Managing your investment

Taking care of your investments is as important as the investment itself. Managing your investment will entail one or more of the following activities.

• Display location and environment
• Storage location and environment
• Security and Insurance
• Showcases (framing and mounting)

Display location and environment. Depending on which type of art your investment is, you might want to have it displayed for your viewing pleasure. The location and the environment where you plan to display your investment will be very important. Art items are usually very delicate and sensitive to heat and light.

Storage location and environment. If you do not intent to have your investment displayed, where you store your investment must be appropriate for the type of art you have.

Security and Insurance. High value investments must be secured from physical threats as well as insured. Depending on the type of investment you have, insurance firms will probably cover it. However, there are specialized insurance firms which specifically cater to artistic investments.

Showcases. This includes frames for paintings and other such artistic items and showcases boxes for other items. specific showcases cater to specific items. Most of showcases also have built-in environment control.

We will delve more into this as we move along our journey.

Acquiring Art

Acquiring art is a little bit complicated. Art valuation plays a big part in helping out which artistic item to acquire. The other part is what's difficult, the intangible factor. Art is not a stock certificate which after being acquired is tucked away into a safety deposit box. A big part of acquiring art is to have it displayed, showing it off, and feeling good just looking at it.

However, art is also affected by society's current trends. Much like the stock market, auction houses and galleries often serve up artistic items that are hot for the current selling/exhibition period. But even though art is affected by external factors it is far from being a retail commodity.

Art acquisition can be done by purchasing directly from the artist or the family if the artist is no longer living, second is form exhibitions, third is from auction houses and forth is from other art collectors.

Knowing the current valuation of such artistic items will generally be useful during such acquisition negotiations. However, ticket items such as paintings by masters will command such high prices that authenticity will have to be established. Modern technology and art expert knowledge will be needed during acquisitions such as these.

Art Valuation

Sotheby's have 4 ways to valuate items in a collection. First is by searching their online catalogues and comparing auction estimates. Second is by searching their Sold Lot Archive and see actual prices paid for works like the ones in your collection. The third is through Appraisal or Valuation. Sotheby's prepares legal documents prepared for insurance, tax or other purposes. Lastly, is by Auction Estimate, Sotheby's can estimate items in your collection for a fee.

I could not find specific information from Christie's but I would assume it is almost identical.

Art Valuation most of the times rest in the hands of art experts. These are people of who thoroughly study individual or a group of artists, a period in art history or a combination. Art experts are also used to determine authenticity of an art.

Let's Start

My Family has been part of the art and culture scene since the 70's. My Father is an artist and my mother is a museum curator and tourism professional. I am now in my mid 20's, full of enthusiasm and ideas. The question of how well is "Art as an Investment" has been thrown around me since I was a young kid accompanying my parents to exhibitions and gatherings of artists and collectors.

Asking an artist a question as such will yield diverse answers. However, being an artist with passion for their art will bring you to the beginning of a very long discussion which will usually end with you not getting an objective understanding. What makes this question hard to answer is because the value of art is intangible. The value of art is different for each person.

lately, I have been delving into financial investments(although small ones), getting ready for the future. Looking around at our house, I see a lot of art done by my father as well as by other artist. My parents for the longest time have been accumulating art from other artist for a long time and our collection is now substantial that I think we can even open a museum around our collection.

I would need to have some sort of metrics to fully valuate art as an investment and the only way to do this is by thinking like an investment researcher.

And so we begin ...