels were not insured (which should teach museum managers everywhere not to skimp on insurance — at least the thieves could be tempted to blackmail the insurance company, as they sometimes do, making it easier to catch them).
In an interview with the weekly Der Spiegel, Dutch art detective Arthur Brand suggested that the thieves, if they were professionals, would probably break down the items and sell the diamonds separately. In March 2017, a similarly bold heist occurred in Berlin’s Bode Museum: After breaking through a window, the thieves grabbed a 220-pound gold coin worth more than $4 million. Four men, three of them members of a well-known Berlin crime family, went on trial for the theft early this year, but there’s still no verdict and the coin hasn’t been found, probably because it’s long since been melted down.
But then, Brand’s own professional history shows that this is far from the only possible scenario. This year, he recovered a gold ring that used to belong to Oscar Wilde, stolen in 2002 from an Oxford University college by a former cleaning-company employee. The thief had long maintained he’d sold it to a gold-scrap dealer, but Brand didn’t believe him and continued investigating with the help of a man with connections to the London underworld. The college is getting the ring back next month.
The market in stolen art and antiquities has been estimated at up to $6 billion annually. Around 50,000 thefts occur every year, and only a small fraction of the stolen artifacts are ever recovered. Some are lost forever, some resurface after many years like the Wilde ring or the two stolen Van Goghs that were put back on display in Amsterdam in April after a 17-year absence. The art and antique market has a dark underbelly that swallows up the stolen artifacts.
The market has a tradition of secrecy. As cultural-heritage law expert Gregory Day wrote in 2014, “These norms make it taboo for buyers to ask sellers questions about a work’s purchase history, prior owners and place of origin. Acceptable buyers must abide by this code, understanding that even million-dollar sales frequently occur informally, structured as an ‘as is’ transaction.”
This means many of those who buy art and antiques in good faith are getting stolen goods. But good faith is a nebulous notion in this market, where some dealers, known to researchers as “Janus figures,” provide an interface between legal and illegal layers of the trade. It’s hard to know when a collector is knowingly buying a stolen item or simply following the tradition of not asking enough questions. Even a stolen Vermeer or Rembrandt is relatively easy to hide: Museums only show slivers of their collections, and private collectors routinely keep their art troves in bank vaults and free ports, where hardly anyone ever sees them.
With jewelry, even involving pieces as notable as the ones stolen from the Green Vault, it’s even easier. It would take an expert to determine that this pearl necklace around a woman’s neck at a party or that diamond-encrusted brooch on an evening dress comes from the Dresden heist, and the expert probably wouldn’t summon the courage to ask — in the unlikely event that he was invited to that particular ball at all.
Apart from boosting security, which isn’t easy for museums since they need to remain accessible to the public, there’s not much that can be done about the prevalence of art theft. The optimal solution, perhaps, is a limited amnesty for collectors who end up with stolen items on their hands, coupled with a limited reward for returning them. After all, stolen artifacts usually sell for less than 10% of their full value on the black market, and a reward of up to 5% could be an attractive alternative to sitting on stolen goods for years or trying to sell them.
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>>> Record-breaking Patek Philippe watch fetches $31 million
By Kyle Beck
FOXBusiness
11-12-19
https://www.foxbusiness.com/money/record-breaking-patek-philippe-watch-31-million
Record-setting watch sells for $31 million
The Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime watch sold for $31 million, the highest price ever for a timepiece sold at an auction.
A one-of-a-kind Patek Philippe watch
The Grandmaster Chime watch sold at this year's Only Watch auction is a unique example, crafted specifically for the charity auction held last weekend in Geneva, Switzerland. “The grand complication unites accomplishment and elegance in this new and unique stainless steel version boasting two dials in rose gold and black ebony," according to the listing.
The biennial Only Watch auction, raises money for research into Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The event features fifty unique watches made specifically for the auction by some of the world’s leading luxury watch manufacturers.
“Only Watch is not about one person, one auction house, one brand or even one industry,” according to hosting auction house Christie’s. “It is bigger than all of us, and together we celebrate doing something good and positive.”
PAUL NEWMAN'S ROLEX WATCH SELLS FOR A RECORD $17.8 MILLION AT AUCTION
The illustrious timepiece was expected to sell for between $2.5 million and $3 million, according to the listing. But a bidding war escalated in the final minutes of the sale, according to Barron’s.
"The room hushed as the price climbed above the $24 million mark,” The Barron's report said.
A Patek Philippe pocket watch dating to 1933 sold for $24 million in 2014, which was the most expensive timepiece ever sold before the weekend’s events. The sale also breaks the record for the most expensive wristwatch ever. Previously a Rolex Daytona watch once owned by Paul Newman had the title. The Rolex sold for $17.8 million in 2017.
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>>> New York Art Auction Sales Poised to Tumble as High-End Works Dry Up
Bloomberg
By Katya Kazakina and Allison McCartney
November 8, 2019
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-november-art-auctions-preview/?srnd=premium
The bellwether November art auctions next week in New York are poised for the biggest contraction in a decade.
The semi-annual sales of high-end Impressionist, modern, postwar and contemporary art at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips are targeting sales of $1.2 billion at the low end of the estimate range, down 24% from a year earlier. Not a single work is expected to fetch $50 million or more. The last time that happened at the November auctions was 2009, in the wake of the financial crisis.
It’s a stark reversal after a decade of eye-popping prices, fueled by the swelling ranks of billionaires and low interest rates. Two Novembers ago, a painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci sold for $450 million at Christie’s. Last year, a work by David Hockney fetched $90 million, then a record for a living artist at auction. This year’s top prize at Christie’s—Hockney’s dreamy canvas “Sur la Terrasse”—is expected to fetch no more than $45 million.
“The environment is perhaps too uncertain and people aren’t putting their top lots in the sales right now,” said Adam Lindemann, a New York collector and gallery owner. “I don’t think this is a moment to get a premium price.”
The reduced estimates for the marquee evening auctions is the most striking shift. The auction houses, facing a dearth of big estates and major collections that added $3 billion in sales over the past three years, were forced to get consignments lot by lot, a difficult and expensive task further complicated by the geopolitical turmoil.
“The auction houses know where the great art is,” said Suzanne Gyorgy, global head of art advisory and finance at Citi Private Bank. “Every season they have to go out and build these sales. My impression is that they are approaching people, and if people don’t have a reason to sell right now, they are not selling.”
Christie’s evening sale of Impressionist and modern art on Monday has a low estimate of $148.3 million, down 51% from last year. The bottom estimate for a similar sale at Sotheby’s on Tuesday is down 34% to $186.8 million.
Estimates for contemporary sales are also lower, with an expected 17% decline at Christie’s and 23% for Sotheby’s.
Part of the problem is the auction houses themselves.
“The expectations have been so elevated that the average season is being viewed as a catastrophic event,” said Thomas C. Danziger, a New York art lawyer. “It’s not. The bread and butter of the auction room for the evening sales is not the works above $50 million, but the works between $5 million and $15 million. And there are plenty of works in that range.”
Guarantees to sellers, including fashion designer Marc Jacobs, money manager David Ganek and Bob Mnuchin, the art dealer father of U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, played a big role in getting works on the block.
At Sotheby’s, 60% of the value of its evening sale of contemporary art is backed by guarantees; at Christie’s postwar and contemporary evening sale, guaranteed lots represent 49% of the low estimate.
The houses offset their risk on most guaranteed lots—including Claude Monet’s “Charing Cross Bridge” (estimated at $20 million to $30 million at Sotheby’s) and Ed Ruscha’s painting spelling the word “RADIO” in yolk-yellow on sky-blue background (estimated at $30 million to $40 million at Christie’s)—by pre-selling them to third-party backers through irrevocable bids.
Sotheby’s, however, is still on the hook for the guaranteed Mark Rothkopainting “Blue Over Red,” estimated at $25 million to $35 million. The companies often make additional deals in the days, and sometimes minutes, leading up to the auctions.
Phillips, a smaller rival to Sotheby’s and Christie’s, has a nominally smaller evening sale on Nov. 14, with a low estimate of $92 million, down from $100 million last November. Its top lot is Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “The Ring,” estimated at $10 million to $15 million.
Auction house executives are quick to point out that the contraction is on the supply side, and that demand is healthy for works of high quality and correct estimates.
“The high-end buyers are very much there,” said Alex Rotter, chairman of postwar and contemporary art at Christie’s. “It doesn’t really matter for them if it’s $30 million or $50 million or $70 million. They want the best quality. Right now the best quality is under $50 million.”
Some of that quality comes from the inclusion of artists who’ve been traditionally missing from the high-stakes auctions.
Among them is Charles White, the late black artist who taught current stars Kerry James Marshall and David Hammons. His 1976 painting “Banner for Willie J” is estimated at $1 million to $1.5 million at Christie’s. Sotheby’s will start its contemporary auction with White’s 1953 charcoal drawing of mother and child “Ye Shall Inherit the Earth,” estimated at $500,000 to $700,000. The artist’s current auction record is $509,000, according to Artnet.
“There are some real treasures in these sales,” said Citi Private Bank’s Gyorgy. “The collectors we are talking to, everyone is engaged.”
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>>> A medieval masterpiece by a 13th century Italian painter was discovered in a French woman’s kitchen — and expected to sell for millions
By CLAIRE PARKER
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SEP 24, 2019
https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-nw-paris-cimabue-painting-auction-20190924-daar4cnr5nb5hp654jkgxuyb7a-story.html
Art expert Stephane Pinta points to a 13th century painting by Italian master Cimabue in Paris, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2019. A rare 13th century painting by Italian master Cimabue has been found in a French kitchen, and is now expected to fetch millions of euros at an upcoming auction.
A masterpiece attributed to 13th century Italian painter Cimabue has been discovered in a French woman’s kitchen — and it’s expected to sell for millions of euros at an upcoming auction.
Titled "Christ Mocked," the small wood painting depicts Christ surrounded by a crowd. Experts think it to be part of a larger diptych Cimabue painted around 1280, said Stephane Pinta, an art specialist with the Turquin gallery in Paris.
“It’s a major discovery for the history of art,” Pinta said of the newly discovered work measuring about 10 inches by 8 inches. Other experts agreed.
Until recently, the painting hung on a wall between the kitchen and the dining room of a home in Compiègne. The woman considered it an icon of little importance until an auctioneer spotted the painting while going through her house and suggested bringing it to art experts, Pinta said.
Cimabue, who taught Italian master Giotto, is widely considered the forefather of the Italian Renaissance. He broke from the Byzantine style popular in the Middle Ages and incorporated elements of movement and perspective that came to characterize Western painting.
After examining the French kitchen find, Turquin gallery specialists concluded with "certitude" it bore hallmarks of Cimabue's work, Pinta said.
They noted clear similarities with the two panels of Cimabue's diptych, one displayed at the Frick Collection in New York and the other at the National Gallery in London.
Likenesses in the facial expressions and buildings the artist painted and the techniques used to convey light and distance specifically pointed to the small piece having been created by Cimabue's hand.
Pinta said all those characteristics animate the newly discovered piece.
"What's moving in this painting is the motion that we see in Christ," Pinta said.
Alexis Ashot, an independent art consultant for British auction house Christie's, said the discovery in France sent ripples of excitement in other parts of the art world.
"It's wonderful to be reminded that there are paintings of such major importance that are still out there and still to be discovered," he said.
The painting will be the first Cimabue masterpiece to be auctioned when it is put up for sale at the Acteon auction house north of Paris on Oct. 27, according to Pinta. Turquin experts think a major art museum will buy it for a price of between 4 million and 6 million euros.
Ashot said he thinks the painting could fetch even more.
“I could easily see that if word gets out there that this painting is available for sale, then the price could be much higher than they are estimating,” he said.
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>>> A 125-year-old dime just sold for $1.32 million
19th August 2019
by David Williams
CNN
https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/rare-dime-auction-trnd/index.html
A Utah businessman paid $1.32 million for a dime last week at a Chicago coin auction.
It wasn't just any 10-cent piece; the 1894-S Barber Dime is one of only 24 that were ever made, according to Stack's Bowers Galleries, which held the auction Thursday night.
Only nine of the coins are confirmed to still exist.
The coin was purchased by Dell Loy Hansen, who also owns the Real Salt Lake MLS team.
Hansen is an avid coin collector and is working toward a collection that includes an example of every coin ever made by the US Mint from 1792 to the present, said John Brush, president of David Lawrence Rare Coins, who is helping Hansen curate his collection and was in Chicago to bid on the dime.
"When you're bidding a million dollars on a coin, it's nerve-wracking," Brush said. "You kind of get the sweaty palms, because that's a lot of money."
Brush said Hansen needs only six coins to complete his collection, but they are not available for sale.
PCGS
@PCGScoin
One of the most rare & popular branch mint coins this #PCGS PR63BM graded 1894-S Dime once resided in the collection of #LosAngeles icon, Dr. Jerry Buss, and will be offered for the first time in 31 years at the ANA World’s Fair of Money via @StacksBowershttps://bit.ly/2JanJKz
The 1894-S is known as a Barber Dime because it was designed by engraver Charles E. Barber, who designed many coins for US Mints.
The coins were struck at the San Francisco Mint on June 9, 1894, the Professional Coin Grading Service said in a statement. The service certified the coin's condition and authenticity.
Another 1894-S dime sold in 2016 to an anonymous buyer for almost $2 million.
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>>> Viking chess piece sells for more than $1 million at auction
Sydney Morning Herald
July 3, 2019
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/viking-chess-piece-sells-for-more-than-1-million-at-auction-20190703-p523rn.html
The 8.8-centimetre Lewis Chessman sold to an anonymous bidder at Sotheby's in London on Tuesday.
The Lewis Chessmen are intricate, expressive chess pieces in the form of Norse warriors, carved from walrus ivory in the 12th century.
A hoard of dozens of pieces, amounting to four chess sets, was discovered in 1831 on Scotland's Isle of Lewis - but five of the pieces were missing.
The Sotheby's piece, the equivalent of a rook, is the first missing chessman to be identified.
It was bought by an antiques dealer in Scotland in 1964 and passed down to his family before being identified as a Lewis figure.
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>>> David Gilmour’s Guitars Fetch $21.5 Million in Record Auction
Bloomberg
By Hailey Waller
June 21, 2019
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-21/david-gilmour-s-guitars-fetch-21-5-million-in-record-auction?srnd=premium
Pink Floyd guitarist’s collection sold at Christie’s event
NFL’s Colts owner buys iconic ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ strat
Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour auctioned off his guitar collection for $21.5 million Thursday in a record-setting event at Christie’s. Among the axes sold: an iconic Fender used on “The Dark Side of the Moon.”
The “Black Strat,” a 1969 Fender Stratocaster that Gilmour subsequently modified, was sold for $3,975,000 to Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay. The sum was the most ever paid for a guitar at auction, according to Christie’s.
Gilmour’s Gretsch white penguin guitar on display at Christie’s in New York on June 14.Photographer: Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images
Irsay also snapped up a C.F. Martin six-string acoustic that figured in the Pink Floyd tracks “Wish You Were Here” and “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.”
The 73-year-old songwriter said he’ll donate the proceeds of the 127-lot sale to ClientEarth, a London-based environmental group.
The previous record for an auctioned guitar was $2.7 million for a Fender Stratocaster signed by 19 musicians including Sting, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page to raise money after the 2004 Asian tsunami.
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>>> Sotheby's Deal Extends France's Discreet Grip on Finer Things
Bloomberg
By Robert Williams
June 17, 2019
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-17/sotheby-s-deal-extends-france-s-discreet-grip-on-finer-things?srnd=premium
Even when wealthy shoppers snub famously French labels like Louis Vuitton or Saint Laurent, there’s a bigger chance than ever that the cash from their high-dollar habits will end up in the coffers of French companies.
Telecom titan Patrick Drahi is buying Sotheby’s for $2.7 billion, meaning the world’s two leading auction houses will be controlled by French billionaires. Francois Pinault, who founded the luxury conglomerate Kering SA, has owned Christie’s since 1998.
While the Sotheby’s acquisition is Drahi’s first move into the luxury arena, Pinault and rival Bernard Arnault have been collecting fashion labels for several decades, expanding France’s discreet hold over the finer things in life. In addition to their French holdings, they’ve gone shopping abroad, with Kering adding Italy’s Gucci, Bottega Veneta and Pomellato, while LVMH owns Bulgari, Fendi and Loro Piana.
LVMH’s dominance of the high-end market doesn’t stop at fashion: in addition to wine estates from Argentina to New Zealand, the company owns the cosmetics chain Sephora -- with hundreds of stores in the Americas -- and has teamed up with Rihanna on her Fenty Beauty brand.
The group -- luxury’s biggest player -- also recently branched out into international travel by buying Belmond, which operates hotels including Venice’s Cipriani, New York’s 21 Club restaurant and Orient Express trains from London to Venice.
Sotheby’s buyers of $110 million paintings or Jackson Hole ranches may not care much about the nationality of the auction house’s owner. And Drahi, like Arnault or Pinault before him, might do little to enlighten them: As the French maxim goes, “pour vivre heureux, vivons cachés” -- to live happily, live hidden.
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>>> Wealthy Families Are Adding Forests to Their Portfolios
It’s a long-term bet on growth.
Bloomberg
By Lananh Nguyen
June 16, 2019
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-17/wealthy-families-are-adding-forests-to-their-portfolios?srnd=premium
Tom Crowder spent much of his two-year career in the NFL running away from men who weighed upwards of 300 pounds. These days? He worries about bears and snakes. As a senior vice president at Bank of America Corp., Crowder spends most days in the woods, from the evergreen forests of New England to the wetlands of the Carolinas, scouting U.S. timberland assets for people with a net worth of at least $100 million and a minimum of $10 million to invest.
“Trees don’t move as fast as Pro Bowl linebackers,” Crowder says on a recent field trip to a client’s timber farm in South Carolina overlooking the alligator-populated Waccamaw River. As turtles sun themselves and wild turkeys roam, he recounts over a picnic lunch the “neat experience” of his stint as a wide receiver and safety for the Dallas Cowboys. After a busted jaw and emergency surgery, he was happy to go back to his roots, as a third-generation forester.
Crowder is among more than 200 experts employed by Bank of America’s Specialty Asset Management group, or SAM, which manages more than 94,000 assets with a value of $13.6 billion for individuals and institutions. The target client is looking for timberland, farms, ranches, energy interests, or real estate, so-called alternative investments that can diversify portfolios mostly made up of stocks and bonds and can provide a hedge against inflation.
Returns for timberland totaled 3.2% in 2018, compared with 2.4% so far this year, according to an index from the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries.
John Kelley, a SAM national executive, says “long-term themes” sell. The decline in arable land and rising global food demand, for example, are reasons to invest in farmland. “People have to eat, and what we believe about the intrinsic nature of these assets is that they have real value and they will persist over time,” he says.
For clients willing to make these long-term bets, SAM brings in what it calls boots-on-the-ground specialists from 38 offices across the U.S. They have an average of more than 15 years of experience, Kelley says, and some have been in their field for more than 30 years. Many, like Crowder, come from families who’ve been in those businesses for generations.
An exception is Nancy Fahmy, the head of alternative investments who was tapped to also lead SAM last year after spending most of her 23-year career dealing in esoteric financial assets in New York. “This is a different world for me,” she says, recalling the novelty of climbing onto a tractor for the first time and being intrigued by meeting a colleague wearing an impeccably tailored suit and alligator-skin cowboy boots, the product of a family hunt.
For Crowder, who grew up in Arkansas on his family’s timber farm, it’s familiar territory. While on the trip to the client’s timber tracts, a half-hour drive from Myrtle Beach in South Carolina, he used GPS maps on an extra-large iPad to show off an aerial view of pine trees annotated by the date they were planted. Then he offered instructions on how to use a T-shaped forestry tool, called an increment borer, to extract a section of wood about the size of a drinking straw from a tree to count its rings and gauge its pace of growth.
“People have to eat, and what we believe about the intrinsic nature of these assets is that they have real value and they will persist over time”
Crowder covered a lot of ground over the course of a day, giving a crash course in timber management. He detailed the widespread problem of wild hogs damaging timber properties. He talked about the benefits of recreational hunting clubs, which can offer a revenue stream for owners. He laughed about a catchphrase among colleagues—“release the deer”—a reference to the Chevy Chase movie Funny Farm. That’s what SAM staff say when an impressive animal is spotted on a site visit, as if they’d arranged it specifically to impress prospective buyers.
The bank’s roster of clients includes people from both the U.S. and overseas. Investors new to the arena are strongly encouraged to visit what they might be buying into, and it’s during these trips that the idea of passing on a legacy to future generations hits home, Kelley says. Wealthy families are also becoming more interested in environmental and sustainable investments, he says.
“It has a transformative effect in a lot of ways when they actually get to see it, feel it, touch it, and—sometimes in the case of farmland—smell it,” Kelley says. “It goes beyond the numbers.”
And the numbers for real-asset deals, such as predicted profits and hurdle rates, don’t correspond to typical Wall Street metrics. In some cases, the bank has to explain to sophisticated investors that the investments might not work for them.
The assets do produce revenue—in the form of logs, crops, livestock, or oil and gas—but buyers have to get comfortable with multiyear time horizons for returns. A timber farm could generate immediate sales or take years to harvest, depending on tree maturity and market conditions, or decades if starting from seed.
“This is not like stocks and bonds,” Kelley says. “This is not something that you buy on Monday and sell on Wednesday. That’s not the deal. If you’re not coming in with at least a minimum of a 10-year investment horizon, you really don’t belong in this investment class.”
There are other reasons to be careful. Universities including Yale and Harvard ran into trouble with their forestry investments in recent years after endowment funds bought into huge tracts of land as a way to hedge against inflation. The bets paid off handsomely until 2017, when returns slumped and the universities came under criticism from local residents and environmentalists. The various complaints included concerns about overlogging, destruction of scenery, and the disruption of animal habitats.
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the largest U.S. public pension system, is restructuring its forestland portfolio after its investments lost an average of 1.1% annually over the last 10 years, according to a presentation at a September meeting. The forestlands program has been under review the past few years and will likely be part of a broader examination by Ben Meng, who started in January as chief investment officer, CalPERS spokesman Joe DeAnda says.
That’s why Bank of America emphasizes the importance of its experts, who handpick properties for direct purchases. Farmland specialist Katie VanMeter comes from a family who owns thousands of acres of wheat and chickpeas in Montana. Shelda Owens, who runs operations for the timber business, has a master of science in forest economics. It might be argued that Crowder’s forestry experience goes as far back as his childhood. He cultivated his own sandbox-size plot of trees when he was a kid and had to make “hard decisions” about which ones to thin so the others could grow.
That depth of knowledge is important when the SAM experts are sitting across a table from savvy investors and being grilled by them—and, of course, when they’re showing off the land.
Crowder goes to great lengths out there. He once waded through a waist-deep river, holding the iPad overhead, to assess a property that housed a cave of endangered bats. It wasn’t a good fit, and the bank decided not to manage the property. He prepares for site visits in great detail, readying contingency plans for weather-related disruptions. And he’s learning Mandarin to speak to Chinese clients, but it’s hard going: The Rosetta Stone program doesn’t always understand his Arkansas accent.
Among his clients are New Yorkers who consider Central Park a forest. He points out differences—on timber farms, there are no sidewalks, no lights, and sometimes no cellphone coverage. That off-the-grid experience and the opportunity to learn about nature are refreshing for visitors who might be titans of industry. Crowder enjoys being their guide.
“It’s incredible to make a career out of something that you’re so passionate about,” Crowder says. He spends much of his free time hiking in the forest next to his home in Little Rock, accompanied by his 100-pound giant schnauzer, Ranger. “That’s his passion, too.”
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>>> Sotheby’s Sold for $3.7 Billion to Media Titan Patrick Drahi
By Pierre Paulden
June 17, 2019
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-17/sotheby-s-sold-for-3-7-billion-to-media-titan-patrick-drahi?srnd=premium
Sotheby’s, the auction house whose shares have dropped 40% in the past year, is being sold to telecom titan Patrick Drahi for $3.7 billion.
Investors will receive $57 in cash per share of Sotheby’s common stock under terms of the agreement, according to a statement Monday from the New York-based company. The offer price represents a 61% premium to Sotheby’s closing price on Friday. The transaction means Sotheby’s is returning to private ownership after 31 years as a public company.
Drahi, 55, is the president of Altice Europe, a publicly traded telecommunications business with more than 30 million customers. An avid art collector, he’s worth $8.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
“Sotheby’s is one of the most elegant and aspirational brands in the world,” Drahi said in the statement. “As a longtime client and lifetime admirer of the company, I am acquiring Sotheby’s together with my family.”
LionTree Advisors is advising Sotheby’s in connection with the transaction. BNP Paribas and Morgan Stanley are acting as advisers to BidFair, an entity controlled by Drahi. BNP Paribas is sole financing provider.
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