Investing in Fine Art & Collectibles

[Capitalist]

I was wondering if any fellow investors dabble in fine art/collectibles. I 'invest' in contemporary art, and am currently collecting original art by Huia Hamon, granddaughter of the renowned Rei Hamon. I bought a beautiful painting by her today in Tairua for just $1000-- it would be over twice the price in Rotorua. I mainly buy art because I like the look of it in my house, but there is solid money to be made in art, and an increasing number of small investors are starting to dabble .

A BBC report said :Realistically, most average investors are likely to restrict themselves to contemporary art - where prices can be low and returns often spectacular - or the even more speculative "collectables" market. Modern art is shrugging off its scary image, says Elizabeth Hodgson, curator of Beatrice Royal, a Hampshire gallery which aims to encourage the public into contemporary art. "It's still the landscapes that most people go for, but it's surprising how people are starting to buy into glass, sculpture and all sorts of new things," she says.

The murky world of antiques, by contrast, defies almost all attempts at generalisation.

Serious money is there to be made. Thanks to the unguessable enthusiasms of wealthy creators, eye-popping prices can sometimes be fetched by teddy bears, train sets or Crimean War medals (...)

And while tracking the stock market is easy enough, managing an active art portfolio, one dealer says, "is only for those with a private income and plenty of leisure time".

Stick to markets with loyal and established hordes of buyers: the postage stamp market, for example, is supported by 30 million buyers worldwide and a turnover of $10bn, according to Adrian Roose of stamp brokers Stanley Gibbons.

[glennj]

Cap,
I also dabble in art and various collectibles. Bit of a hobby really but there has been some money it plus a lot of pleasure. Suspect lots of successful investors/traders are into collectibles/art. Maybe this sort of thing goes with the personality type?
There are many high profile examples eg Ron Brierly with his stamps and other notables with art, cars etc
My collecting tastes are eclectic but the field of old NZ books is where I've been most active.
Mowbray Collectibles would be the NZ stock to give some exposure to the collectibles markets.

Who else out there dabbles in art and collectibles and in what categories?

[kittydashwood]

Old gold and silver for years now. The older the better.
The trouble is I could never sell it. Although the gold coin market has shot through the roof lately. Anything with old Queen Vic's head on it seems to be gobbled up.

[Burgerbun]

Yes, Cap I have invested in Contemp art but should say tried as didnt do very well.

But enjoyed the paintings at the time.


Mostly Don Binney, owned "lion rock" ....like his style/ landscapes.

and have purchased a few of Silvia Siddels work.


Not really up with NZ artists now being overseas.

[DJ Monaco]

Contemporary NZ art has been a fantastic investment if you bought right a few years ago, with the likes of McCahon and Hotere growing in the 100's of percent per annum. These types of artists will probably have more growth but the entry price is now very high. I think historical NZ art is now worth looking at again. Works by long deceased artists like Gully, Hoyte and Sharpe are selling for pretty reasonable money and could be the next thing to move. One of the reasons contemporary art has ben so popular has been the trend of minimalist type architecture, and contemporary works suit being hung in these types of houses. There is now a move towards maximalist architecture and decor and this should help historical art.

Generally I think of art as a long term investment. Buy something, enjoy it and see what it's worth in 10 years. In the meantime you don't have to anguish over the stock price each day or worry when the property bubble is going to burst etc. The only negative is you don't get a divvy along the way.

Also I hear thet Adam Parore is running a specialist art finance company where he takes security over paintings (for those of you brave enough to speculate).

[Stock Man]

Cap - interesting thread....


Congrats on your Hamon purchase. I also am involved in collectables. I collect banknotes. (Dont we all). I have a reasonable collection of old trading bank notes (pre 1933), star notes, pre decimal notes etc. The other area that interests me is that of "error notes". These are banknotes with differing serial numbers, missing printing and general errors that have made it into circulation. Interested if anyone else is involved in banknotes!

[winner69]

Cap - putting ypur dollars together?

GB would say a sure sign the world is getting silly and ready for a financial collapse

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/02/1083436478827.html

[Major von Tempsky]

Cap, its a sign you are getting old, that you are losing your efficiency, ruthlessness and driving ambition. Another sign to look for: you may be starting to watch Paul Holmes.
You should ask yourself several questions

(a) how many times have you realised the profit on a fine art or collectible? (Answer: None. In other words its not an investment, its a hobby, at best its a donation to the next generation).

(b) do you buy because whatever it is has intrinsic merit to you or do you buy because its politically correct and fashionable and therefore has appreciating value e.g. all the **** awful primary school level paintings by Colin McCahon as against paintings by say Grahame Sydney which are worth looking at and hanging on your walls.

(c) do you watch the Roadshow Antiques because (i) its trendy to do so (ii) you might get some ideas (iii) to laugh at the hopelessly pompous and self conceited petty bourgeois twits attempting to make a splash with their only TV appearance in their lives and to glorify their otherwise intellectually poverty stricken existence (iv) because you can't find anything worth watching in 150 channels of SKY TV or there's a glitch in the Radio Antenne internet transmission from Paris.

Je vous en prie de croire mes sentiments le plus distinguee

Major von Tempsky.

[skinny]

MVT - votre correspondance sur le sharetrader suggère que nous soyons des voisins dans la ville des lumières. Envoyez-moi un e-mail si vous voudriez en rencontrer d'autres de notre nationalité :)

[winner69]

US$104M for Boy with a Pipe
And the man from Sothebys said this is not a bubble

[Capitalist]

Yeah Winner -- I sold that-- told you it was profitable. Tempsky -wollen sie gefaelligst den mund halten!

[zyreon]

what a f~~~~ waste of money

you'd have to be retarted to spend US$104million on a painting

(don't get me wrong, I like art.. have actually painted 50+(?) paintings myself ...)

ok, I know that i should probably piss someone off by posting this so before you flame me tell me WHY exactly a painting (which I have seen and think of it average) could be want of such high $$??

[Major von Tempsky]

Cap, In der nacht allen katzen sind grau.

I would endorse Zyreon's extremely penetrating and thought provoking analysis.

Skinny, I'm not sure which is the City of Lights (Dunedin?) but I'm in Chch (Cap u can breathe a sigh of relief), when I'm not on holiday in Nelle Caledonie that is :-)

[marinesalvor]

am a firm believer in art and collectibles - ever since my grandma bought a number of paintings off a very young chap named Michael Smither...

I buy up a number of acrylics each year, I watch the art news to see who may fly...

As for collectibles - one of my best hobbies is antique toys - trading on ebay and trademe is great fun

finally - Bargain Hunt is possibly the best programme on tv - even the marinesalvoret(te)s love it

[GB]

gold bug has just invested in a donald bradley book which is no longer in print arch crawford guards his one jealously - i am prepared to swap it for a 1951 twin spinner convertable and a nite out on the plonk with cap

[Capitalist]

Well my latest collectible is a limited edition 1974 GT Ford Falcon V8, in beautiful condition. 1974 being a winning year at Bathurst for Ford as well.

HOLDEN BEING AN ABOMINATION WHICH I WILL NOT ABIDE.

[Awryly]

Have you thought about the Helene Quilter collection? I haven't, but I suppose someone has to.

[Major von Tempsky]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2961474a13,00.html

Oooh! Cap!
Comments please.
("last weeks at Webb's auction rooms in Auckland the NZ art bubble burst....."

;)

[marinesalvor]

funny MVT - I read that article too and thought of the crowing types on this thread!!

[lambton]

It is true that a collectible bubble always appears late on the scene of whatever investment bubble happens to be around at the time. The new collectible's set jumped ship post the 87 crash in spectacular fashion. This time around the collectible set seem to be jumping ship early or has the residential property market already crashed and we don't know it yet. I wonder who have since received margin calls from their margin lender - I guess it would have been a new and frightening experience.

Agree collecting is really gifting the next generation. Avid collector of NZ Colonial History - pre 1900. Might find some bargains if the bubble has in deed deflated.

[Capitalist]

LOL Tempsky-- who gives? Property bubble, art bubble, there are still bargains for the astute. I only buy stuff I like to have in my home,I don't buy it for the purposes of speculation. Art increases my enjoyment of life.

Anyways I took exception to you saying I have bad taste in art ;). How people can go on judgement sprees about things they have never seen is beyond me--I don't know anyone like that :D

So when I figure out how to work this camera properly I'm going to send you a couple of photos.

PS That Parore has great business sense don't he? Every one a coconut!

[marinesalvor]

Poor old Adam P - predictable that hes on wrong side of another windshift - but give him marks for trying. I see carlos spencer went for an esquires coffee house for his investment

[Halebop]

I too buy "art" and the value is irrelevant because I know I wouldn't sell any of it. The value of art is only relevant to your beneficiaries or creditors! If one slow sale is the precursor to an "art crash" so be it - this just means my one or two purchases a year enjoy a 20% or 30% discount. I buy art for various complex reasons and none have anything to do with returns – more likely my analytical personality type desire to be surrounded by beauty, an emotional tie to certain genres, ego etc.

As for slamming purchasing a painting for $104m - eye of the beholder and all that. If you've got that much money to blow what difference does it make? If you want it, buy it.

If you are buying art as an investment then the same rules that govern investments everywhere work here - demographics. Tin toys are popular because baby boomers get a kick from the nostalgia. Some antiques become popular just because people see them used in a movie! Art and collectibles are every bit as susceptible to markets, fashions and trends as everything else. Despite data allegedly supporting 12% compound annual growth some segments of the collectibles market have performed very poorly in the last 2 decades.

[Oracle]

Its all very encouraging really, a decline in the number of "bigger fools."

[MeNoBatty]

Agree, Oracle. I cant understand why you would actually pay for some of that rubbish anyway. Cant see it holding any long term value. IMHO most of Hotere's work looks like a school kid could come up with something more presentable.

[Halebop]

quote:Originally posted by MeNoBatty

Agree, Oracle. I cant understand why you would actually pay for some of that rubbish anyway. Cant see it holding any long term value. IMHO most of Hotere's work looks like a school kid could come up with something more presentable.


MNB - in expressing why you don't understand art you have actually summed up its meaning. Art is just a package for someones idea. We can even misinterpret the idea but like it anyway. Sometimes we just don't like it. It always makes us think though. Even if that thinking is just "a 3 year old could have done this!". I'd challenge you to do better though! We would all benefit from a more beautiful world as a result.

In the end, nobody forces anyone to buy it. For me it's a more pleasing avenue of expenditure than houses, cars, gambling, power tools or going to rugby games.

If you still require a return from art: As a tool for self improvement, creativity and visualisation are achieved on a different side of the brain to analysis - a side of the brain we investors tend to be overly dependant upon anyway. It's a good idea to keep both sides growing or you will become "the bigger fool".

Here's a question too: This site is packed with people of different personalities and backgrounds but most share a single common thread: we want to increase, augment and share our knowledge of money and investing...

What is the point of that money? Is your goal to die rich? I'd rather "live" rich than die with a lot of money. Ask yourself what it's all for? For me part of that answer is to be happy. Art helps me be happy. If that makes me the bigger fool then the clever people must be very unhappy.

[MeNoBatty]

Blimey, thats a bit deep for this time of the day. I thought we were all here because we are capitalist pigs trying to make a quick buck on some penny dreadfull. Oh, sure, there are a few people that ramble on about long term value, buy and hold style, Buffett, etc; and the odd time waster; but at the end of the day we are here 'cause we are trying vainly to beat mister market and make a quick and dirty buck. Putting a dollar value on art is simply an extension of this.

As for the challenge; it is a pity that i did not frame the lovely 'instalation' that i left behind on the pavement outside Da Post on Saturday night. That technicolor yawn was something special, and i guarentee had more substance than most of the so called artists at the auction mentioned in the earlier link.;)

[Halebop]

quote:Originally posted by MeNoBatty

...I thought we were all here because we are capitalist pigs trying to make a quick buck on some penny dreadfull. Oh, sure, there are a few people that ramble on about long term value, buy and hold style, Buffett, etc; and the odd time waster; but at the end of the day we are here 'cause we are trying vainly to beat mister market and make a quick and dirty buck...


There is still an aspirational reason for wanting to earn those "quick bucks" and unless you have a bent for the morbid it is unlikely to be "the richest corpse in the cemetary". It is more likely to involve cars, houses, boats, travel, hobbies, entertainments or the many other forms of gratuitous consumption, including art.


quote:Originally posted by MeNoBatty

As for the challenge; it is a pity that i did not frame the lovely 'instalation' that i left behind on the pavement outside Da Post on Saturday night. That technicolor yawn was something special, and i guarentee had more substance than most of the so called artists at the auction mentioned in the earlier link.;)


...and lot 14, an important piece entitled "The inelastic outcome of excess alcohol consumption"... [:p]

[Oracle]

Halebop

I wouldn't put the art lover in the "bigger fool" category. But Adam Parore's clients, probably yes.

Two classic "bigger fool" collectibles, were the blue investment plates, and "Klon****" gold coins. Both seem to have disappeared, & no one is likely to admit owning them.

[spector]

If you think the NZ art scene is over valued... you should see the Australian art scene! (this from the Herald Sun)


Kinder painting sold for $75,000
Jeremy Calvert
July 6, 2004

A KINDERGARTEN painting fetched a staggering $75,000 after a bidding war between two rich parents erupted at a school fundraising event.

The colourful abstract of children and animals - painted by a preschool class at St Catherine's school, in Toorak, Melbourne - became an object of fierce competition when the rivals decided they both wanted it.

Crazy John's mobile phone millionaire John Ilhan, who had two daughters at the school, confirmed the outlandish price was paid - but not by him. He pulled out when things "got seriously out of hand".

Mr Ilhan said his eldest daughter, whose classmates all contributed to the painting, had her heart set on taking it home.

Mr Ilhan described the work - 100cm by 70cm acrylic on canvas - as colourful and typical of infant art.










"There were a couple of children on it, a couple of animals and a flower, at least I think that's what they were," Mr Ilhan said. "Lots of blues and other colours."

Mr Ilhan said he was as surprised as anyone when the painting started generating interest worthy of masterpieces.

Experts say $75,000 would buy a classic by renowned artists Arthur Boyd, Norman Lindsay or Brett Whiteley.

"I just put a couple of hundred dollars down for it," Mr Ilhan said.

"Then one of the other parents . . . started bidding.

"I thought it was a joke, but she was trying to prove a point to me, I think," he said.

"She said her pockets were deeper than mine, and I said I don't really care, you are doing it for different reasons.

"I want the painting.

"When it kept going, I thought this lady ... is just trying to prove a point."

Mr Ilhan thought he'd better stop the bidding war.

"So I stopped there, at around $75,000," he said.

Mr Ilhan said the painting became the big-ticket item at the auction, which was held at a large city hotel in 2002.

"It was a night when a whole lot of things were auctioned - football jumpers, holidays, the whole lot," he said.

"But the painting became the biggest item of the night.

"It was unbelievable."

Mark Fraser, managing director of Sothebys, said the price paid put the work in the top echelon of Australian art.

"$75,000 is huge," he said.

"It is very much in the big league, and for that money you could buy works by every major artist in this country, from colonial times through to contemporary," he said.

"You could even buy one of Arthur Boyd's Wimmera landscapes for that price."

Even so, another group of emerging artists made almost as auspicious a debut in the art world - paintings by Melbourne Zoo's Asian elephants fetched as much as $3500 each.

Despite missing out on the painting, Mr Ilhan was happy to see the school benefit from the bidding war, and said the school offered to paint for him a similar piece when he donated "significantly more" to the refurbishment of the school's early-learning centre.

The buyers of the original painting have since taken their children out of the school.

"I understand when they left she returned the painting to the school," Mr Ilhan said.

He said his daughters also attend a different school.

A spokeswoman for St Catherine's confirmed the painting had been returned, but would not allow the Herald Sun to photograph it.

"It's all about privacy, and I don't think that would be appropriate, being it was kids who painted it," she said.

Herald Sun

[Major von Tempsky]

But Halebop &, unless you can frame your reply in terms of "the selfish gene" Desmond Morris and all that, you are not really making any sense.
How does buying primary school level art maximise the number and quality of your genes passed onto future generations?
Does it make you more attractive as a mate? Increase your survival rate? Where's the evolutionary biology sense in it?
Are you attempting to impress potential mates that you have a surplus of resources over and above those needed for survival and reproduction?

[Halebop]

Huh?

[craic]

Sorry to have to admit that I collect tools - any woodworking and some engineering. A mindless practise that places me clearly in the hoarder category. Who else would havethree or four timber jacks, four saw benches, two tirfor winches and several sheds full of everything imaginable not to mention a couple of tractors and two 100cc chainsaws and several smaller ones. The other week I picked up an old WW1 soldiers penknife complete with broad arrow and makers details. I carry that thing around with me as some might a sacred relic. I have no idea who might have owned it or where I got it. Did it make it home from the Somme or Gallipoli where my uncles are buried? Or was it in the South African War with my Uncle Tom?
More recently I collected - or hoarded - stamps and now I have thousands of dollars of face vale stamps that, on todays market are near worthless. If anyone knows of a market I would be very happy to hear

[Capitalist]

quote:Originally posted by Major von Tempsky

How does buying primary school level art maximise the number and quality of your genes passed onto future generations?
Does it make you more attractive as a mate? Increase your survival rate? Where's the evolutionary biology sense in it?


I know you are having us on here Tempsky ;)[:X]. But yes, an appreciation of art (and that encompasses painting, literature, music and sculpture) sure does make you more attractive as a mate in my book [:p][:I].

[GB]

If a compliment is to be paid in/with sincerity - then my dear you are indeed a fine piece of art that appreciates with age -

[Capitalist]

Yeah, so are you old thing ;):D

[Major von Tempsky]

Blast! I've been rumbled....

(But wasn't your quote above taken from "The Importance of Being Capitalist"?).

[Capitalist]

By George I tihnk he's got it! Me and the kids are down your way next week -Queenstown--to indulge our laziness and enjoy the life of the idle rich.

Think yourself lucky I don't drop by and kick you :D[:X][:X]

[GB]

There is no such thing as the idle rich - it takes money to be idle - good on you - and idle hands being work for the devil- old horned one is of the upper class other ways he wouldnt have come up with that quote - gee i am good