The Sandra last release did not fair too well.
In general less excitement around new releases as they are all similar to previous works , nothing new and overpriced

The Beejoir is nice but the exact same print has sat on eBay for ages at half the price so if anyone wants that you know where to find it as a decent price.

Agreed. If anyone wants to part with £950 for a copy of Pez’s Alter Ego then they can have mine and I’ll throw in the frame for free.

I dont feel GP are doing anything particularly bad, I just get annoyed at seeing Pez Hopscotch for the third time in a Vault Sale with the price heavily increased each time. I'd prefer it if they had a vault sale and released everything in that sale just that once, instead of bringing back the same items. Its put me off.

Definitely - I have a problem with that too. 

But in this case I don't see what's dishonest. I can see why they might want to hold back some of the edition for sale later at the secondary-market rate to make a bit more money. I guess if they've priced them too highly, they won't sell, but surely it's better for the money to be going directly to support the print makers than to some kiddy on eBay immediately after release. And if the additional income that GP receive from these sales helps them to keep the price of future releases lower, surely that's a good thing. 

I think someone in this thread was upset that they'd enquired about a piece and been told that none were available for sale, then found that the piece had become available in multiple vault sales. I can see why that's frustrating, but again I don't think it's dishonest. In the nicest possible way, we should all try to keep our sense of entitlement in check from time to time. 

One area where I think these gripes becomes valid is where there's a lack of transparency about edition sizes and the number of PPs / APs / blah blah blah that become available, particularly if these are unnumbered and seemingly endless. I vaguely remember some complaints of that nature on here before, and I can see why people might (legitimately) have a problem with that. Personally I do think this lack of transparency is problematic. 

I don't have any history with GP, and have absolutely no interest in any of these prints (although I do quite like those Louis Masai bees), but I do think some of the comments in this thread are unfortunate.

While I can understand the frustration in seeing something you missed out on originally suddenly becoming available at an increased cost, I think they're perfectly entitled to handle their sales in that way if they want to.  Just as we're all entitled to boycott these sales (or GP in general) if we don't like the way they operate.

Frustrating? Quite possibly. Disappointing for those who previously missed out? Almost certainly. Dishonest? Not that I can see.

Like it or not quite a few guys always purchased to flip , used to sell and drew more buyers in , now with these vault sales supposedly set at market price but always a lot higher to set worth to the artists .but as these prices keep getting higher and higher it's putting people off , they do not sell , eBay sales use vault sales as a reference and this all goes round in circles the art doesn't sell and artists feel the negative impact.
Don't think they suffer or struggle , small outfit , the prints are expensive in the first place and they produce for artists when they are showing at different galleries anyway, plus the fact many people contact them directly and get special handfinished prints long sold out , and the ability to sell many aps and pps at yet higher prices as they are deemed rare but seem unlimited .

As always, you manage to bring an unpleasant air to proceedings.

However, I think my point is that when you enquired if any were available, you got an honest answer that none were available for sale. This doesn’t mean that they didn’t have any prints left earmarked for a future use / sale / whatever. It just meant that none were available to be sold to you at that time.

I would have thought that to be a fairly simple concept to understand, but then your opinions and interpretations often surprise me.

In that scenario I would entirely agree - that’s dishonest, immoral and (I would hope) illegal. But that’s a completely different example that doesn’t equate at all.

A better example would be if you’d bought a print that arrived damaged - you then ask for a replacement but are told there are no more left. Then months later, more magically appear in a vault sale. Again, dishonest.

But the situation we are talking about here is that a business had, for example, 100 of a ‘thing’. They decide to sell 90 of them and keep 10 for sale at a later date. When the 90 were gone, you asked if any more were available for sale, and were told no. That is not dishonest.

As I initially suggested, this reads as a case of misplaced entitlement.

It's interesting because this bit "Nope, I asked if any were left, and they said 'nope, none left, sold out, sorry'." is the bit that, to me, seems totally fine - they were selling 90 (in my example), all were sold, so none left for sale at that point. But to you, it feels dishonest. Perhaps I'd feel differently if it was something that I'd wanted at the time - hard to know for sure.

I'm not entirely sure how I ended up defending these vault sales - I'm no fan of them really. It's a bit like the tiered pricing but with less transparency. I don't think it's dishonest, and I can understand why they do it, but perhaps if they were a bit more open about how they handle their releases then there's would be less room for (mis)interpretation.

Out of interest, if they announced a release by saying "edition of 100, with 80 for sale online on Thursday 5pm", would that be an improvement? I've seen them posting on this forum from time to time, and given that we now know that this is how they operate - with some prints held back for future sale - perhaps there's an opportunity to suggest a clearer way for them to go about it that wouldn't cause ill feeling. 

You need to actually clarify the correspondence. Words matter.

Did they say they have no more? Or did they say they have no more available?

It’s a big difference.

Yes, being honest is a vast improvement over lying. They should state 'ed. 100, 20 presale, 70 general sale, 10 marked up if ebay flippers do well for vault sales'. 

Are they gonna do that, of course not, because deceiving people into believing all prints of an edition are for general sale makes them a lot of money. I'm just not going to buy from them because of it and I don't mind calling them out for it.

They just create the hype..... look how many pieces were previously "sold out" yet continue to appear vault after vault.... They are not only holding pieces to make money later with these vaults but creating the scarcity of the art itself.  Just as bad as a De Beers or other larger corporation, that is what rubs me the wrong way and why I won't be buying from them anymore.  Sucks as I do love the quality of the pieces I have but done.  

I’m pretty sure their business will survive even if there are a few people don’t like the way they do things. The stuff they put in these vault sales always seems to sell out..Well appear to anyway.

And appear again and again..
Every new artist that appears always sells out so they do well.
The average buyer would not notice , but the forum is full of collectors and follow what is going on so more up to speed with events