Featured Two New Cool Pieces

A few years ago my wife saw a very nice garbage print of a moon. I love the man in the moon. But, the print was so small and cheap I passed on it. But, I looked up the artist Daniel Merriam, and he does incredible work. I finally got to actually bid on a print, and won. It's titled Monkey at a Piano, and I believe it's from 1998. It's 8 of 100.

This piece is from Vivian Fishbone. There was an auction filled with her work. This is the only thing that interested me. Her other abstract work is for the normal person. This is titled Incan. It's digital. But, the auction house made an error in size. They said it was 30" long. It's actaully 60" long x 30" wide. I planned on it going in the basement, and it will. You can see quite a few different things in the art. I like the skull and hands.

 

Here's no. 28/100
https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/daniel-merriam-money-at-the-piano-lithograph-229-c-ba348ea862
Sold for 950 USD in 2018

 

Yes. But, what's really funny is, the same print from the same place sold for $550 in Feb 2019. So, I'm guessing the person who won in Dec 2018 never paid.

His prints are extremely expensive. They start at roughly $1000. Some keep their value, and others sell lower. But, usually around $800. The $550 for a numbered print is very low, and my #8 by that standard was free. I paid about $10 more for the art than the s/h. What the auctioneer did wrong was they held the auction on a weekday morning. I was the only bidder on this. I was the only bidder on both pieces.

 

Ha, great!
I love the monkey. He reminds me of the Discworld Librarian ... but that's an ape

 

You did great. It’s a fun image. I’ve gravitated to depictions of monkeys. Mostly figural ones, particularly Japanese. I do have some European ones. I was thinking you may want to consider acquiring some Meissen (or Meissen style) monkey orchestra/band pieces to display near your new print. It may make for even more fun. Obviously “in the style of” pieces would be much more affordable.

 

Those are so cool. They would look great with the art. But, we have a major space problem. We have china cabinets filled. One is dedicated to German smokers. I have a 5 tier barrister bookcase filled with Figment (Epcot mascot) and haunted mansion pieces. Another filled with Disney. My wife empties them for Easter stuff, then Halloween and Christmas. We don't have the room to display all our Christmas items, and we have 7 or 8 trees.

Yet, we keep BUYING! Though I am getting better at selling.

 

I have ALWAYS wanted these !!!

 

Great finds, Snowman.

The European ones are known as "singerie", should you want to look for them. "Singe" is French for monkey.

 

Might not have sold at all. If you look at the bidding history, there was an internet bid (legit bid) then competing bids back to back. Likely the auction house was running up the bid. Back when I catalogued for my first auction house, we were taught to study to bidding behavior before considering that 'sold' result as a true comparable. We were also told to look for that same item up for sale again. The consignor might have had a reserve and they didn't want to have a low bid amount on record for that artist in case of a resale. Now they could also be selling the same time on invaluable or bidsquare but that would have been a red flag for us.

 

That makes sense. If you look at his sold work, there's only a few pieces that have been passed. I would imagine they actually sold the piece at $550 because it's never been up for sale again.

There's a Carole Lombard compact that sold for $10,000 on liveauctions, and it's on ebay now for $95,000. It's also on liveauctions Mynt Auctions (NYC) starting at $10. But, the reserve is $95,000 because that auction house would have to buy it from the real seller on ebay, and send it to the person who bought it from him. He would make the 25% premium. That's a lot on $95,000. NEVER buy from Mynt.

 

I hear ya!

 

Applause, Applause...Keep up th' good work!

 

The French and also the Germans do monkeys well! I have one neat porcelain monkey that could be a Meissen although isn’t marked. It has screws or bolts or pegs protruding from it. It must have been attached to a larger piece as if the monkey was climbing up something. The sale runner at the estate I got it from theorized Meissen. It doesn’t look quite up to that quality to me but you never know. If I ever dig it out I’ll post it.

 

Looking forward. The climbing bit especially sounds interesting.

 

Aren’t they cool?! I hope to come across at least a couple at some point. Hopefully real but I’d probably settle for some nice knock offs. I’ve only encountered one in the wild. It was badly damaged and still expensive. I bandied (pun intended) about taking it home but in the end decided to pass and bide my time for a better score.

I hope you get into some eventually. Hard to find at a bargain probably but we shall hold out hope.

 

I only saw some in the wild one time in all my years and it was 3 pieces.Even way back then they were like $500 each ! And we are talking the early 90s.

 

There are certain things you see, and you know without seeing the price they're expensive. These monkeys fall there.

We had an old Tudor in Jersey, and for a little room we found a chandelier with monkeys in an antique shop. We brought it with us to where we live now. It's going to eventually (we've only lived here 4 years) go up in the stairway leading into the attic theater. I can't hang the print there, the stairway is filled with autographs.