Re: Are shipboard art auctions fraudulent?

number6 wrote:
On Oct 26, 1:22 pm, JeffGers...@xxxxxxxxx (Jeff Gersten) wrote:
http://www.dba-oracle.com/t_cruise_art_auctions_scam_fraud.htm


What something is worth is what
someone is willing to pay for it ... Stateside ... that painting was
sold for 1,000 ... Someone was willing to pay for it ... making it
worth 1,000 ... if on the cruise the same painting sold for 5,000 ...
someone was willing to pay for it making it worth 5,000 ...

I believe that's part of the issue, that the art sold on the ships is priced higher than if it were on land. I am sure the overhead of selling art on a ship is much higher than at their offices on land, but not enough to rape people at five times the "real" price. Even then, I'm not so sure that happens too often. In fact, there are soem deals to be had on ship. As I said, the piece I bought seems to be priced right (although I was the only bidder). There was one piece on the ship that I really wanted, but wasn't willing to pay $500 for. I checked when I got home, and that would have been a pretty good deal. Then again, they sold a bunch of $200-$400 Kincaid prints that I am sure could be bought here for $50 or less.

As long as they don't lie about what it is ... I think they are very
careful not to ... otherwise ... there is fraud ...

I never hear any lies about the items. I'm no art collector, but I do know the differences between original works, lithographs, serigraphs, etc. and I also recognized the artists they were selling, and all of their representations seemed to be very honest. I believe the only real gripe is in the value. So, if you are concerned that the value might be overstated, don't buy.

I personally wish
they were guilty of fraud ... then there would be no more art
auctions ... Although I like walking around looking at the artwork ...
I wouldn't miss them at all ... The free drinks and goodies can't even
get me to sit through one ...

Really? We sat through every two of them on our cruise. They were entertaining and we ended up with $4,000 in "free art". ;-) Of course I have to put the winky there because I know that what we ended up with are a bunch of nice "posters" that cost us about $60 in shipping costs. We will use at least one of them (after we have it framed) and another is going to be a gift, so it's not like it was a bad price. Going back to what you said about it being worth what someone is willing to pay for it, my wife and I would laugh every time we hear the auctioneer say "free art worth $650" because obviously if they were giving it away, it wasn't really worth $650, now was it?

--

- RODNEY
.

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