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Mark.. That is what we do. If I explained in such a way as to ome across as that going into unit cost, then no, just the cost of the item. Everything else that is on the chart of account set-up [COA] is an expense and in the expense journal.
What I wanted to stress was there are a lot of asscoiated expenses that go into the profit picture that affects the NET PROFIT [bottom line, such as.. and follow my list from there]. All the chemicals, papwer goods, monies you pay oneself, part of the electric bill for lights, and gas for heating, on and on. One can make $25,000 in a year gross, then subtract the cost of the goods bought and have $20,000 left over then apply all the fees, taxes, licenses, insurance, support supplies, cleaning supplies, mileage, office supplies shipping supplies and end up with only a $1,000 net profit if everything gets logged against the income to arrive at an “adjusted net income. Meaning what your company makes as an entity within itself after you pay yourself [owners draw].
Companies that make miliions and millions of dollars usually end up with a NET PROFIT of only in the single didigts. 7%-10% net is doing good. Same can apply to the smaller business. Most owners dont expense eneough of there costs because many don’t know how to, what to include and then take the time to compile all the data.
That was all I was trying to say… Yes the COG is actually that, the Cost Of the Good.
We use the same method as you and as your formula indicates. The same thing. We use the WL report to give us the COG that we bought all year as well as those recorded in the bookkeeping program.
I think I said, we do not go nto our invetory and do a physical, one by one hard count. If I did , I mis-spoke. No we use our record keeping process [the entry in WL unit cost and also the Quicken reported amounts we spent as a reference.
And as you say, if WL gets a little off or we mis-calculate an item or two in Quicken, it will surfice. I have the exact same data as you have in WL and use it the same way. At year end I can either run an adding machine tape on everything in WL but as you said, we have over 1,000 items and targeting 2,500 that is very time consuming. Just click on the WL totals and see the column Unit Cost and we go by that but also compare that with What Quicken says we have spent on items for the year. If they match great. If not, and they are close, just go in the middle. If a wide spread, then maybe delve into and try to find out why.
But no we are approaching it the same.
I won’t even go into the other method some have advocated here on SL, and it can be found but what a pain it is and our CPA saidd totally un-neccssary, but it is method. You can search here on SL but good luck to you getting into the whole thing. Jay finally got tired of it and I said for him to re-interview Mark Twes and he did, but avoided the COGS arena.
I can warn, before you get caught up in this infinite topic follow the sound SL advice. Get a CPA. If you don’t have one, you should. Then follow there advice. I also don’t mean a person who just fills out year end tax forms. But a CPA who becomes your business advisor. Sure he will do your year end taxes / forms for you, but he is the one who signs your returns. he is responsible for representing you at an audit if [god forbide] you ever get one, he is the one who will have to explain how he has been reporting your COGS over the past years, and you should follow how he wants you to track and in what form he wants you to give him the figures. He will also tell you how he wants you to document everything, how he wants you to keep track of it in case he has to get access to those documents in the event he has to face off with IRS on your behalf.
I call my CPA probably monthly if not more. I talked to mine day before yesterday. Had a home office related expense question. They stay on top of the ever changing laws and keep up with that.
It doesn’t really matter what members on SL say, it just helps other SL members to formulate questions that in turn need to be eventually asked to thier CPA.
Since we are a corporation, we have to file a corporate tax return by March 15th each then, then a state return for GA., then a personal federal return. For the Corp. and State our CPA charges $675 and then $150 for the Personal Return. so $825 yearly. But for that fee he is at at our disposal the whole year as I am sure J&R accountant is also. Bet J&R have had a ton of questions about the expenses related to the renovations of their properties and bet you they asked every question they could think of to him and followed his advice. But I don’t know about Jay sometimes, LOL… I can hear him say to his CPA… “Wellcan you prove that!! Show me the numbers” 🙂 🙂
In any case, you said something interesting to the fact of being way ahead of a lot of people and you are right. There are tons of people who still conduct business online that are nowhere near as close to operating things they way they need to be but still seem to be fine. Thos like us, using your percenatge are 99.99% OK and really well above average with running our buiness online. Rember we are not Ikea or Walmart. Man, could you imagine taht!! Uugghhh.. mc at mdcgafa in atl.
Answer to how to know if Quicken is 100% account. First u have to remmber than the journals in an accounting program are also your check book regsiters. They have to be reconciled monthly and jive with your credit card and bank statements. But a simple example.
Quick books is tired to all your credit cards and banks accounts. Every time you click refresh, Quicken goes to your bank accounts [yes you have to give all access to Quicken to every account you have and all of the passowrds it keeps in it’s vaults]. Then when refresh is clicked it goes to all your accounts and pulls in every deposit, every charge, every check, presnt and shows it in your Quicken register. Same goes for J&R GDB [I assume]. If my credit card paper statement comes in at the ned of the month and all it shows is 2 $50 charges on it. I then click reconcile in Quicken, up pops my C/C register and I see those 2 $50 entries. I click reconcile and print out a report. Just like we all used to do by hand and pencil with our bank statements. Now everything is automatic and online. If Quicken matches my bank statement, the Quicken is accurate. If not either Quicken has a error [usualy a typo of the user] or your bank made an error. Very, very seldom have I ever seem the banks been off, but occassionally. Inalmot 40 years of using accounting software maybe had a dozen bank errors.
As far as the categories/classifications. Those are mapped by the user. garbage in garbage out, but if you reconcile your credit card and bank statements monthly you can catch the mis-calculations and correct the categories and save.
You heard me mention that Ryan has to take a short period at the beginning of each month for accounting reconcilleation. Well bet you dollars to doughnuts, this is what she is doing. Looking over the entries GDB has pulled down, adding in any empty categories for expenses, [usually where I find most of my Ooopsies] or cahnging some mis-categorized transaction and correcting them.
If you use online banking and reconcile monthly, then using GDB and Quicken is an electronic checking account / register [journal] and works pretty much the same. If you balance most of the time, then it will be accurate most of the time.
If ther eis a wide open gap or something, your CPA will tell you and either he will do it or tell you to make a General Ledger enetry, usually a correction, and you are then back on track.
My suggestion the use of GDB or Quicken is much easier than QuickBooks. And the General Ledger adjustments in there is better left to the CPA. Makig journal enetries is as easy as just correcting your check book register. deletion is like using an eraser in the old days :-).
When it comes to accounting software, including Go Daddy, one of the “categories” that gets set up is Purchase of Inventory.
We go to A&Z Auctions Inc., buy $100 worth of stuff and charge it on our business card. When we update our software, GDB and Quicken or others goes out and pulls in that charge. Because we previously set up our COA and listed A&Z Auctions as a vendor and mapped all charges from this vendor as “Purchase of Inventory it gets logged in under that journal entry. Simple as that. It is now listed as a Cost of Goods.
We have done that set-up for every “vendor” we buy from, every thrift store, every estate sale [conducted by an estate sale company], etc. So any future purchases from that vendor gets logged in as Cost of Inventory [COG]. If we but from a vendore we have bought from before, we logg them in as a “new vendor” and map that Purchase of Inventory journal category to them. Then every time a purchase from that vendor is made everything bought comes into the software as a COG.
If we buy from a Yard Sale, we use our Petty Cash” funds. We alsways keep a zip up pouch with some cash in it and fund that with transfers from our bank account. We reconcile our “Petty Cash” account monthly just like any other account. We have a small pad of blanks forms we use as receipts. If we buy $60 worth of stuff, we create a hand made receipt using the street address, city, state as the vendor and we also list each item we bought and what we paid for it. The total amount and that address is entered as a vendor and just the total purchase as far as accounting [Quicken goes].
Now for WL, though. We have itemized lists from all our merchant and professional business source so we use their print out receipts and we use our hand made receipts for wonder lister. We us WL quick entry form, Drop in a short title, enter our pre-printed SKU number from the paper tags we use AND THIS IS WHERE WE enter the individual item number in to Unit Cost Field of the item just like you do. It is only in the WL program that we have the individual item cost break out.
But in the accounting program we have the over all costs of “all” items we purchased. The Quicken program, nor our accountant wants a line by line, detail;ed break out of individual items. They only want to know we speny $8,000 last year on “stuff” we bought to resell, have logged it and put it into inventory. He says, that is all IRS also wants.
So a $20,000 day one starting inventory on Jan. 1st + $10,000 worth of Purchases in that same year = $30,000 in our inventory. Now we sell a bunch of stuff through out the year. The CPA doesn’t care what each item was or each individual item cost. Our Sales report tells him the amount we sold for the whole year. Again only the total, not each,individual item’s selling price. So that is why I am not even going to mention a hypothetical number. At this point all he wants is an end of year count of the inventory we have left in storage and the associated total cost.
So with that, we as shown above now have 2 figures. The amount we had invested-bought” in the items in our hnads on Jan., we added $10,000 more to those items and now ait for it… we sold a bunch and now the year end inventory count shows there is $25,000 worth of inventory left. So adding the start value + the bought value = $30k – the $25K remaining inventory cost it is at = $5,000 of our Cost of Those Goods Sold cost that represent what we sold. Our CPA said he doesn’t care what those items were and any details about them individually and nether does IRS. Now if we want details for our personal analysis, then there you go. We have in WL that we paid $2.00 for one item and sold it for $10 leaving a GROSS PROFIT of $8 but that $2 as far as accounting goes is just a small part of the $5k worth we sold through out the year.
If we gave our CPA a stack of paperwork detailed like that per item and he had to delve through it, it would cost our first born child.
Just thank about J&R with all there “stock”. I have heard J&R both talk about the “Summary Sheets”, they give to there CPA. Also heard Ryanne talk about her mothly adjutments. Bet she is assigning categories to some of the entries GDB pulled in that they hadn’t previously linked to. The others she had already mapped previously and GDB keeps those memorized and will just reapply them if they buy in those categories in the future. Bet those summary sheets of J&R from GDB has a line that says, “PURCHASED” or something like that. They also have a totaled “Sales” or “INCOME” category. Maybe now broken down a little into sub-categories by “Rental Income”, “Ebay Income” and few years ago “Amazon Income”. But not too many. The breakdown is more for J&R to see their “sources” of income, but their accountant “could” deal with just a total number, but better for some division because of the “real estate” thing, decductions for mortgage interest and things like that.
But hopefully my explanation of the start at $20k + $10k spent to buy more stuff = $30 invested-your cost into your inventory over the course of that one year only – now minus your year end Dec. 31st count that represents what you have invested that is remaining at year end = and once you subtract that number represents a $5k Cost for the Goods you sold that are no longer in your possession.
Still don’t know if that makes it any clear, just said a different way. But as far as all the spread sheets, WL unit cost by individual item doesn’t see to be of much interest as far as the CPA year end tax return, IRS is concerend. They want the broad sweep total. The detailed item by item tracking is more for us the Sellers and analytical types. Which items sell for more, which items sell vs. which ones don’t, how long they sit, how fast they rotate out is all for driving and analysing how you want to run and conduct business.
Year end tax reporting.. simple You had $20 invested in stuff, you bought $10k more of stuff. You sold a bunch of that stuff and when you compare what you have left at the end of the as far as what you paid for that stuff in comparison to what you started with plus the amount more you put inleaves a number that shows from the $30k you had go into and out of your storage unit{s} through out the year shows that $5k or your cost for that stuff “sold”. ie. COGS. [manufacturing is different and so is the use of accruel accounting, but that is for outstanding invoices owed to you and at what point do you count WIP [work in progress] as “sold vs. in house inventory]. But again that’s mfg. not Ebay selling.
There has been a lot of discussion here on SL by both SL Mebers some which are also accountant types. Many of those SL discussions lead down rabbitt holes and into deep weeds. So fearing not to re-open a whole lot of back and forth I will make some more general statements about our accounting methods that I will leave as just my opinion.
We don’t use WL as an accurate COGS. In fact SB and WL both are not accounting programs. An appropriate booking system will be based on Journals and Ledgers and proper set-up of what is called a COA {Chart of Accounts]. We used to use QuickBooks but about closing the remodeling business and spary foam insulation business, we found that Quicken Bookkeeping for Business was sufficient and much less expensive and complicated.
But tracking the cost of an item sold involves much more than just the price one pays for the item at source of finding. Did you use a sheet of a paper towel to wipe it, did you use 2 ozs. of Windex to clean it, did you amortize all of the equipment you use to photograph it like how many minutes of photo lighting did you use, how much electricity, the time you have it on the scale, etc., etc. Now nobody in there right mind would track those types of things. [but as an operations VP in mfg. I did] but on Ebay, heck no.
So by using proper [as Jay calls it “Robust Accounting Software”] we track COGS by the use of Journal entries [automatically classified of course] along with a properly set up Chart of Accounts and a Profit and Loss report and balance sheet pulled from that software. We derive our financial status and where we are with regards to P&L and data for reporting. All of this termonology is well known to CPA’s and accountants.
So having run much larger companies than our current Ebay store we utilize our accounting software to arrive at not only our COGS but also our profit at any time period we select when we pull a report, which I usually do about every two weeks. I do not believe in posting these numbers every week like here on SL. I believe [in my opinion] doing this is like buying stock in the market on Monday, then just watching the ticker tape and DJI every day. That is crazy. Watching this closely, week by week, leads more to anxiety than to insight into your business financial strengths and weaknesses. Decades ago companies only watched these factors quarterly, but every few weeks is ok and will show things you need to do, as a small company, that one can react on fairly quickly. It took us months at 18 million dollars to make a turn in the direction our company was going.
But that all being said, our CPA for IRS reporting, uses, the alternative way to calculate the cost of goods sold that fits our mind set better, and right or wrong in SL memebrs eyes as has been argued in the past, is to use the periodic inventory system, which uses the following formula:
Beginning inventory + Purchases – Ending inventory = Cost of goods sold
We always take an inventory count on Dec. 30-31st at the end of each year. Then we close out the books. Then we use that close out inventory count number as our Jan. 1st start up costs for the next operating year. Having very good accounting software and the use of a thorough Chart of Accounts we record all expenses of our business monthly. Payable and receivables are set up according to the american Standards of Accounting. All income and expenses are pulled in automatically from our banks and PayPal and automatically categorized into there proper journals and classifications. Again just standard accounting.
Come the end of the year when we do the end of the year count again our CPA applies the above formula. It is a very simple system. All monies are downloaded automatically by Quicken, or any of the many programs out there, and placed in the auto P&L statement.
Our Monthly P&L reports shows us the percentage spent on New Item Inventory purchased, Ole-Used Inventory Purchased, what our advertsing expense was, janitorial supplies were, what our procurement costs were both by category and also totaled by Main journal entries. Again I stress, all we have done is years ago create a chart of Accounts and mapped those categories to the place we but something [vendor] or cross reference the charge cards. And something fairly basic, never, never mix personal money and expenses with personal monies. Have two bank accounts, two charge cards, everything for the business is separate from our personal accounts.
If we need money we make a transfer of monies from our business accounts to our personal accounts. That is classified as “Owners Draw” in accounting terms [otherwise known as paying ourselves in our terms].
Bottom line, no way would I rely on SB or WL to provide an accurate picture of our COGS sold because it was not designed for that and it shows. Sure it gives a ballaprk, maybe even closer, look at the cost we paid for an item, and shipping costs and fees to Ebay, but not that great at it. But our Quicken software is dead on. There is just no substitute for “robust accounting software and practices”.
If you think about returned items that were damaged, items pull out of inventory, theft in B&M stores, internal dropped and broke items, just way to detailed to track, but easier when one does a “hard count” on inventory.
Do we pull every bin and go through every piece once a year. Heck no, we use the WL report of what we paid, etc. But every 5 years one should. Bet you have seen big stores with isles blocked off and employees using a scanner and scanning every product on the shelves out on the floor, then they go in the back and do the same for what is in their storage. At some point a hard count reconcillation has to be done.
But talk with your CPA about the “periodic Inventory System”.
Someone like Mark Tewes, who is a CPA and a SL memebr and other accountants can chime in and give a better idea of the best way to account for COG and COG. A COG is just the cost of the item, The COGS is cost and other expenses that go into the sales of that item or atleast all of your items over the year.
I know there are other SL members that do not subscribe to the Periodic System and say, it has to be directly related to the “EXACT” item sold, but remember IRS just wants their share and the overall picture is fine with them. My CPA says they don’t care if their money is coming from a small mirroe you bought 5 years ago or from a paint by number picture you bought 2.75 years ago. They just want their lump sum money / share based on “what all you have sold vs. what all you are going to claim as the cost”. Also I think Marks dad or someone here on SL said that the IRS is real impressed when you show an “honest effort” to track all your costs and have the data and documents to back it up. But are they going to throw you in jail form not getting a few used items down to the penny? Who knows.
The use of WL and SB is as they advertsie themselves, Inventory Management Systems” IMS not accounting programs. Great for back up and useful as such.
One last ting, when I make a painting in the studio, I may have $15 invested in canvass and stretcher bars, but I also buy paints and chemicals and brushes. I use those on dozens of paintings. Short of weighing every ounce of paint I apply to each canvass, and how many strokes I put into the wear of a $40 Red Sable brushe, how is the individual cost of that item calculated when sold, especially when I created it 4 years ago and sold it after 4 years in storage. But using the Periodic System seems to satisfy our Accountant and us in turn.
Now hopefully I don’t get racked over the coals like has happened in the past. We do just as J&R and others here do, “WE FOLLOW OUR CPA’s ADVICE”. If audited, he is the one that will have to go and explain everything. That is what we pay him for. LOL 🙂 🙂
Respectfully posted and replied…
mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art.Thanks Punk: I thought something was different going on. I know that Etsy has a whole lot of changes going on. Seems like 2018 is the year for everybody to start doing a ton of new changes to their platform.
We have about 196 of our items Cross listed from our Ebay store as a start up test. We have made 25 sales on Etsy so seems like it is going to be a viable second platform for all our vintage stuff. Over 20 years old [pre-1998] as far as Etsy goes.
I have not read all of the Seller Updates that Etsy has recently published. Been too busy keeping up with all the Monkey Shines of Ebay, changes and glitches combined. But about ready to get probably our whole Ebay Store cross listed on Etsy. Our 3rd party listing program we use, [WonderLister] is getting ready to go live with their new Etsy interface module, so moving all our listing over should be much easier than a manual process.
Thanks for the reply..
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine art in Atlanta
Just made a Sale on Etsy. They don’t come often, but occasionaly. But first time I have seen this.
Sold a Steuben designer signed glass ashtray / candy / nut dish for $99.95 [our cost $2.35 BAM!] Ok, has some weight to it and the buyer wanted expedited shipping. So the total was $123.90 to the buyer. Then comes a small line on the invoice that says Etsy is collecting ststae tax for the state of Washington for me and will pay that when due. The total on that was $12.39. Dang, that is a 10% Sales Tax rate.
The only setting I have on my store, both Ebay and Etsy is to collect Sales Tax for the state of GA. SO, is Washington state one that is now wanting to collect the state sales tax. And wow! 10% at that. So a $99.95 item just turned into a $136.29 purchase for the buyer.
Silver Lining for us is that we sold a piece of glass. That in itself is something to rejoice about.
Mike at MDC Galleries
T-Satt. Custom reports came up in a conversation I had with JC at SixBit a few weeks back [you know why I was talking with them]. But I said too bad you guys don’t have a user report generator built into SixBit where a user could design, build, create their own custom reports. He said he agreed BUT he said they do have a report generator in SixBIt…but no where as robust as Crystal Reports and he had to admit it was sort of clunky and sophomoric but it was there and a user could create a custom report.
You may think about what reports you would like to have, or screen shots of your spread sheets, shoot them over to JC and then get on the phone and see if they can walk you through it, or just do it for you. Worth a “talk” at least.
Mike at MDCGaFA
The date we bought and item and where we bought it are two of the 6 custom fields we created in WL so it prints out on any reports we want to include it in.
And the tech guys at WL just like JC and the guys at SixBit will also write code for you to include a field into your database, but that you will have to pay them for. The 6 custom fields work for us to capture what extra data we want about an item just fine without paying for it.
Hey Mark: Funny..”Mike would say just create a custom field and put there”. Well Yes and No. Under most circumstances yes. We use about 6 custom fields to enter and track things that the standrd dBase entry form doesn’t have a field [space] for. But in this case, WL and SixBit has a field for Avg. Unit Cost. We just enter our item cost into that built in field. Most of our items are only a quantity of 1 so that is where we put it. If we bought a box lot of 10 items for $10 we eneter the avg. per item box lot price in that field. [i.e. $1 each since we bought all 10 for $10]
WL will use this field in it’s Sale’s Report Tab on the report it generates to auto-calculate the COG by the item and also include it in the total Summary Report”. And of course those reports can be sorted by any age-date period you want.
On multi-quantity on the same item you are selling, use the single dollar amount for just 1 unit. Use the $1 cost and WL will calculate the total COG multiplied times the total quantity. In this case $1 ea. x 10 items in inventory = $10 COG
Now to reply to how long it will take to get caught up. Ok, true if you have thousands of items listed in your store and have never used that field, then yes you do have to back track and enter them but not earth shattering. If you click the “Active Listings” tab, then sort by that column then all listings will be presented that have no number entered. You can highlight each listing line by line and when you do use the Quick Entry pop out form on the right and just type in that cost for that item and hit “save”. Now don’t hit “Send to Ebay” yet, that will take too much time. But when you hit “Save”, then go to the next line and do the same. Continue to do this until you have done say, 100 listings. Now look at the “Edited Locally” tab that says “need to synch with Ebay”. Click that tab, highlight all that are in that folder and clcik “synch with Ebay”. This way you will be updating a hundred at a time. Do this 10 times over saw a week or so and you ahve a thousand updated.
After you eventually get all costs into WL then the individual cost is available from the internal reports WL offers. And of course from this point forward start inputting the individual unit cost for every item you buy.
The first thing we do when we come in from an estate sale or auction is take one of our pre-printed and pre-numbered small item tags, open WL and use the Quick Entry form to add a short quick title, the tag number as part of the SKU [but not all of the SKU-that comes later], the date we bought it and where. That gets the new item into WL within about 15 secs and starts the dBase trail of the items journey through our process. Of course we fill that form out more fully as the item progresses through our process. Susan and our helper enters there part into the form as they do there respective work on the item.
All I do at the end is review everything, do the prices and hit upload.On some weeks an item travels through our system in a few hours other times it could be weeks before we finish a listing for various reasons. But every item has a date, title, where and how much we paid on it from the get go.
In any case you probably already know all of this but thought I would throw it out for others who may not.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
Yep.. But don’t forget you have a nice frame that has value just by itself even without a print inside.
It is an etching [I believe] the solid areas I belive is the same plate only inked on the high, flat spots instead of ink pushed dwon into the groves then the surfaces wiped clean. So same plate, just inked two different ways and run through the press again onced the flat, high areas were inked.
Still about $200 is a good price and the glass and frame. Be careful on shipping it. see some other posts in SL on print shipping, mine included.
Take care and TTFN …. Mike
Hi Sharyn.. Ok got some data / info for you.
First and shortest; The WP sold prices on the ones you had links for. One is $95 and the 2nd is $129.99, the third is a duplicate of the 2nd.
Ok, next some short comparison which may shed light on price diferentials> The first is an “AP” which is an “Artist’s Proof”. That means the final etching [details] or ink color, or inking and plate wipings final look has not been finalized. These can also be referred to a “staged” plates [prints] but usually when an artist gets to a point where they want to see a print done in color, on the correct paper and under the correct press pressure, they pull a “proof” to sort of see where they are at, and make a decision if they want to keep working on the print or not and things like that.
There can be many proofs pulled, and at times as many as that are in an edition. as a paid, professional Master Printer, I would always destroy most of the artists proofs, some being my own of the other artists work [artists paid me to print their artwork] so I could evaluate the press conditions, most of which the artist themselves could not evaluate. That being said unless the artist directly told me not to and I wrote that into the commission contract, I would destroy all the proofs in the presence of the artist and have them sign the contract stating they witnessed it.
But many artist will and do save their proofs. Some times they asked if I wanted them and of course I would say yes, many of those are much rarer because they are one of a kind. Other times I asked for 10 artists proofs to be given to me as a partial payment for the work I did. Those will be some of the prints we will be listing in the coming months.
Once the final proof is pulled and the artist agrees that is right where they want it, that then becomes the Bon a’ tirer meaning final and the standard. That Bon a’ tirer then becaomes what me and my staff were required to follow as we proceeded to print to complete run. My job as a master printer was to match that final proof as close as possible, without deviation if possible, throughout the whole run / edtion, usually 50 to 500 prints depending on the contract.
Can a proof be as valuable as a print from the run? usualy not because many artist won’t sign the proofs or they just initial them. I would sign, date and time it so I could keep track of the artists changes they were making. So much for the $95 print.
Now the next, it is a 26×25 print and is the 31st print out of 35. This is a very short edition. Makes then much rarer and more valuable depending on the artists reputation and market place value, regional, local or national, etc.
Couple of observations for yours. Your print is larger and if u use an industry rule of thumb that all work done by an artist within the same time frame [year or so], you can some times MAYBE apply the square inch rule, but hard to say when framed. But this print went for $.198 per square inch. That is low. Pricing prints is for another day and topic.
Your piece was definitely run through an etching styled, hand cranked press, thus the deep plate embedded / indentation into the paper. The fact, though I can’t see it in your photos, you say you can see the 3-d relief effect to the “line work”, if this is so, that indicates the plate was “inked in the intaglio” manner. [Ink pushed down into the etched lines] and then released by pressure onto the paper as it was cranked through the press. BUT.. I also think I see some solid, transparent areas that may be an indicator that on subsequent passes through the press, that some areas may have been inked by brayer, roller ohand applied to the flat upper areas of the plate,. This is called “relief” inking. But can’t be sure unless I can see the print first hand up close.
Some suggestions, Always use these terms in title and/or description if they are present. The method of inking, “Pencil” signed, Pencil numbered, and of course state the title, artist and dates if present. This validates it was a hand done print. If there are two signatures, one printed in the plate along with the image and then another signed in pencil in the margins outside the image area, start deducting in valu, as this is then just a photo mechanical reproduction of a work ususally done in another medium, photo copied and printed on high speed offset litho presses in large quantities. Meaning limited to everybody who wants one LOL :-). Think Danbury Mint Collectibles and the such, Thomas Kinkade, etc., etc. And no I am not going to fight over me mentioning Thomas Kinkade. Again another story for another time.
So hopefully this will help not only on these but add more info. to your fine art print database of knowledge.
Man, haven’t had the chance to do some artsy talk in a long while.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
That is great RTWV.. about as simplistic as it gets. And to create a custom version for Jay.. “Go that way, really fast and don’t turn unless someone or something can prove that taking a turn will do any better!” 🙂 just having some fun Jay.. no malice. 🙂
Love it….
Played a short verbal game with my brother in law some years back while we sitting on his back porch having a beer..
We each took turns saying a one line phrase from a movie and we would see if the other could name the movie. After an hour of this we came to a conclusion that as baby boomers we had spent.. Waayyyy tooo much time watching TV!
