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The old photo market rivals the diamond market

What are the reasons that made people flock to old photographs, raising their prices in auctions and exhibitions in a crazy manner? All these questions in a detailed report on the Old Photographic Market.

Old photographs began to top auctions and antiques exhibitions, and from day to day they turned into huge fortunes for those who own them, or rather for those who trade them... Thus, hundreds of photo dealers all over the world, most of them from the United States of America, are raising the value of the photographic market today.
Even huge institutions and banks, for example - Chase Manhattan Bank, Seagram's Corporation and other large institutions are no longer satisfied with investing money in stocks and real estate, but also turned to valuable pictures in the history of photography: such as pictures from the era of Queen Victoria, Or pictures of the Crimean War - 1853 to 1856 - and other rare classic pictures.

Even the Gilman Paper Company, for example, bought in recent years an old picture worth five million dollars, and it is known that this company is the largest paper maker in the United States of America. And because valuable images are threatened with yellowing, storage and bacteria occur, and they cannot bear any light or moisture, so they are kept in special air-conditioned rooms. And to preserve its value and for fear of trying to steal it.
It must be placed in safe places. As is the case, for example, in the Louvre Museum in Paris, where the alarms that monitor doors and windows, the pictures themselves must also be placed within special frames, and in Japanese paper free of acidity, and it is forbidden to touch the picture with glass. Between the picture and the glass, the air can condense and become moist, which forms a layer capable of permanently destroying the picture. Experts in this field advise the collector to wash his hands before touching the picture, and then not to hold it except with both hands, lest it bend.

The discovery of old photography as a material for collecting and investing money is the important event in the art market recently, as twenty years ago from now this matter was not at all possible.
Today, collectors of photos, who entered the market late, feel great regret whenever they hear news about the first public auctions that took place in the United States of America. They also feel more regret when others tell them that in 1952, for example, they could have obtained Old copies of Fox Talbot's photos, dating back a hundred years, were marked for a small amount equivalent to what one pays these days as the price of a meal in an ordinary restaurant. One of these six photos is now worth hundreds of times, and perhaps imaginary numbers come to mind. .
It may not concern us to know the exact date of the beginning of the commercial operations of old photographs, especially since those interested in the matter are certain of a specific time, even if they prefer the late sixties, because until this date the photographic documents of the bourgeois civilization were burdened with dust that rises in warehouses and cellars.
As the warehouses of the British Royal Institute of Fine Arts. In 1972, in the face of their need for money, the curators of this institute tried to offer a group of pictures of some pioneers such as David Octavius ​​Hill and Robert Adamson, which had been stored in warehouses for about a hundred years, for sale at a public auction, but as soon as these pictures were registered on the auction list, they came The votes were in protest against the sale of photographs belonging to a British institution, and an unknown person donated about one hundred thousand dollars that day, stopping that auction at the last moment, and thus the photographs remained in Britain, but after transferring them from the Royal Institute to the National Por trait gallery), it remains to be mentioned that these Pictures and in the face of the possibility of being reproduced for many editions must lose a large part of their value. On this matter, an international report in this field says: When a dealer of precious stamps obtains two stamps, each for half a million dollars, for example, he burns one of them and then displays it.

The other stamp amounted to two million dollars. As for the owners of the galleries, and we mention them, for example, Harry Lawn, who is considered today the pinnacle of traffickers in old pictures, specifically with pictures - Ansel Adams.
After lengthy thinking, they arrived at a practical way to preserve the value of the image, and this method is summarized in the phrase (Vintage Print).

In this regard, the report gives an explicit example:
In the twenties, Edward Weston took pictures of oysters, trees, and the like, and each picture was a Vin lage Print of these pictures, sold at that time for approximately thirty-five thousand dollars. For satisfactory reasons, Weston no longer entered the dark room. The pictures were printed by his son, but the price of the copy The one printed by his son did not cost more than seven hundred dollars, and after his death it was no longer more than two hundred dollars, and it was no longer of interest to collectors.

As for Harry Lawn, who was able to raise prices in an imaginary way, just like diamond dealers or owners of oil fields, he declares: - If you buy a hundred pictures from well-known photographers, you must choose the best ten among them, then put them in an iron box and lock them without showing them to anyone. Even for your wife, and then you set up a market for the ninety pictures so that people become obsessed with them, and then you bring the selected ten pictures from their stash and ask for each one the price you want.

The big hit achieved by Harry Lunn in 1974 when he bought 1076 photos from Ansel Adams at a price of $ 300 per copy. Noting that 900 copies of these photos were for the famous photo “Moonrise”. Adams said at the time that he would not print new copies of this picture, which made its price rise in an imaginary way, and all of this was in favor of Harry Lawn, of course.
Before concluding, it is necessary to know, even a little, about the reason for people's interest in old photographs. Some explain that this is due to people's departure from modern art. The great stars of modern photography, such as Andy Farrell and Roy Lichtenstein, shocked the artistic audience with their pictures. This made people flock to everything old to escape from the meagerness of modern galleries.