Confusingly underpriced painting on eBay

[LemonJuiceFromConcentrate]

I realize there must be a strategic approach to selling at play here but I don’t really understand it and am curious.

A painting caught my eye while I was browsing. Bidding was at a few quid. It’s an early 20th century oil with a nice original frame and a provenance.

The seller appears to be a reputable fine art dealership with various items listed at what seem like more normal (i.e. much higher) prices.

When I googled the artist, I saw that this particular painting is still available on the dealership’s actual website, at a price of £1,200.

So … what are they doing listing it on eBay with a starting price of 99 pence? Is this really nothing more than a strategy to draw bids in? Isn’t there a risk it’ll sell for far below its value?

It's not a valuable painting and will find it's level no doubt by the end of the auction.

Sorry, OP, I meant to put a wink emoji in there! I don't think you'd start a thread about how odd a seller appeared to be if you were the seller. I can't tell if they are dodgy or just pollyanna-levels of optimistic, but I am unreasonably annoyed by how bad this painting is!

Scottish pottery -- much better.

OP the previous bid that automatically outbid you will already be set at the reserve price

@PhiOmicron

Sorry, OP, I meant to put a wink emoji in there! I don't think you'd start a thread about how odd a seller appeared to be if you were the seller. I can't tell if they are dodgy or just pollyanna-levels of optimistic, but I am unreasonably annoyed by how bad this painting is!

Scottish pottery -- much better.

Are there other MN pottery collectors, I wonder? Feels very much like something that would fail to take off if I tried to start an actual thread about it

I just looked at the auction again though and it’s going up! Someone here is bidding. I should message the dealership and ask them for a cut.

Well there is a bit of a bidding war now, at £55 with 11 bids and there is 6 days to go.

Such a low price always generates interest .I've seen that many times on ebay - bundles of kids clothes from Next particularly always go well if you start at 99p!

Anyway lets see if we can't generate more interest by keeping the chat going and watch what it goes for in the end.

I quite like it and would be interested to know why PhiOmicron thinks it is bad!!

I always start high value items at 99p. It means you get loads of views, watches and bids, which attracts others because they think "oh what's this that's already got 36 bids on it"...item goes up a few grand quickly and always exceeds the price that I would have put it at for a buy it now. I've sold all our family cars over the last twenty years on eBay, all starting at 99p and all ending at £7000+

Yes, I mean I’ve seen people do that quite often before on a range of other things; but it does not seem to be common practice for expensive works of art, or even for other similarly valued (even if we think of “valued” in inverted commas to a degree) paintings sold by this specific art dealership.

That’s why I found it a bit odd mainly. If a painting really is worth £1200, it doesn’t seem like there is particular need or reason to sell it that way.

But I guess the real explanation is, the website price doesn’t reflect what anyone was ever likely to actually pay.

I don't know how much input the artist, or in this case, the estate of the artist, will have into the marketing of this?

Anyone else still looking at this? 😂

Surely it’s not an original on eBay? The original is at the dealership, surely?

I can't imagine its anything exciting to be honest. Ebay algorithms are skewed towards 99p start auctions. They generate more buyers and therefore higher bids. Ebay will often suggest if an item is more likely to sell by this method when you upload it for sale, I often just go with whatever they suggest (which varies from auction to buy it now to best offer at an exact certain price etc). If it's nothing special it seems a sensible choice.

I've also recently bought a number of original vintage artworks on ebay, nothing vastly fancy but they do seem popular and accumulate a decent amount of bids. I've never seen anything sell for remotely near 99p or anything close. Presumably the seller knows this too and/or knows what they're doing.

bacon I'm interested in the strategy. I'm surprised to see the two listings running at the same time. If it was headed to the gallery price, it would be different.

I’m not looking at it to buy, but I did look at how it was getting on. Up over £100 now, I see.

It looks to me like the kind of thing someone might buy to dress a high-end Airbnb in Scotland: a Scottish artist, a nice frame, bland subject, whole thing old enough to not feel like Premier Inn wall art, but not valuable enough to be worrying about damage. I stayed in one a couple of years ago where the art was exactly this sort of thing and I remember thinking the owners probably scoured auctions to find it all.

@Cherrysoup are you saying you think it’s a print or a reproduction?

It’s not; it’s the same item, it just seems to be for sale at different prices on different platforms.

@Cherrysoup

Surely it’s not an original on eBay? The original is at the dealership, surely?

Have you read the item description? The item on eBay and the one at the dealership are one and the same.

eBay varies so much in value. I collect children's books and sometimes you see something along the lines of:

"Immensely rare Enid Blyton., no d/w 3rd edition 1957. A must for anyone's collection: £575 bargain."
And you look at it and know there will probably be 20+ equivalents for under £5 on eBay without searching far.

Alternatively I've occasionally picked up something along the lines of:
"A couple of old children's books by X. Bit damaged and writing inside £2".
Looked at the photos and realised that actually they're in pretty good condition, writing is a small name at the top of the front page, dustwrap excellent and actually a 1st edition of a fairly rare book and worth around £150 each.

I think sometimes it's lack of knowledge, sometimes it's simply that although they might get that amount of money for it, it isn't selling and they just want rid of it.

So the winning bid is £280

It will be interesting to see if they have the painting on their website tomorrow.

Still on the website.

@Spunout

Still on the website.

I find it odd. Maybe there's two? 😂

I obviously don't have much artistic taste. I didn't think it was banal or deplorable. I loved it and wish I'd been able to buy it.

@LadyOfMisrule

I obviously don't have much artistic taste. I didn't think it was banal or deplorable. I loved it and wish I'd been able to buy it.

Oh, ignore the taste police! You could always contact the seller and see what else they have, might be similar things that you'd like.

@LadyOfMisrule

I obviously don't have much artistic taste. I didn't think it was banal or deplorable. I loved it and wish I'd been able to buy it.

I didn’t hate it either! I’m sort of neutral on it; I know I said it was a bland topic and it is, but I still think as a whole, frame etc., it would be a perfectly nice thing to own. Tbh I got more drawn in by the history of it and by having a reason to look up an obscure woman artist and play detective sort of thing — which is not a good reason to spend money on a painting .

But if my six quid bid had actually won it (obv never going to happen really) I would have been happy to find a place for it at ours.

(“topic” = weird word choice, meant subject)