4 ms·

On Limited Editions (1998)

54 points by wallflower 3y ago

ck45 3y ago
> When people in other fields try tricks like this, they are castigated by society, and perhaps even find themselves in trouble with the law. What would be examples for those fields? I'm kind of stuck with thinking about collectibles.
- morisy 3y ago
  I was trying to think of this as well. I think recently there's the great example of NFTs, but in 1998, I think that was around the era Beanie Babies collapsed in part from the speculation/collectible editions and maybe the Baseball Card collapse in the late 90s? https://allvintagecards.com/sports-card-market-crash-90s/ https://allvintagecards.com/sports-card-market-crash-90s/ And maybe in general, at that point, a lot of limited editions existed but were somewhat tacky and obvious, versus naturally limited or collectible items. But I do think around this time we saw a few collectible items go overboard in trying to push the phenomena as far as it could go.
- akovaski 3y ago
  I think the term to search for here is usually "price fixing" and maybe "price gouging". Usually artificial scarcity is used to raise prices. Think cartels, monopolies, Da Beers diamond artificial scarcity, drug companies hiking prices. I also vaguely recall some fashion brands destroying products that haven't been sold. Probably more controversial if you have to kill an animal to create the product. Similarly other stores, like grocery stores, throw out or destroy unsold goods. Some of these are easier to rationalize than others, but I think all have generated some notable level of hate from society. But they keep on doing it, so maybe it's worth it. There's also Cryptocurrency and NFTs to consider. Edit: Adjusting my tone a bit: I do think that society has stopped at least some price fixing. Here is a quote from Wikipedia: > The lysine cartel was the first successful prosecution of an international cartel by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in more than 40 years. Since then, the DOJ has discovered and successfully prosecuted nearly 20 international cartels.
- prometheus76 3y ago
  Diamonds?
subdane 3y ago
Some people want to create. Some people want to consume. Some people want to collect. Sometimes consumables become collectible (Baseball cards). Sometimes collectibles become consumable (Mona Lisa postcards). Creators are allowed to decide who their market is and adjust as they see fit.
jrmg 3y ago
Whenever I go to an art or craft fair, I’m struck by the feeling that in a different world there would be a market for ‘artisanal software’ - with varying ratios of utility vs. aesthetics as the other arts and crafts have - and with independent software craftspeople selling interesting apps. I think I would enjoy being a software craftsperson.
- 8ytecoder 3y ago
  That's exactly what I thought FOSS would lead to (at least when I was naive and young). I thought the freedom that comes with FOSS would result in it tailor made software for people and businesses that are modified in just the right way to suit their usage. I knew it was a long shot but I had a lot of hope. "Webservices"/the internet changed the trajectory quite a bit. I'm not talking about the likes of businesses like Amazon, but rather apps like GMail, that very easily outpaced what you can do in a measly desktop computer - not to mention the issues of saving, syncing and backing up data that was never figured out/made easy on the desktop. The closest I got to enjoy this was the various Greasemonkey scripts.
- AlanYx 3y ago
  Mark Bernstein has written a bit about this. He used to call it "neovictorian computing" but now uses the same "artisanal software" term, e.g.: https://www.markbernstein.org/NeoVictorian.html https://www.markbernstein.org/NeoVictorian.html
  - foobarian 3y ago
    "Artisanal software" is what we call our various piles of tech debt-ridden legacy code
    - Tao3300 3y ago
      It has knots and smells like patchouli
  - jrmg 3y ago
    Yeah, that seems close to the kind of culture I was thinking of.
dfxm12 3y ago
I was at a university print fair recently. The numbering, edition numbering, etc. was all over the place. There was no standard. It was confusing for me, as a buyer who really isn't a collector and connected to this stuff. It didn't stop me (or others) from buying a few things though. Prices weren't tied to edition size, and I didn't overhear any buyers asking about this stuff anyway. Yeah, this was the low end of the market, but great art still speaks for itself and will sell regardless of if there's a couple hundred or an (effectively) unlimited amount of them in the world. As an aside, I get annoyed when I try to buy something limited online & it sells out instantly and shows up on ebay. Stuff like that makes no sense to set a hard limit for since artists are probably leaving money on the table (they could either raise their prices or produce more). A timed release would be nice in these cases, but quality printing is a skill and I get that an artist can't always leave the number they're committed to make to chance like that...
zizee 3y ago
Meh. Each to their own. There is some "value" in knowing that you own something that is not mass produced. In some aspects, each additional print doesn't affect the utility of any of the others. After all, it looks the same hanging on your wall. But there is a difference. Using an extreme example, what if the print you hang on your wall is also hanging in every single Starbucks? It will detract from your experience because you'll think of Starbucks when you look at it. No one will marvel at your good taste, or ask where you found it. People might even look at you strangely. I'm not saying all unnumbered prints are going to be this extreme, and the "value" described is logical. But hopefully this contrived example can demonstrate that there is an loss of value when each additional print is made (at least for a large percentage of the population). If you're the sort of person that this doesn't make sense to, you needn't be swayed by this thinking. More power to you. But let's not pretend the practice is dishonest or perversive. And if your selling one print of an unlimited run, don't be surprised if people don't want to spend as much.
m0llusk 3y ago
Interesting that several of the works I have collected that mean the most to me are monoprints. With this form the material for printing is assembled only once and may include items that may be transformed by the printing process. Sounds like this person is not familiar with monoprints as a format.
- Tao3300 3y ago
  Uh, I'm sure the artist has heard of monoprints. The article makes it pretty clear that they like doing woodblock prints.

54 points by wallflower 3y ago

ck45 3y ago

> When people in other fields try tricks like this, they are castigated by society, and perhaps even find themselves in trouble with the law. What would be examples for those fields? I'm kind of stuck with thinking about collectibles.

morisy 3y ago
I was trying to think of this as well. I think recently there's the great example of NFTs, but in 1998, I think that was around the era Beanie Babies collapsed in part from the speculation/collectible editions and maybe the Baseball Card collapse in the late 90s? https://allvintagecards.com/sports-card-market-crash-90s/ https://allvintagecards.com/sports-card-market-crash-90s/ And maybe in general, at that point, a lot of limited editions existed but were somewhat tacky and obvious, versus naturally limited or collectible items. But I do think around this time we saw a few collectible items go overboard in trying to push the phenomena as far as it could go.
akovaski 3y ago
I think the term to search for here is usually "price fixing" and maybe "price gouging". Usually artificial scarcity is used to raise prices. Think cartels, monopolies, Da Beers diamond artificial scarcity, drug companies hiking prices. I also vaguely recall some fashion brands destroying products that haven't been sold. Probably more controversial if you have to kill an animal to create the product. Similarly other stores, like grocery stores, throw out or destroy unsold goods. Some of these are easier to rationalize than others, but I think all have generated some notable level of hate from society. But they keep on doing it, so maybe it's worth it. There's also Cryptocurrency and NFTs to consider. Edit: Adjusting my tone a bit: I do think that society has stopped at least some price fixing. Here is a quote from Wikipedia: > The lysine cartel was the first successful prosecution of an international cartel by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in more than 40 years. Since then, the DOJ has discovered and successfully prosecuted nearly 20 international cartels.
prometheus76 3y ago
Diamonds?

subdane 3y ago

Some people want to create. Some people want to consume. Some people want to collect. Sometimes consumables become collectible (Baseball cards). Sometimes collectibles become consumable (Mona Lisa postcards). Creators are allowed to decide who their market is and adjust as they see fit.

jrmg 3y ago

Whenever I go to an art or craft fair, I’m struck by the feeling that in a different world there would be a market for ‘artisanal software’ - with varying ratios of utility vs. aesthetics as the other arts and crafts have - and with independent software craftspeople selling interesting apps. I think I would enjoy being a software craftsperson.

8ytecoder 3y ago
That's exactly what I thought FOSS would lead to (at least when I was naive and young). I thought the freedom that comes with FOSS would result in it tailor made software for people and businesses that are modified in just the right way to suit their usage. I knew it was a long shot but I had a lot of hope. "Webservices"/the internet changed the trajectory quite a bit. I'm not talking about the likes of businesses like Amazon, but rather apps like GMail, that very easily outpaced what you can do in a measly desktop computer - not to mention the issues of saving, syncing and backing up data that was never figured out/made easy on the desktop. The closest I got to enjoy this was the various Greasemonkey scripts.
AlanYx 3y ago
Mark Bernstein has written a bit about this. He used to call it "neovictorian computing" but now uses the same "artisanal software" term, e.g.: https://www.markbernstein.org/NeoVictorian.html https://www.markbernstein.org/NeoVictorian.html
- foobarian 3y ago
  "Artisanal software" is what we call our various piles of tech debt-ridden legacy code
  - Tao3300 3y ago
    It has knots and smells like patchouli
- jrmg 3y ago
  Yeah, that seems close to the kind of culture I was thinking of.

dfxm12 3y ago

I was at a university print fair recently. The numbering, edition numbering, etc. was all over the place. There was no standard. It was confusing for me, as a buyer who really isn't a collector and connected to this stuff. It didn't stop me (or others) from buying a few things though. Prices weren't tied to edition size, and I didn't overhear any buyers asking about this stuff anyway. Yeah, this was the low end of the market, but great art still speaks for itself and will sell regardless of if there's a couple hundred or an (effectively) unlimited amount of them in the world. As an aside, I get annoyed when I try to buy something limited online & it sells out instantly and shows up on ebay. Stuff like that makes no sense to set a hard limit for since artists are probably leaving money on the table (they could either raise their prices or produce more). A timed release would be nice in these cases, but quality printing is a skill and I get that an artist can't always leave the number they're committed to make to chance like that...

zizee 3y ago

Meh. Each to their own. There is some "value" in knowing that you own something that is not mass produced. In some aspects, each additional print doesn't affect the utility of any of the others. After all, it looks the same hanging on your wall. But there is a difference. Using an extreme example, what if the print you hang on your wall is also hanging in every single Starbucks? It will detract from your experience because you'll think of Starbucks when you look at it. No one will marvel at your good taste, or ask where you found it. People might even look at you strangely. I'm not saying all unnumbered prints are going to be this extreme, and the "value" described is logical. But hopefully this contrived example can demonstrate that there is an loss of value when each additional print is made (at least for a large percentage of the population). If you're the sort of person that this doesn't make sense to, you needn't be swayed by this thinking. More power to you. But let's not pretend the practice is dishonest or perversive. And if your selling one print of an unlimited run, don't be surprised if people don't want to spend as much.

m0llusk 3y ago

Interesting that several of the works I have collected that mean the most to me are monoprints. With this form the material for printing is assembled only once and may include items that may be transformed by the printing process. Sounds like this person is not familiar with monoprints as a format.

Tao3300 3y ago
Uh, I'm sure the artist has heard of monoprints. The article makes it pretty clear that they like doing woodblock prints.