Urban Art Association

People over there sure as hell are nuts for Kaws toys..

£50,000 for a couple of signed 4fts ! Wow
And £3000 for an Eames fibre glass chair... people need to check out eBay.

Agreed, but the problem is just being perpetuated.  I've been searching for a reasonable and serious 4ft seller for a while now. But I feel like most have no desire to actually sell... but instead waste potential buyer's time by gauging offers, then responding with outlandish ones in order to convince themselves and others of a certain value the pieces are worth. We saw this with Bankys prints a few years back... (now by the time you open a dialogue to buy a banksy print, by the time you want to send the paypal amount, seller wants another $500 or backs out - although that's a side note lol)

What I mean by the problem being perpetuated is now that this auction has taken place, collectors will actually believe they can ask AND sell their 4fts for $40K each to a secondary market in the US.  It was bad enough that private owners were asking $20-25K for them during the last year... Don't get me wrong, you can ask whatever the hell you want for a piece of art, but if you and others don't actually SELL it for that amount, doesn't mean it's still worth that amount. 

Many of these street art "collectors" don't understand that unless you are a gallery or an auction house like Sotheby's, or a solid reputable store like toytokio (who has the ability and clientele to ask and receive 20K for a 4ft) you came off totally delusional asking anywhere near those numbers before.  Who knows what kind of interesting/irrational numbers come about now. Maybe because most these collectors are younger, less experienced collectors who get excited over the idea of getting rich off of one piece?  Who knows...doesn't really matter what the reason is, as long as it exists.

Just to emphasis my point, galleries down the street sell standard Mr Brainwash prints for $4-7K that you can get on ebay for $450 all day long.  Now instead of a gallery, make it a huge auction house, instead of the US do it in Japan, and instead of Mr. Brainwash the artist is Kaws...  Well what do people actually think is going to happen?  Not to mention Nigo's affiliation.  This is where actually knowledgable art collectors and art flippers and just art fanatics will bump heads. Art collectors making calculated, reasonable and more realistic purchases/valuations... Art flippers and fanatics using no outside variables and making "Nigo's auction" the new industry standard because...hey it's the most inflated number they could find.  

These types of well thought out auctions, with super hype machine corporations and celebrity attachments are not a real representation of what this art sells for.  It becomes more of a "right time, right place" type of deal than actual realistic art valuation.  The estimates were much more realistic and anyone who really knows street art or jewelry would agree to that.

For example I know two high end international watch dealers, they'll sell you two of those Frank Mueller's for the price they sold for at Nigo's auction. Same with the Mille.

You email PHILIPPE STARCK today offer him $5K or those AK47 lights he'll make you one with your F'n name on it... Nigo auction sold it for $27K

Don't get me wrong, these type of international auctions are hella exciting and interesting, but to think they hold weight when trying to evaluate your own collection is just foolish.  /end rant

Unfortunately provenance has nothing to do with it, it's celebrity hype - the bragging right of owning something an industry leader or "Celebrity" once owned. I never understood it, a 1996 Dodge Viper owned by Hulk Hogan is the same 1996 Dodge Viper owned by a guy next door...they both came from Dodge and it's easy to confirm that. Some people for whatever reason attach value to it. For those hammer prices you can have the queen of England or Kaw's dog deliver the items to you personally. These aren't 1000 year old fine art pieces with provenance issues, buying any of those items from Sotheby's alone is enough of an assurance on the legitimacy of the pieces and provenance. Nigo's name behind it is strictly for hype.

I totally get what you're saying, don't get me wrong.  But I personally would much rather have a Kaws 4 ft random forum member or original owner kid still in a box than a displayed one by Nigo.