Recorded sales

General art-related discussion.
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man11
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Fri Apr 11, 2008 12:08 am

Ok, I got ignored in the now-legendary Nesting thread, but I'm still curious. Someone was speculating in another thread that a recent "sale" wasn't really a sale. It was a shill sale recorded to try to drive up perceived value for a future sale.

If someone really wanted to game the sales history charts, they could do that, right? Anybody think this happens with any frequency? Like I said, just curious.
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tranito
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Fri Apr 11, 2008 12:17 am

With all that happened recently (read Nesting crap), this issue has to be addressed. Very legitimate question. Recorded member sales can be added by either the buyer or the seller without any kind of verification process (read by anyone who wants to). Fake sells can't be very frequent, but they do exist for sure. They could become more frequent as the community expand... I suppose.. I'm scared. Honestly.

Figure this case. Rare print. 3 member sales only. On the 4th,6th and 8th of April for respectively $200, $300 and $400 bucks. Rising tendency line.

Imagine the first 2 sellers are lazy a bit and the first to add his sale is the one on the 8th at $400. Next day, the 9th, the guy who sold for $300 on the 6th is back from his weekend at the beach and add his sale. Later, the first guy wakes up and adds his at $200. Tanking down prices situation based on the tendency. Do you think if eventually a 4th print surfaces it will sell for the same price in both situation??? I doubt it. And that just cause of chart history even if nothing was fake.... so imagine with fake sells...

Just to say those charts may be taken too seriously by too many people... it is perceived by the community as the Bible of the poster scene and they really seem to have the power to manipulate the value of a print... I'd be tempted to say that we should do everything we can to help it stay reliable you know.. I don't wanna wake up 2000 years from now reading to fake miracles and stuff you know.. I wanna beleive...
man11
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Fri Apr 11, 2008 8:09 am

tranito wrote:Just to say those charts may be taken too seriously by too many people... it is perceived by the community as the Bible of the poster scene and they really seem to have the power to manipulate the value of a print...
I would guess this much is probably true. Then again, a lot more people use EB than post regularly in the forums, and I'm guessing the sales histories may be a big part of the utility for them. (That and the trading functions.)

On the other hand, there's no way I expect the mods could keep up with any abuse. There's just too much going on in general for them to monitor every little thing.
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CPO
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Fri Apr 11, 2008 8:28 am

Just know that the EB price guide, is just that- a price guide.. The buyer should spend just the amount of money the buyer wants to spend. It is very possible things could be manipulated by a small handfull of people, but that is neither EBs nor the Mods responsibility to price every single reported sale of every single artwork.

At no time are buyers/sellers forced to agree at any price based on EB averages or past sales, it's simply one tool among many in coming to an agreement.

If you are iffy, then you should wait for more official recorded sales, ask around, start threads, whatever. Remember that Ebay auctions can be manipulated as well. There's no stopping it. If you don't want to spend over a certain amount, then don't.



BUT you should NOT consider EB a 'bible' as you put it.
mcgod
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Fri Apr 11, 2008 8:57 am

tranito wrote:With all that happened recently (read Nesting crap), this issue has to be addressed. Very legitimate question. Recorded member sales can be added by either the buyer or the seller without any kind of verification process (read by anyone who wants to). Fake sells can't be very frequent, but they do exist for sure. They could become more frequent as the community expand... I suppose.. I'm scared. Honestly.
Scared? Huh?

First off, the community has been expanding for years, this issue has been raised countless times and the answer is always the same--EB price charts are only a guide, and of course not meant to be an 'official' price gauge. There's really no practical way to make them bulletproof.
Do people use them as such? Sure, but based on what I see it's mostly new folks that get caught up in the 'absoluteness' of them... when I deal with long-time collectors here, 'charts' are never mentioned because after a while you both realize it's up to the buyer/seller/trader to determine worth at that point, the charts are just a guide but definitely not gospel.

btw, when I get a trade/sell pm that starts out with 'the eb avg. says xxx, so I'll pay xxx for it," I know it's a noob. Those people usually don't receive a response.
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Yamar
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Fri Apr 11, 2008 9:09 am

Thanks for covering most of the bases here - this is generally the thought.

The sales histories are that - histories of sales which we have had the chance to record. But they are by no means absolute - there are tons more sales (private, retail, eBay, aftermarket artist sales, galleries) that don't make it to the histories. There is no way to cover all those bases. We just all contribute to do the best we can.
Could sales histories here be manipulated? Sure, it's possible. But that is also part of the community. It's why people bring things up like the recent activity with Horkey's Nesting print. Gather data and evidence - try to figure as best we can when sales are "real" (or not).

In the end, you (as a buyer or seller) have to figure what anything is worth to you. Then go from there. If you choose to have a graph here tell you that, then it's your choice. But don't blame it if you feel you pay too much or sold for too little afterwards - that's your responsibility in the end.
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man11
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Fri Apr 11, 2008 9:44 am

Thanks for the info, guys, even if this is just rehashing an old topic.
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phishbeatles
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Fri Apr 11, 2008 12:11 pm

Possible suggestion you could split sales into 2 catagories. Have one column for ebay sales only, another for private sale.

Things could still be manipulated for private sales, but it wouldn't effect eba y (well minus the shill bidders), but at least people could see the difference and the different averages.
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Yamar
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Fri Apr 11, 2008 12:14 pm

If you make a bit of an effort, you can do that already...
And no, you can't do it within EB. You have to use your head or a calculator.
In most cases, the number of member sales is much lower than eBay ones - using programming time on such a thing isn't quite a priority at this point.
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Bread8
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Fri Apr 11, 2008 12:27 pm

On prints with a high liquidity (I'm talking as few as ten sales or so) having a few stray points won't really impact things anyway. This discussion came up a few years back when people were throwing around accusations that somebody worked out a trade where one of the conditions was that Person A bid up Person B's ebay auction on an emek cyberman print and no real sale was to take place. When you ran the math on recorded sales up to that time and included the anomoly, it only increased the avg price by fifteen dollars or something. And as you can see, prices quickly dropped back to where they were before that 1 or 2 print spike.

and like others have said, only pay what it's worth to you
Great words won't cover ugly actions; good frames won't save bad paintings...
KAYGARFIELD
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Fri Apr 25, 2008 2:39 am

All this stuff is interesting but maan, complicated. Im trying to learn what all this is about. Crazy manipulating goin on? Geez.
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