I remember a painting was discovered, and there was speculation that it was a da Vinci. It was appraised at $30,000. If it could be proven to be a da Vinci, it would be worth a million.
For the same item.
Crazy.
For the same item.
Crazy.
Heritage has great value. It is one of the few things that cannot be manufactured at will.
Also, since its uniqueness holds its value, its value becomes a "strange attractor". You can put a lot of money into one of these artifacts, fairly sure to get most or more back. Since future buyers will have a similar assurance. So it isn't money thrown away, but money stored in a medium the provides satisfaction and pride.
Not so different from buying real estate in some exclusive area for some crazy price. It really isn't that crazy if you are likely to get your money back later if you want. Likely at a higher amount due to a growing economy pushing prices up.
Crazy would be spending millions on something unique then grinding it up.
I did buy some concrete gargoyles created by a local artist, probably a replica of one from a European church. I mounted them on the driveway entrance to scare away unwanted visitors.
It’s interesting if you were thinking of the Salvator Mundi since the discrepancy between the initial appraisal and the restored sale price is two thousand times larger than your example. And it still goes to show the seemingly insane sale price was a good investment, first being sold for $80M by someone who knew he’d make a profit, then after that $120M, then $450M.
I.e. it's worth money because it's worth money.
I’m not quite following the rest of your logic. Rare collectibles don’t often lose value after 70 years, there’s no reason I know of to suspect the ‘age-wealth point’ of the collector is particularly relevant. I’ve never heard of historicity nor seen anything collectible accrue value as a percentage of age, I don’t think markets for rare paintings work like that…? The idea of paying millions and millions for a collectible you can’t really use is foreign to most of us, so yeah it’s really weird and I can understand the feeling that it must be self-reinforcing.
I guess I’m maybe not even arguing for or against any of this, but maybe saying that given that markets for rare things exist, it does make sense that very rare+famous things bring higher prices, and that people who have money for this kind of speculation might see investment opportunity. I agree the “value” and market for these things is circular. All of the value comes from the “proof” that something is rare and collectible, purely from the story.
All this does apply a little bit to consumer goods, of course. We often have to remind ourselves that capitalist markets price things according to supply and demand, not necessarily to cost.
All I mean is I think there's a bump around the time something particularly nostalgic intersects enough of the nostalgia-havers getting rich enough to bootstrap somes things into valuable-because-valuable territory. Comics, movies, etc. You could explain some of this Superman price that way, but you can't explain a recent increase in da Vincis, for example. I suspect quite at lot of 5/6 figure comic book sales that then bump the magic-number editions into the millions are buoyed by people who have done fondness for comics they had as children.
On the other hand, I think that eventually "the story" is merely an excuse for the price and whatever it is just valuable for the sake of being a member of a class of items that are demonstrably unique, irreplaceable and that can have particularly useful properties as a store of immense value. I really doubt that an Saudi prince dropping half a billion on a da Vinci, probably fronting for MBS, really gives a hoot about da Vinci's "story" at all other then his name underpins a really advantageous wealth store. I also doubt anyone else who might pay that and support the price does either.
There's an established, global industry based around curating what does and doesn't "count" for these purposes. NFTs obviously have massive parallels with paintings and comic editions in terms of provable uniqueness, attestable sale prices and clear ownership, but failed to convince the curators and break into the stratospheric market where it actually makes sense to assign value-due-to-value. Perhaps partly because proving the above points isn't a fully public process, but it's itself carefully gated by physical access and social connections.
Numbers of famous historical artists: roughly constant, increasing very slowly
Definition of famous: defined by sale price of work.
Sale price: defined by fame
Ascent to the list of famous/high sale price artists: under control.
Club: big
Your status: ain't in it.
The attribution to Leonardo is extremely dubious, but the whole thing seems to have been motivated as yet another attempt to wash the reputation of oil theocracies and their monarchs.
A more interesting example would be a convincing fake purported to be painted by a highly regarded artist who's still living and working today, and this does happen, too.
"I have a da Vinci at home."
Vs
(pointing at a picture on the phone) "I have this painting at home"
Which one impresses the other rich asshats more? Maybe even millions of dollars worth more.
Besides, I don't need to pay to test for it being legit. Just go to a bank.