OMFG - or why we religiously go to yard sales.

[Vinca]

hthttp://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/07/27/ansel.adams.discovery/index.html?

Can you imagine? Slides bought for $45 worth $200 million!!!!!!!!!!

[Paper Roses]

1. I wonder what we would have done? Smart man to buy them.

I probably would have left them since I have no knowledge of photography. Imagine how I'd feel-or all of us, for that matter- if we had seen these negatives and left them?
I frequently go to sales with about $15-30 dollars in my wallet. I know me, I'd have passed them(then jumped off a cliff when I heard the value).

[Vinca]

2. I think I would have bought them if they were in good condition,

but its hard to say for sure. It would have depended on what I thought of the protective sleeves and the box. Usually - if I have the slightest feeling of "it might be good" - I go for it unless the price is completely out of the ball park. My rule of thumb is whether or not I think I can resell it for the price I'm paying if it doesn't pan out to be anything. I do this with art all the time. My "rule" is to buy anything with any kind of gallery or exhibition sticker on the back no matter how much I dislike the picture. So far I've only been stuck with one picture. Anyone interested in an oil on canvas of a big-eyed, Siamese cat?:rofl:

[Paper Roses]

3. On Velvet? n/t

[Vinca]

4. ROFL - I'm nuts, but I'm not that nuts.

I bought it because it had an exhibition sticker on the back from the Copley Society in Boston. I never did find information on the artist. Actually, I thought it would be kind of cute in a kid's room, but apparently I'm the only person who thinks so. Fortunately, I've only got $12 wrapped up in in.:rofl:

[safeinOhio]

5. Knowledge is money

always pick the minds of collectors you meet. Find out what to look for and what is the "holy grail" of their hobby. I recently sold an old BB pistol I got in a box lot to a collector on graigslist. Spent 20 minutes listening to him about what to look for. He got a great deal, I made a few bucks and I now know more about what to look for. Cast iron BB pistols.
Mostly, it is about taking chances. I and many others have great stories on the deals we made. Just don't ask about all of the the times we lost on deals.

[grasswire]

6. I would have bought them if I had $45 in my pocket.

Because I think I would recognize that they were Ansel Adams, having seen a fair amount of his work. I wouldn't have realized the fortune they were worth, but would know they had value.

On a much smaller scale, I still kick myself for not buying a packet of photos of an early gold mining operation. They were $50. There were a lot of them. I probably could have gotten several hundred for the lot.

[pipoman]

7. Wow cool find for the art world beyond any cash value

it strikes me that now I am aware of 3 fires which destroyed the works of the greatest Yosemite photogs, this one of Adams' and two involving Adams' mentor, George Fiske. Nearly all of Fiske's work was destroyed in two separate fires on Yosemite. I have collected Fiske originals for 20 years...I can't afford Adams originals. ;)

George Fiske (October 22, 1835 – October 21, 1918) was an American landscape photographer.

Fiske was born in Amherst, New Hampshire and moved west with his brother to San Francisco. He apprenticed with Charles L. Weed and worked with Carleton E. Watkins, both early Yosemite photographers. Fiske and his wife moved to Yosemite in 1879 and lived there until he committed suicide in 1918. Fiske was living alone when he shot himself and he often told his neighbors he was "tired of living." Most of his negatives were destroyed when his house burned in 1904.

Years later, when photographer Ansel Adams was a boy, his Aunt Mary gave him a copy of In the Heart of the Sierras when he was sick. The book piqued his interest enough to persuade his parents to vacation in Yosemite National Park in 1916. Most of the photographs in the book are by George Fiske.

After Fiske's death, his remaining negatives were acquired by the Yosemite Park Company and stored neglected in a sawmill attic, which burned in 1943. Ansel Adams suggested they be stored safely in the Yosemite Museum fireproof basement, but his suggestion was ignored. "If that hadn't happened", said Adams, "Fiske could have been revealed today, I firmly believe, as a top photographer, a top interpretive photographer. I really can’t get excited at Watkins and Muybridge—I do get excited at Fiske. I think he had the better eye." (Hickman & Pitts, 1980).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Fiske

[Vinca]

8. Thanks for the information about Fiske! Seriously!

I hate to admit I've never heard of him and I'm a stone's throw away from Amherst, NH.