Placing a Price on Art

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At every estate sale we've ever staged and priced there was always a collection of art. Mostly a mix of prints and paintings. Every town has your hobby artists and some artists have quite a local following. Values though are sometimes challenging to place on these artists.

The above painting was a find at our local Mojo Flea Market in Santa Rosa this last Sunday. I fell in love with clouds in this painting. As Tim observed, they just draw you into the painting almost magically. When I came upon the painting at the Flea I actually walked away from it twice. Which means I walked up and down a very long aisle and back to the vendor. The painting is very large (notice my van door handles) and I wasn't sure I wanted to pay $45 for it. Laughing at myself as I think back at my thinking, I was just relieved no one else swooped in and grabbed at as I was wasting time being indecisive.

Art is just so personal. That's why it's hard to sometimes put a price on a painting. It will either sell because it speaks to someone or it won't. At the end of sales we've still had amazing paintings left over that were reasonably priced (usually half off on Sunday). The painting above that I bought was going to head to the antique store where we have a booth of French Country inspired items. Selling at the Antique Society in Sebastopol is what we used to do full time before moving over to running estate sales. We don't have as much time to put effort into it as we did before but it's still fun to occasionally go out shopping to find items for the booth. I made the mistake though of placing the painting on the wall of my house before delivering it to the store. There was no going back once I saw how perfect it went in our living room.

Donna Carrington is actually a listed artist. I found a sold listing on Liveauctioneers that sold for $325 and another that had sold on eBay (found on Worthpoint) that sold for $200. Not bad for $45.

Listed artists are much easier to price because there are usually some sold prices that we can use to price a painting at the estate sale. But at the end of the day, it's really whether someone is going to have a connection with the painting. Some people do collect for the investment option too. Then I suppose it doesn't matter about loving a piece or not. Most of our buyers though love art and buy a piece because it means something to them. That's a huge part of why I love this work. Watching a customer fall in love with something at our sale is why we do what we do.

We want shopping to be soulful, spiritual, eco-friendly and meaningful.

Again, I can't believe I hesitated spending $45 on the Donna Carrington painting. Where else can you find such a stunning, large painting selling for a song?

What's your favorite art piece in your home?

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