Posted by Marc Kahn (67.189.109.77) on January 27, 2006 at 15:28:50:
In Reply to: Watanabe Gift seal - relevance ??? posted by Peter on January 26, 2006 at 22:35:14:
Peter,
In my experience, the gift seal adds nothing to the monetary value of a print. Collectors are perpetually seeking first editions or early editions. To the extent that a seal is able to help date a print as one of those, its presence can make a print more valuable in the current marketplace. No one, to my knowledge, has ever put forth a case that the gift seal was only used in a certain period of time. Therefore, in my opinion, it is a non-issue in determining the price that a print is likely to sell for.
However, there are many collectors in our world, and the criteria of what constitutes value varies considerably between collectors. This leads to pricing inefficiencies which make the game very interesting. Recently, I bought an original painting by Hiroshi Yoshida for $850 from a well-known dealer who had about 7 prints by the same artist for sale from $1500 to about $4000. In my opinion, I stole that painting. In discussing this with the dealer, I was told, "It's much harder to sell a Yoshida painting than it is to sell a print. That's why I priced it that way."
Bottom line: In my opinion there is no such thing as the "fair value" of a collectible. It's an individual collector's set of criteria that determines value. You've got to figure it out for yourself. If you like prints with the Watanabe gift seal and you can get them without paying a premium price for them, then you've discovered a pricing inefficiency in the market that works in your favor. Go get 'em.
However, from reading your question, it looks more likely that you own a print with the gift seal and are trying to gather information so that you can present it for sale with an inflated price because it is 1) rare and 2) high in production quality. If that's the case, this response is not good news for you.
Marc