Should I begin collecting Ethnographic pictures?

B

Bill Marsh

Joined
Mar 26, 2002
Messages
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I can't understand how people can bid on there...

Well, everyone do what he wants with his money.
 
Holy Toledo!

I guess some folks think we're stupid for buying old steel, wood, and horn.

But a picture? Am I a bad person because I right clicked it and saved it? LOL

Steve
 
Hmmm, I have a couple hundred photos of China and Japan and HK from around 1890, including temples, executions, cityscapes, gardens, working in the fields, scenics. You name it.

The crown jewel is a 12' panoramic of HK harbor with the names of all the buildings on the back in pencil.

I really need to find the guys who bought those images.

I also have a bunch of portraits and other pics from the US from 1850-1875. The ones from the civil war era still have the tax stamp on them from the tax on photos at the time(I'm still waiting for the clients to pick their pictures up, I knew I should have got a deposit.:D )
 
btw - they are not from a book, they are photos mounted on a cardstock backing. Pretty common for that time period, although these appear to have been taped into an album(BAAAD!!)

Most of mine are Albumen prints as well(made from egg whites). They are amazingly sharp and grain free and some are even hand tinted. They are very similar or identical to these, but I have a lot more. http://albumen.stanford.edu/gallery/gadd/index.html
 
my priorities are not your priorities but i feel that an entire collection of those is not worth one HI villager finish ww2.
 
Possibly, but an entire collection of those would buy A LOT of khuks!!
 
yeah. depends on your idea of worth. i think it's a disgrace and a discredit to humanity that things like diamonds are expensive. they're worthless. a good book's only a few dollars.
 
hmmm, Magnum, I don't collect that stuff, I just happen to have them. If I could sell it for that kinda money I surely would. :D

I'm not sure where you're buying your books for a few dollars though. I spend more on books than anything else and that's at the used book store.:eek:
 
Lots of money spent is this world. Very little of it spent wisely or well.
Diamonds is only a symptom within a myriad.
 
i'm on literaryguild.com, hardcovers for $12. many good books from the tables at B&N for $5 or less. $10 is still good too.

while i'm posting, screw armani, alienware, lexus, and gibson. there may be a trend in my recent posts.
 
These old photographs command high prices for a lot of reasons. One may be someone just likes the images, but from a socal and anthropological standpoint they are more important.

The subject matter of those photos represents an era and a culture that no longer exists. Those photographs will never be taken again, the time period is gone, the history is past. Just like the old images taken of American Indian peoples in native garb, or African or Amazonian tribes long destroyed by contact with civilization. Those things will never be again.

The pictures themselves are a remnant of the thing they depict, and are themselves fungible. When they are gone due to poor preservation, the culture they captured will have lost an incredible descriptive medium.

So, from that standpoint, I would say they are priceless.

Just my opinion.

Andy
 
andy, i'll agree with that. i just don't like money or expensive things on principle. should history be sold to the highest bidder? i am a bit of a history enthusiast and i think the genuinely important things should be within everyone's reach. no premiums. i also thought these pictures were just prints from a book, not the originals. i bet i sound like a socialist.
 
I have often mused that many of the questions that we have about khukuri will only be answered by contemporary photographs -- if they can be located.

As for the prices paid, they are reasonable in a market sense only if the photographs can be resold for what was paid. In a cosmic sense, . . . . . .
 
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