How do you sell a painting?

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I'm surrounded by assholes!
kiwifarms.net
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Feb 23, 2021
I have been gifted a painting that basically no one in the family wants. Dad told me if I liked it I could have it, if not, sell it. I don't know if I have the provenance or not, but it does have a stamp on the canvas and a signature. The shipping address says Cayman Islands and I'm told it's worth "Some money." My aunt bought it and left it with her parents and then there was a falling out and they haven't talked for years. Grandmother had to move and like I said earlier no one else wanted it.

So, how can I legally sell a painting because I have no clue. It came rolled up in a tube with some wood attached to the outside.

(This is actually a serious question, but thinking about it I figured this was the best place for a question like this.)
 
Solution
Ultrapenguin
I don't know if it's a good idea taking a picture and posting it here.

You go to a gallery somewhere, they say "Hey this is a fairly valuable painting, we'll auction it", they're potentially going to put it up online and then someone finds that listing and they're going to know who you are, or at least where you are. That would be a lunatic level of dedication, but...well, you've seen the kind of lunatics after the site and its userbase right now.

Crystal Coomer said:
Examine materials used to make it. If handmade, Sell on Etsy. Some middleaged white woman will buy it. If massproduced, sell on Ebay. Some stoner will buy it thinking it has value. Even if it doesnt sell immediately, selling things on these sites which aren't popular is a matter of when...
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First off, I'd have it appraised to find out the market value. I have a funny story from one of my clients in the past, one guy bought a bunch of jewelry and gifted his collection to the NFP. Problem was, it was just shit jewelry acquired by someone with more money than sense and the melt/stone value was far higher than their worth as pieces. 90% writeoff of the reported value as an audit adjustment.

Unless you're dealing with a work the Nazis looted from somewhere in Europe it would be no problem to sell it through a normal auction house. If it's some unremarkable painting or a copy you could sell it on Ebay.
 
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Idk, for me all the "Well you can just sell it!" haven't been going anywhere except storage for the most part as of late.

If it's a particularly valuable painting, then sure. The issue is that shipping costs have gotten so ludicrous recently that if you sell an $70 item on ebay, half of that is going to go into shipping costs (there is an option for local pickup though).
Plus what you can actually sell things for on ebay is always skewed because idk what is going on there, but there's constantly loads of useless items up on buy it now for way more than anyone would ever pay for them. I think it could be faggots using bots to try to hike prices, it's aggravating as hell when you're trying to gauge reasonable pricing.

I don't know the area you're in but as unfathomable as it is I've had some luck finding places that deal with miscellanea like that through ads in the local paper. I could just be really bad at it, but the internet winds up being fucking useless unless you're selling something that's a major consumer item that can't be obtained more easily off Amazon.

If it's something someone might impulse buy though then that's ideal, put that shit up on auction. Worst case scenario it doesn't sell and you take the listing down.

PS: You can also use options like facebook marketplace or whatever, but facebook can get fucked, so I don't have experience with that.
 
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Ebay is your best option for a painting that isn't terribly unique or valuable. Selling a painting is actually rather difficult given how many are replicated. If its a print its damn near worthless.
 
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Well, you need to bundle an amount of cocaine that is equivalent in monetary value to said painting. Think of it as a buy one get one free sort of thing.
 
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First off, you need money
then, you need to commit tax fraud.
then you make the painting and auction it
then go through the process and it's legal to commit tax fraud through that.
Do it right or else your a felon
 
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What does the stamp say, and can you make out the signature? Do a quick Google search on them. Odds are, it's not really going to be worth much. Unless the stamp/signature lead you to other pieces being sold for real money, you'll probably just want to ebay it.
 
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Simple way:
Ebay. Set a high buy it now price and see where the bidding goes. Relist with your buy it now price the highest bid from last time. Yes, it costs money, but it is cheaper than an appraiser. They get expensive fast.

Slightly less simple way:
Auction house that does mostly paintings. They'll appraise it as part of the selling process.

Both ways:
You're probably not going to make much if anything whatever route you choose, so put it on your wall for a week or so and see if you like it first.
 
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The art world is full of gigantic assholes who won't even believe it's someone's painting even if you find matching fingerprints. People who get lucky and find some lost painting usually have to spend 10 years fighting an uphill battle. The people from the art industry in this video utterly tip the scales on how big of a douchebag you can be.
 
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