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I hear you. And I think I have heard – read that if something goes screwy that PayPal has been known to freeze your whole account until the matter is resolved. But no personal experience with that.
mc at MDCG
I second this process. I have had 2 cases whereby we could not find an item over the past several years. We contacted the buyer. Told them the full story, apologized. Told them we were going to do a full 100% refund and offered a 30% discount on any other item in our store if they so wanted.
The first was fine and the second was OK, but a week later did do a neutral on us. I posted here on SL about our first neutral since 2002 and Jay told us to not worry about it and keep going. One neutral in 15 years was a great achievement.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
We just had that big wide format Epson printer picked up on Friday. It was a local pick-up Sale for $880. The buyer asked if we would ship to him in Cal. We said we do not ship large frieght but he was perfectly welcome to arrange his own shipping and we gave him the several links that Jay & Ryanne use.
We stipulated he had to pay for the item first within 48 hours or we wouldn’t hold the item. That we required full contact information to the shipper once he had arranged everything and that we would contact the shipper and that the shipper would be required to sign a pick-up invoice and furnish a valid drivers license of which we would write it down along with the expiration date. He agreed and paid the next day and about a week later sent us the shippers contact info. That was around Nov. 1st. Then a week later he informed us of the Ushipper contractor that won the bid.
We contacted the shipper and also informed him of the signing and license number requirement. He was cool with it.
It took about 2 more weeks and it was picked up Friday. I had the shipper-driver sign the invoice along with a hand written inventory of all the cable, connectors and do dads that went with the printer. I took the drivers wallet and wrote the drivers license number down and the expiration date.
After the driver left, I scanned the document and sent it to the buyer and told him everything was fine and it was on it’s way. So guess it is about 2/3 rds the way there. We will see if it arrives in a timely manner and if everything was OK.
It was loaded into the cab section of the pick-up truck and wrapped with a furniture blanket.
So far so good with our second local pick-up. Both handled this way.
mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Oh you should more than get your money back Most of these types of prints are targeted at the Home decor market. To those and most buyers these are “pictures” not art prints. They are bought to decorate. And if there are train collectors out there, depending on the type train / engine buyers for the subject matter. Most prints should easily go for the $40 to $50 range and then up just like they do in those stores I mentioned. It is the subject that is selling, not the printing process in most of these cases.
mc at mdcg
Sure.. A Giclee is a print. It is an art print. It advantages is that it is a print on demand process so an artist does not have to pay for a whole edition run at one time like the editions we used to do for the artists that came to me to do their edition work for them.
If the correct material / substrate is used and the best archival inks then a digital print / Giclee is just as viable a printing medium as other older techniques. Most quality inks are now mfg. to last over a hundred years along with the acid free, neutral PH materials they are printed on. Many museum now prefer Giclees again because of cost and print on demand. Galleries who represent artists can print one or two to keep in stock and when one sells they just replace it. BTW, the digital process is very accurate on duplicating each image exactly even if printed, days, weeks or months later. Unless equipment or inks have been changed by the print house.
mc at MDCG
Sure.. there are a few quick items to be aware of. Fisrt is to always have a loupe or linen tester in your pocket or around your neck. But around your neck you will look like a jewlers. But the loupe is also good for that. At 10x power just lay it down on any artwork and look to see if it is printed with “dots”. Usually CMYK [cyan, magenta, yellow & black]. If so then you at least know it is a reproduction that is usually an “offset Lithograph” print. Not to be confused with a “stone, hand drawn lithograph”.
Next if you think you have a painting, look across the surface and catch some reflective light. If you can see the actual brush strokes that follow the contours of the object it is probably a hand done original. But be careful of brush strokes that have been hand applied with a clear gloss or matt as an overcoat. Those brush strokes will not follow the detailing outline of the objects.
Next look at the back. If it is paper sealed that is usually a print. If raw canvass on wood stretchers a painting. Note if the canvas is brown colored which means it is linen rather than white canvas which is some type of cotton duck. Linen is the more expensive of them.
Note if a painting is stapled or tacked with carpet tacks. Staples are a newer more modern process. Tacks will indicate older.
So brown canvas, tacked, old looking back stains, aged wood frames, any hardawre that is more primitive means the painting is maybe a higher valued piece. But then would come subject matter, style and then of course the artist.
The more valuable prints are penciled signed by the artist, better still if they are pencil numbered, titled and of course dated. Be wary of printed signatures, then pencil signed also. The more that is done in pencil the better. The American Printers and Framwers Institute advocates nubered prints in editions of less than 250 and better still 125. Higher numbers means like 10,000 means high speed mass produced, flooded market, limited only to anyone and everyone that wants one.
If prints are loose, the higher value is having a full 4 sided deckle edge to the paper, or having a watermarked paper which can be seen by holding up to the light. Less value are prints that have straight edges that were cut on a commercial paper cutter guillotine or at the mill.
Then paper type and printing type is a course in itself.
This should give you some idea of what to start with. Most prints I buy is so I can get the frame. Even popular names like Thomas Kinade are really not worth much as far as fine art goes. It is more of a pseudo fake market created by sellers just like the “Beanie Babies” secondary market.
Then comes the whole discussion if Ebay online e-commerce is actually the place to sell or at least get top / higher dollar for the artwork. Ask Jay and Ryanne how they feel now that a year or so has gone by about selling all that art they got from their artist friend and collector. Would they do it again, how do they feel about the prices on the ones they did sell. How many pieces have sold out of that whole load that they got out in Cal.???
So, hopefully you are armed with a little something now to start to weed out what you find out in the field.
Mike, Susan and Lisa, the management team at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
Oh BTW: I forgot to include this link to a short article on the Digital Prints.
http://www.ebay.com/gds/Hand-Painted-or-Giclee-Oil-Painting-/10000000000089004/g.html
There is a huge problem of Sellers misidentifying art on Ebay and selling pieces that are nothing more than prints as original oil paintings. It has been known for years, if not decades and Ebay has just never addressed it. The example of the exact print you have that was listed with the link by Adventure E takes you to a listing stating he has or had an “original oil painting”. Funny that there are two of them and every detail is exact. See, what I mean.
The primary art market is way out of the average persons reach. The secondary market is just flooded by sellers and buyers alike that just are not knowledgeable enough to understand what to buy and how to buy. Art on Ebay is also way under priced due to this knowledge gap and inability to correctly identify originals from repo’s and the real techniques used to produce them.
mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
Losing it again: Without seeing this personally and under a loupe I am pretty sure what you have is a Giclee [pronounced Zhee-clay]. I can tell you it is definietly not a Serigraph [silk screen], etching, stone lithograph or an original hand painted by the artist acrylic or oil painting. Think about it. If it is an “original” one of a kind hand painted then why is there one already on Ebay and you have one also!!! There are TWO of then and probably many, many more.
It was originally in a medium like acrylic, opque water color, or guasch [a tempera like paint. Then it was put on either a drum scanner or photographed commercially then digitized. This day and time, it may even be a direct digital piece of art done with Coral Draw or something similiar and saved as a digital file.
This file is then given to a commercial printer [like I used to be] and the file is then “ripped” and fed to a large wide format ink jet printer. We had Epson’s and Roland printers. We could do up to 60″ wide on board, canvass, water color paper, glossy photo paper and other suitably coated substrates in high quality chromatic inks. High rez drum scans acn pick up the slightest detail even down to the bristle hairline ridges in the paint on the original surface. Then this image is printed out usually on canvass. These are then stretched over wooden stretcher bars and stabled on the sides or back. This is the type of art you see in every dept. store in the world, Target, Macy’s, World Market, Marshall’s, TJ Max, etc., etc.
These Giclees produce such fine lines that as this article briefly touches on, that only an expert or very trained eye under extreme maginification can tell the difference. That is why I carry a 100 power, lighted loupe-mini microscope in my pouch with me to all estate sales and auction. I know when I have the real thing, either painting or print. Been in art since 1968.
That being the case, you probably have a digital ink jet print of an original done in another medium. The cost to produce high end reproductions has come down dramatically. We used to do them at $5 per square foot, they are now down to less than a dollar a square foot. If that piece is 24×30 = approx. 5 square feet it was printed for approx. $5 by an overseas [China printer] and shipped state side rolled. They produce repro’s in 60″ wide x 100 foot rolls leaving about 3 to 6 inch borders all around and shipped rolled up in a tube. That way the American framers or stores who buy them just cut them out, put together a 4 pc. wood stretcher bar frame and staples them. This is usually done by a USA wholesaler, who then sells them to the US market, pre-stretched.
Next time you are in a dept. store with bins of repro’s look at all the edges as you flip through them. You will see how even,straight and precise the end of the image is. Even if it is gallery wrapped around to the back.
The stretcher bars can be had for approx. $.03 to .05 per running inch wholesale. So about $5.40 for the 24×30 + the printed canvas wholesale for about $10 bucks and the dept. stores mark them up and I have seen them at $50 up to $250 +/-. And they capture the signatures when they are scanned and it just gets printed along with the whole image.I could be wrong and I would have to see and feel your piece and use my strong magnifiers but I would bet dollars to donuts you have a digital reproduction. Even if you see brush strokes in it.
Hate to be a downer, but I have a pretty strong background in this arena.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
ChristineR: .. Thanks for the BOLO heads up on Peets. I asked wife Susan and assistant Lisa if they were familiar with the brand and we were not. So, we ran a Worthpoint search and many are at the $35-$50 and some around the $75 dollar range. Great heads up on those. We will certainly keep our eye open. Appreciate the sharing.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Sorry to hear about your kitty, KitKa. We have two. Bella is almost 16 yrs and Sugar Bear is about 2-3 yrs. Whenever we watch your videos on one of our cell phones we always turn it toward the cats at the end to show them and their ears pick up and their eyes actually follow the image as they watch the doggies and cat at the end.
As Ryan said, there will be another at some time in the future. The doggies need that calm, tranquility that a feline brings.
Nice Sales and video as usual. Always a switch from all of the home decor we deal in.
Mike and Susan at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Hey T-Satt: Could you explain the use of or an example of how adding those [IF/THEN statements] would help to automate the Etsy listing process or how you would use them within the SB arena?
You know why I am curious about that.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
SCJ: We have the entry basic level now. We used to have a higher level but found that we so seldom used the benefits. At the entry level you get to see the item & photos, the description, the category it was listed in, the price it sold for and the date. We use the search box to narrow down to the type of item just like we and everyone else uses Ebay solds and then sort by highest to lowest. Then start scrolling down and looking for something that matches. We use the description as inspiration for our description but don’t just copy and paste. We just re-type and paraphrase sometimes, then price our items at or above the higher levels of what we find. But as Jay say careful not to go so far back, like 10 years or so.
We have a special pricing of $14 per month, but that is because we have been a subscriber from way back and we did not opt in to the upgrades and price increases through the years, they have just let us be grandfathered in at that rate.
Try just the basic for now and see how you like it. You can cancel at any time so try for a couple of months. Unless you are going to be researching Asian chop marks, pottery and pewter hallmarks and other very detailed data, then the basic should do you just fine.
Please let us all know how you like it, what benefits or not you think it offers and post back.
Good luck
Mike, Susan and Lisa the team at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Maybe a variation on your 4x times model might be more interest to us. Buy an item at $5 then instead of $20 try this:
Buy for $5.00 then times x 4 = $20 then ..
$20 x 1.40 = $28 [broken down this way]
the 4x is what we would want to walk away with BEFORE the cost of the item and to do this throw on top of the $20 enough for a 15% OFF Sale, AND 15% negotiating amount because almost everything we have has Make an Offer on it and most buyers offer about 15% to 20% below the SALE Price then up another 5%-6% for a Promotional Fee or buffer – padding.We run constant 2-4 day sales of 15% to 20% with one or two days in between.
So $5.00 x 4 x 1.40 [17%+17%+6% = 40%] = $28 then Sale makes the item show at $23.80 then an offer at 15% less than that sells at $20.23 then less the 6% promoted listing fee = $19.01 then less the $5 cost of the item = $14.02 = about 3 times our original investment.
BUT … don’t forget all of the FVF and Fees on shipping at approx. 20% brings the item down to about $11.21 or approx. 2.25 times your original investment.
Personally we go even higher, we do research on historical sold prices going back for a year or two. Many times we are more like 10 times what we invest and even more on our “treasure – gem finds” but those don’t count in the routine, everyday items.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Worthpoint all the time, especially for the unique items. Kovels antique guide for higher priced antiques, Google of course and then occasionally Ruby Lane and Wayfair for newer more recent commoditiy type items but we try to stick with older pieces when we can.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
Yes.. and don’t forget the recent posts here about the e-packet deal with China. They can sell something for $2.00 and “Free Shipping” because of that E-Packet set-up whereby they can “export and we import” those cheaply made items without VAT and export-import fees. I think I read where the Chinese could mail something less than a lb. for about $.25.
But we have had some good sales the past few moths. Highest ever, with sveral sales in the $200 to $300 range with one at $880. These types of items are just not found every day and not mass produced.
Jay hit the nail on the head, we run businesses with thoughts about, COGS, gross and net profit margins, what we do and do not sell, taxes, expenses, demand, rarity, uniqueness, etc. Many sellers are just clearing out their house, down sizing, or just tired of having non-used things hanging around. They are only interested in just moving things out BUT still want to get a few bucks back in return. If space was the only issue, then just donate, but they want a few bucks, but could care less about what the market will bear, market value and the such.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
