Excerpt

The Limited Edition Virus

To begin with, the label limited edition should draw your attention. The only real limitation on any edition of art works is probably the number of people the seller can find to buy them.

You need just a little background to understand this very common virus. A particular piece of art known as an artists proof (simply called an AP in the art business) was originally a single print taken during the print-making process to check on the condition of a plate while the plate was being worked on by the artist. You might think of it as one stage in the process of completing the work that would end up as a final plate used to make prints.

This means, of course, that each AP is different as the work progresses. As a result, many art collectors think that APs are valuable because they are each unique. If an artist makes thirty-five Artists Proofs in the course of completing the work, then the APs would be numbered 1/35, 2/35, and so on as they were made, with each successive number being ever closer to the final piece of art. The AP has special value because of its uniqueness and its differences from the ultimate work of art.

The seller may tell you, for example, that the art piece is AP (artists proof) number twenty of ninety-nine. Even if that claim were true (which it probably is not), it simply means that it is print number twenty in that edition. Yes, in that edition. Printmaking has changed and improved over the years with higher technology. The APs today are not the APs of two hundred years ago. In todays world the designation AP usually means only that the artist has designated an edition to be named AP and set a limit on how many he will print of that edition.

If the edition sells out, or if the seller is really clever, then the next run of ninety-nine will be called the Museum Edition (ME) and will be priced differently. Each ME will be absolutely the same item, but by changing the name on the very same print the seller has a variety of prices to use when selling the print.

Picture this: the seller says to you, If you cannot afford the AP edition for X dollars, we do have the ME for Y dollars and nobody except us will know the difference by looking at it. If you find yourself in this picture, then you are squarely facing an art fraud virus.

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Techniques of Persuasion

One way for a salesperson to gain your trust is to show you that other people are doing the same thing as he is proposing that you do. For example, the salesperson might invite you to a free dinner where other people stand up and share with the audience about how much money they are making with a certain investment. Elbowing you during such a speech, the salesman might say, See? Look how many people are doing the same thing and its working for them. This fallacy is called the Argumentum ad Populum, or in English: the Appeal to Majority.

Briefly, this fallacy crops up when somebody says that a certain statement must be true because a large number of other people believe it to be true. Logically speaking, whether a person believes something to be true has nothing to do with whether it is true. Similarly, if a large number of people believe something to be true, that is not evidence that it is true.

For example, large numbers of people believed the earth was flat until about five hundred years ago. But they were all wrong, the earth was, and is, round. The fact that others believe something does not provide any evidence that they are correct in that belief.

You can spot the fallacy when you hear statements such as:

*Everybody knows that this painting will rise in value.

*Ask anyone in town; this sculpture is the genuine article.

*Weve sold the other 24 numbered copies to people just like you ... they cant all be wrong.

*Read this article where it says that the consensus of art dealers projects a bright future for collectible art works.

Return now to the art gallery. You hear the art dealer saying that a piece of art work is good, promising that it will increase in value, or making some other claim. Then you hear him support his claims with proof, and that proof is just that other people believe the claim. This is nothing more than a subtle bandwagon that he wants you to climb on by giving him your money. Wash your hands and move on.