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Painting on eBay - $8999 (1 Viewer)

That crayon drawing for $9K up on eBay right now? John Martin told me that, years ago, he gave away DOZENS of paintings like that to different collectors without any thought that they'd be valuable one day. Where the hell was I when he was passing out the goodies?
 
That was more than a bit short-sighted, if he really believed they had (or would in the future have) no value.

If he'd had the foresight he could have done photographs of all those hundreds (thousands) of pieces Bukowski sent him. Had he done that, there's your art book (that everyone asks about) right there.

Oh well.
 

Yow! If he gets a bid I'll be surprised.

That crayon drawing for $9K up on eBay right now? John Martin told me that, years ago, he gave away DOZENS of paintings like that to different collectors without any thought that they'd be valuable one day. Where the hell was I when he was passing out the goodies?

That was more than a bit short-sighted, if he really believed they had (or would in the future have) no value.

Sold. US $8,999.00 :eek:
 
Wow. An ebay NooB who just got taken to the cleaners.... $9,000 was far more than that was worth. Of course, if he is in another country, it may be the price of a pack of chewing gum, given the poor value of the US Dollar....

Bill
 
Funny, he just became a member in April! It looks like it's his first buy. And an expensive painting at that! I can't explain it but I smell a rat somewhere. It's certainly weird. I wonder if he's for real...
 
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It certainly does not smell right.

People don't just come out of the woodwork to pay $9000 for a painting that is not worth nearly that amount.

Bill
 
Hmm. Seems expensive and pointless to shill win a thing like that. Unless you are trying to establish a false value for some later sale.
 
I'm not accusing anyone of anything. That never seems to end well for me. ;)

It must be a noob that has no clue of value and has a shitload of extra money that they don't need, or they were buying it for someone that wanted it and wanted to fly under the radar.

Still, I think that the "painting" that sold for $9000 was not worth anywhere close to that. I have never been good at values, but $9000 for this painting seems just plain crazy.

I guess that there are a few people out there that are not hurt by the shitty economy.

Bill
 
[...] Still, I think that the "painting" that sold for $9000 was not worth anywhere close to that. [...] $9000 for this painting seems just plain crazy.

very true.
but maybe this sets some new landmarks.

(i don't even think of a Van Gogh being worth over a Million [or a Brazillian as they lately say] and I DO Love him. but that's the price people pay. What will Buk's price be in, say, 100 years?)
 
Well, comparatively, no, it is not worth that price. There is a veritable shitload of art you could buy for that price that comes from more substantial, shall we say, artists.

But even as a Bukowski thing it isn't worth nine grand. Not by a long shot. So there's definitely something odd about it.





Isn't this where vicarious comes and to yell at us and say he bought it and he's already re-sold it for $50,000? ;)
 
Sometimes I'm right.

I called it that something was fishy with a buyer actually paying $9500 for this and now a week later it is relisted.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Charles-Bukowsk...goryZ551QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Anyone care to take a guess?

Hmm. Seems expensive and pointless to shill win a thing like that. Unless you are trying to establish a false value for some later sale.

And it was just relisted for $1500 less. Damn, I know my shit sometimes....

Testing the waters, it appears....

Bill
 
and I guess that it worked because Nick just took the bait....

It just sold for $7500 this time.

Funny.... I guess that for Nick it was a steal. I mean it just sold last week for $9000, so at $7500 it MUST be a bargain...

Bill
 
Person couldn't pick it up themselves? That's my best guess. I know I'd be hard pressed to do that. I mean, with gas at $4 a gallon I have a hard time going downtown more than once a month now... Of course, if I could afford $7500 for a painting, I suppose picking it up wouldn't be a big problem...
 
I thought about this some more. It is completely possible that the first bidder was a scammer and not associated with the seller. I sold a HST signed poster for a friend a couple years ago. I would list it and someone would buy it with a Buy-It-Now immediately and then try the old, "I'll send you a money order for twice the amount, you send the difference back by wire" trick. This happened a few times. It pissed me off because ebay would not refund the listing price, which was about $10 each time, if I remember.

So, as much as I want to find fault with the seller, it really could have been one of these scams.

And if you think that the buyer is going to pick it up then you will be surprised. I'm not even sure why they would say that it had to be picked up, but the buyer will tell him to send it and he will.... Maybe this was a way to try to keep scammers away.

Bill
 
Wow.

Good luck getting the $7500 from Saint Nick. Hold on to the art until the check clears! Ha ha.
 
this is where vicarious will come in and tell us we're all assholes for saying it's not worth twice that... that we don't know what we're doing. i wonder how much he ended up selling his broadsides for?
 
Word on the street (really, some guy on the street told me) was that he sold them for significantly less than the $50 or $60k he was crowing about. Like, significantly, significantly less. But, you know, that's just gossip, and gossip will send you straight to hell I'm told.
 
A painting in a book is worth about $2k - $5k these days, but a lot of that value depends on the book. So the value of separate art (not attached to a book, or part of a letter) depends on whether you think it's better in the book or outside the book.

I think he probably made as much art that didn't end up glued into books as did. But that being said, the separate art is far more rare, and that recent sale was a fully realized work (well, as fully realized as Bukowski got), not just a scribble of a man and a bottle and a bird, so...who knows. Ha. It's hard to say because so little separate art sells these days.

But as a rule of thumb, take anything stnickl bids on, cut the winning price in half, and you're at the very high end of what that item is worth. Unless he has competition, in which case he will pay 10 times what something's worth.

Meaning, I think the only man on the face of the earth who would pay $7500 for it, did. Will it be worth that one day? I believe so. But I think it may be when Chelsea Clinton or Hannah Montana is president. Not soon.

I would think for someone who is looking for some Bukowski art to frame and hang on the wall (framing a book ain't easy - or pretty), a few grand would be about what that painting should have gone for. I would pay $3k for that and feel like I got a really decent piece of Bukowski's art and bought something that will appreciate in value.
 
Nobody. It's all over the place. Bukowski gave most of it away.

Someone said (don't remember if this was in the back alley or not though, so I won't say who) that Martin gave a way a lot of the art he had that wasn't pasted into books. I have no reason to doubt that, but shortly after Bukowski died he started selling the art (and a lot of other stuff) to private collectors.

He sold a lot of things through the back door. Maybe the most weird and blatant example was the "supressed" Going Modern book, which he forced the publisher to stop selling, then sold them all to rare book dealers himself. Draw your own conclusions about that as an ethical or moral action. But this isn't a Martin-is-a-dick thread (I know I'm all alone in that camp anyway ;)), so I'll stop now.

And I'm not suggesting that there's anything wrong with selling Bukowski's art if it's stacked up in your office collecting dust. But I have to wonder - since that was copyrighted work and all - how big Linda's cut of those back door sales is...
 
Anyone know what the true value of that art would be? Roughly...

have a look at this auction to see a Lot of original paintings and drawings tipped in books go Way too cheap!
(click on the items to find details - including the price realized)

there were a few surprisers though.
One was this one - it sold for 9,200.- USD. Most other prices were about 30% under their 'value' if you'd sell them one by one.

i bought one at this auction and i just did it for the painting. it was a tipped in painting, but i didn't care. i don't buy any books just because of their rarity, they have to have something 'special'.
(sure, i'd prefer to have a 'lose' painting to hang on my wall, but then - IF i would want to hang it on my walls, there would be ways to get it off the spine, right?)

i'm not believing, my painting would have been any cheaper or more expensive as it was, if it had been a lose painting without handbound book. i was ready to pay a certain price for that painting. that's all.


i don't think, Bukowski will be very expensive, by the time Hanna Montana becomes president - she's too close already. but in a very few years, i'm sure, we will see more of his paintings reaching the 10,000.- mark. give him 5-8 more years.
 
All of PBA's auctions are archived and searchable. Just go to their website and check the completed items box. It goes back for a number of years.

Bill
 

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