Question: Is there an estimate of a percentage increase in the value of the book if it is remarqued by an artist that is the artist of note for the limited edition?
For example, I recently had a PS Publishing Different Seasons remarqued by Eli John at the cost of £118.00 (£80.00 for the remarque and an extravagant £38.00 for shipping). This calculated at the time as $148.13. The cost of the book (£125 + £17.99 shipping = £142.99) calculated to $188.28. Total cost = $336.41.
Here is the quandary - I had success in ordering the new 11/22/63 from PS Publishing for £130 + £19 shipping / total of £149 or $196.54. Francois Vaillancourt is remarquing a limited amount of the new PS Publishing 11/22/63 and I have reserved a spot for the artist to do a remarque. Cost is $350 for color, black and white are $250. Adding a remarque to the cost of the book, I am lighter by $446.54 (b/w) or $556.54 (color). This does not include shipping to and fro from Canada. I am leery about the remarque that exceeds the cost of the book itself.
I am a collector and not a seller of books and I do have and enjoy the remarques owned (I have put them all on this site at one point or another). Yet it seems the artists are testing the limits with remarques. It certainly is getting expensive especially considering 11/22/63 and I am wondering if there are any other opinions about this increased price point in a current market that I see as weaker than a few years ago.
TIA.
CamFella
(G. Wensell)
Remarques and valuations
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Mr. Rabbit Trick
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Re: Remarques and valuations
You said you were a collector and not a seller, then enjoy what you get for the money you can afford.
I suppose that applies to everything in life.
I suppose that applies to everything in life.
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JackyBoy
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Re: Remarques and valuations
CamFella, I've been wondering the very same thing. Looking forward to some insight from some of the experts.
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TheCollector
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Re: Remarques and valuations
This borders a larger question of how art is valued and what makes a particular piece worth $700,000 vs $70,000 vs $700. I didn't do well in the single art appreciation class I took back in college and don't think I would do much better today. I'm not an authority to speak on the value of the art itself beyond knowing what I personally like and don't like.
Dialing in the focus to SK remarques, I also don't think I can give a specific percentage increase as a whole,(and I'll touch on why below). I can, however, put out some general statements regarding what I've observed over the time that SK remarques have been a thing:
- The more elaborate remarques (size, color, etc) seem to be worth more than simpler black and white remarques
- The fewer remarques an illustrator has made tends to correlate with higher values, the more of them that are out there with lower values.
- The more popular a specific book is, the more a remarque seems to add to the value
- Remarques done by the illustrator of the book tend to hold their value better than remarques done by artists not associated with the book.
- Certain artists command more and the value of their work has a higher baseline of $$$ value on the secondary market, i.e. their name alone ads value.
All these statements, except the last one, really come down to the economics of scarcity vs anything specific to the art. The scarcity of time of the artist and the scarcity of the availability of the work against the demand for the work. How many of something the artist is willing to put out there and is the rate the artist is setting lower or higher than the demand for the work?
If the rate the artist is charging is lower than the demand, then demand outstrips supply and when a book with a remarque is made available on the secondary market it will go for a premium. If the rate the artist is charging is to high, or there are so many of a specific work out there that demand is less than supply then the the item will have to sell at a discount on the secondary market. Economics 101 here.
So how does this apply to what's going on with SK remarques? Well, when Remarques first started out 15 years ago they were very exclusive. 21 Remarques done in Wastelands by Ned Dameron. It was something new for the collecting community. A lot of speculation on pricing, but at the end of the day demand was much higher than supply. This showed other artists that this new (to SK collectors) remarque thing was going to be financially successful and more and more artists got in on this. Some artists partnered with the publisher to release a set amount of remarques at a fixed fee, other artists take commissions ad-hoc. Every year the supply of remarques as a whole go up.
The SK collectibles community is robust but ultimately a niche market. A few thousand people that are hardcore, a few thousand more more casual - but this is quite small compared to more mainstream collecting of things. Out of those, the folks that go out of their way to collect remarques are a subsection of this group. There are now hundreds of remarques up just on my site and certainly not everyone sends their remarques in. We're probably somewhere in the 1,000 - 1,500 range of total remarques out there with more to come.
Have we reached a saturation point? As a whole, not yet, the fact that people are still buying remarques shows the market is still there for them. Will we get there? Probably. Will all remarques get to the point of saturation at the same time? No.
This is arguably biggest variable. The rarity and value of a remarque does not stand alone, or solely against all other remarques in one big value bucket (although that is a component of the value) - but is tied in with the popularity and value of the specific book it is in.
To use a related example, the value of a Stephen King's signature in a 1st edition copy of Carrie is going to be a lot more than his signature in a 1st edition copy of Dreamcatcher. The value here isn't just King's signature on a piece of paper by itself but is tied into the book that the signature is written in, the rarity of how many of those books have been signed, and the demand for those specific books on the secondary market.
Remarques are the same way. So can we blanketly say a remarque will add X% to the value of a book in one sweeping statment? I can't. It comes down to the popularity of the book, paired with the popularity of the artist, against how many remarques are available....oh and one last variable, with most of these artist still being alive, can a person go to them directly and get their own remarque done at any time they want.
Wow this is quite longer than I initially intended. I hope it gives folks some food for thought, and please feel free to disagree or put your own point of view here. As I said, I'm no art expert, I'm sure there are other valid viewpoints on this.
Dialing in the focus to SK remarques, I also don't think I can give a specific percentage increase as a whole,(and I'll touch on why below). I can, however, put out some general statements regarding what I've observed over the time that SK remarques have been a thing:
- The more elaborate remarques (size, color, etc) seem to be worth more than simpler black and white remarques
- The fewer remarques an illustrator has made tends to correlate with higher values, the more of them that are out there with lower values.
- The more popular a specific book is, the more a remarque seems to add to the value
- Remarques done by the illustrator of the book tend to hold their value better than remarques done by artists not associated with the book.
- Certain artists command more and the value of their work has a higher baseline of $$$ value on the secondary market, i.e. their name alone ads value.
All these statements, except the last one, really come down to the economics of scarcity vs anything specific to the art. The scarcity of time of the artist and the scarcity of the availability of the work against the demand for the work. How many of something the artist is willing to put out there and is the rate the artist is setting lower or higher than the demand for the work?
If the rate the artist is charging is lower than the demand, then demand outstrips supply and when a book with a remarque is made available on the secondary market it will go for a premium. If the rate the artist is charging is to high, or there are so many of a specific work out there that demand is less than supply then the the item will have to sell at a discount on the secondary market. Economics 101 here.
So how does this apply to what's going on with SK remarques? Well, when Remarques first started out 15 years ago they were very exclusive. 21 Remarques done in Wastelands by Ned Dameron. It was something new for the collecting community. A lot of speculation on pricing, but at the end of the day demand was much higher than supply. This showed other artists that this new (to SK collectors) remarque thing was going to be financially successful and more and more artists got in on this. Some artists partnered with the publisher to release a set amount of remarques at a fixed fee, other artists take commissions ad-hoc. Every year the supply of remarques as a whole go up.
The SK collectibles community is robust but ultimately a niche market. A few thousand people that are hardcore, a few thousand more more casual - but this is quite small compared to more mainstream collecting of things. Out of those, the folks that go out of their way to collect remarques are a subsection of this group. There are now hundreds of remarques up just on my site and certainly not everyone sends their remarques in. We're probably somewhere in the 1,000 - 1,500 range of total remarques out there with more to come.
Have we reached a saturation point? As a whole, not yet, the fact that people are still buying remarques shows the market is still there for them. Will we get there? Probably. Will all remarques get to the point of saturation at the same time? No.
This is arguably biggest variable. The rarity and value of a remarque does not stand alone, or solely against all other remarques in one big value bucket (although that is a component of the value) - but is tied in with the popularity and value of the specific book it is in.
To use a related example, the value of a Stephen King's signature in a 1st edition copy of Carrie is going to be a lot more than his signature in a 1st edition copy of Dreamcatcher. The value here isn't just King's signature on a piece of paper by itself but is tied into the book that the signature is written in, the rarity of how many of those books have been signed, and the demand for those specific books on the secondary market.
Remarques are the same way. So can we blanketly say a remarque will add X% to the value of a book in one sweeping statment? I can't. It comes down to the popularity of the book, paired with the popularity of the artist, against how many remarques are available....oh and one last variable, with most of these artist still being alive, can a person go to them directly and get their own remarque done at any time they want.
Wow this is quite longer than I initially intended. I hope it gives folks some food for thought, and please feel free to disagree or put your own point of view here. As I said, I'm no art expert, I'm sure there are other valid viewpoints on this.
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JackyBoy
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Re: Remarques and valuations
Tomas, that is great information! It all makes sense too, so thank you for your insight.
I think the hardest part is not having solid numbers on just how many remarques an artist is doing, or has done for any given book. It's a gamble, especially in today's market, when you're faced with prices north of $500 like Cam is dealing with to buy a book and have it remarqued. 10-20 years from now we'll all know the outcome but in the here and now there's no way to tell. If there ends up only being say 25-50 colored remarques of Different Seasons then the value will probably surpass the investment at some point. If, however, there ends up being 100 or more then I'm guessing you'd never break even on the deal.
That's part of the excitement of collecting though, right? If I would've known how crazy the CD edition of IT would get, or Suntup's Misery, I would've taken out a second mortgage to buy dozens of them!
I think the hardest part is not having solid numbers on just how many remarques an artist is doing, or has done for any given book. It's a gamble, especially in today's market, when you're faced with prices north of $500 like Cam is dealing with to buy a book and have it remarqued. 10-20 years from now we'll all know the outcome but in the here and now there's no way to tell. If there ends up only being say 25-50 colored remarques of Different Seasons then the value will probably surpass the investment at some point. If, however, there ends up being 100 or more then I'm guessing you'd never break even on the deal.
That's part of the excitement of collecting though, right? If I would've known how crazy the CD edition of IT would get, or Suntup's Misery, I would've taken out a second mortgage to buy dozens of them!
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TheCollector
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Re: Remarques and valuations
One of my biggest whiffs.....2,750 copy gift edition... from CD.... from a future value standpoint...meh. I figured I'd find it a little under issue price sooner or later and just got the limited edition for myself. Took me till copies were at $400-$600 to break down and admit I was totally wrong on that one and it wasn't coming back down.