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Sure the claim that an artifact like a painting is valuable because it’s rare & famous is somewhat self-reinforcing, I agree. I also think it’s fair to call it

by dahart 11mo ago

Sure the claim that an artifact like a painting is valuable because it’s rare & famous is somewhat self-reinforcing, I agree. I also think it’s fair to call it circular in the sense that people investing and making a profit when they re-sell will cause more people to want to invest, and will drive the prices of collectibles higher. The value of a collectible is a social construct rather than a reflection of, say, skill or materials or cost to make, and so normal economics doesn’t really apply. I’m not quite following the rest of your logic. Rare collectibles don’t often lose value after 70 years, there’s no reason I know of to suspect the ‘age-wealth point’ of the collector is particularly relevant. I’ve never heard of historicity nor seen anything collectible accrue value as a percentage of age, I don’t think markets for rare paintings work like that…? The idea of paying millions and millions for a collectible you can’t really use is foreign to most of us, so yeah it’s really weird and I can understand the feeling that it must be self-reinforcing. I guess I’m maybe not even arguing for or against any of this, but maybe saying that given that markets for rare things exist, it does make sense that very rare+famous things bring higher prices, and that people who have money for this kind of speculation might see investment opportunity. I agree the “value” and market for these things is circular. All of the value comes from the “proof” that something is rare and collectible, purely from the story. All this does apply a little bit to consumer goods, of course. We often have to remind ourselves that capitalist markets price things according to supply and demand, not necessarily to cost.

georgefrowny 11mo ago
> there’s no reason I know of to suspect the ‘age-wealth point’ of the collector is particularly relevant. All I mean is I think there's a bump around the time something particularly nostalgic intersects enough of the nostalgia-havers getting rich enough to bootstrap somes things into valuable-because-valuable territory. Comics, movies, etc. You could explain some of this Superman price that way, but you can't explain a recent increase in da Vincis, for example. I suspect quite at lot of 5/6 figure comic book sales that then bump the magic-number editions into the millions are buoyed by people who have done fondness for comics they had as children. On the other hand, I think that eventually "the story" is merely an excuse for the price and whatever it is just valuable for the sake of being a member of a class of items that are demonstrably unique, irreplaceable and that can have particularly useful properties as a store of immense value. I really doubt that an Saudi prince dropping half a billion on a da Vinci, probably fronting for MBS, really gives a hoot about da Vinci's "story" at all other then his name underpins a really advantageous wealth store. I also doubt anyone else who might pay that and support the price does either. There's an established, global industry based around curating what does and doesn't "count" for these purposes. NFTs obviously have massive parallels with paintings and comic editions in terms of provable uniqueness, attestable sale prices and clear ownership, but failed to convince the curators and break into the stratospheric market where it actually makes sense to assign value-due-to-value. Perhaps partly because proving the above points isn't a fully public process, but it's itself carefully gated by physical access and social connections.

by dahart 11mo ago

georgefrowny 11mo ago

> there’s no reason I know of to suspect the ‘age-wealth point’ of the collector is particularly relevant. All I mean is I think there's a bump around the time something particularly nostalgic intersects enough of the nostalgia-havers getting rich enough to bootstrap somes things into valuable-because-valuable territory. Comics, movies, etc. You could explain some of this Superman price that way, but you can't explain a recent increase in da Vincis, for example. I suspect quite at lot of 5/6 figure comic book sales that then bump the magic-number editions into the millions are buoyed by people who have done fondness for comics they had as children. On the other hand, I think that eventually "the story" is merely an excuse for the price and whatever it is just valuable for the sake of being a member of a class of items that are demonstrably unique, irreplaceable and that can have particularly useful properties as a store of immense value. I really doubt that an Saudi prince dropping half a billion on a da Vinci, probably fronting for MBS, really gives a hoot about da Vinci's "story" at all other then his name underpins a really advantageous wealth store. I also doubt anyone else who might pay that and support the price does either. There's an established, global industry based around curating what does and doesn't "count" for these purposes. NFTs obviously have massive parallels with paintings and comic editions in terms of provable uniqueness, attestable sale prices and clear ownership, but failed to convince the curators and break into the stratospheric market where it actually makes sense to assign value-due-to-value. Perhaps partly because proving the above points isn't a fully public process, but it's itself carefully gated by physical access and social connections.