Investing in art.... are you sure you are buying from the right one?

Americans spend hundreds of thousands a year investing. The investments range from market stocks up to art, but unless you are an avid collector and know how to spot a real art investment you are certainly at risk for being a part of a fraud especially if you purchase online and don’t do your research first.

EBay offers thousands of paintings a day from sellers/artists all over the world, but unfortunately just a small percentage of what is sold there can be considered an investment, mainly because there is a lot of illegal copies, derivatives of someone else's works and because many of the credentials of many unscrupulous sellers even powersellers with 100% positive feedback, well are not what they say they are. Many enhance their resumes with tons of fake and impossible to prove information to increase the value of their works and make the impression of highly collected artists while others engage in shill biding on their own works when a new customer bids on their works (shill biding is an ilegal form of biding in which the seller of the item, a friend or a family member bid on their own auction to increase the number of bids artificially). Some claim their paintings made the cover of a book or a CD yet when serious collectors do a research well the book is not so and was never published or ended up being just a simple thesis or just an online article. Some others claim being in hundreds of galleries in Europe and USA and God knows where else yet the names of the galleries are no where to be found because they don’t say the names of any and when conducting a search on the internet well their names don't figure anywhere but on listings on eBay or on public boards left as promotional comments. Many assure they belong to art federations and organizations yet those organizations and federations have no absolute clue who they are but they are certain they are not members in there. Others claim FOX or CNN or many other tv stations bought their works and claim they will be part of a series that will launch in fall or winter or next year or that their works made it on Oprah magazine or who knows where else but yet after those statements the artist never shows pictures for reference, the website for the tv series of magazine doesn't mention a thing and the tv series itself doesn't show the so acclaimed paintings anywhere on any episode... when asked the editors, writers of the magazine or tv stations have no absolute clue about who are we talking about "we bought a painting from who for what show??... it was supposed to appear in what edition you say??". Oh! And of course my favorite one, the “artists” who claim thousands in gallery value over paintings that look like frosted cakes with 23 years of experience creating art and yet there are no resumes, galleries, articles, interviews, awards, nothing to substantiate those thousands of dollars in “projected gallery values”! These are the signals of a fraud with paint in their hands and we have seen them by the hundreds on eBay even platinum and golden powersellers with sale records of $30.000 - $40.000 per month, thousands of sales and 100% positive feedback. And you know what is the worse part? There are hundreds of so called “collectors” that buy from those “artists” as investment paying inflacted prices for a famous unknown artist. What they don’t know is that they have all being scammed big time, they are all purchasing from fraudulent sellers who have inflate their resumes with false gallery representation, shows and who knows what else and who should be locked in jail for committing fraud. All those customers and new collectors with their humongous paintings hanging over their fireplaces and those that look like frosted cakes or the apparent dog that looks more like a rat think they have bought an incredible deal for $300 or even more directly from the artist!!! What a deal!!! …. Mam, sir if you are one of them you have paid way too much. $300-$500-$1000 or even $5000 for a painting from an “artist” which resume is fake or inexistent is way too much and my advise to you is check the artist and report them because they have committed fraud and art fraud is as illegal as any other form of fraud.

Yet there are good news for you the collector. Among those scammers from Canada, UK and even here in the USA there are great artists who are not production machines, who claim being in galleries that can be confirmed, who are honest and all the information on their CV is verifiable. But how to find those in a sea of extremely bad art, tons of Chinese copycats and fraudulent sellers? The answer is simple: “DO YOUR RESEARCH BEFORE YOU PURCHASE ART ONLINE ESPECIALLY ON eBay”

Anyone can write what they want and claim tons of crap to raise the fake value of their unknown works and in the end when you try selling that same painting on a gallery they won’t even pay you half of what you paid directly from that famous unknown artist.

Artists’ that are honest display their resumes with proud, every award, every gallery they are in they would provide the link for, the name for, every article on a magazine or news paper would have a link to it on their portfolio or the name of the newspaper along with who wrote it or if not doing a search on google the gallery, magazine or newspaper would appear along with the artist in them. If they have claimed one of their paintings made it as the cover of a book, check online at amazon.com or do a simple search on google and see if that so called book appears. If what you find is just a thesis made by a college student or something similar, my friend you are in front of a scammer and you should click out. If they lied about that, be certain they can lie about anything else. You know what they say “once a liar always a liar!”

Below is a list of sellers you can be certain you can buy from because what they claim has being verified and you can do it too online or even directly to the gallery if you happen to live in the same area. We have bought from many of them and we got even more for the paintings we bought at brink and mortar galleries. Everything is today online, your keyboard is the portal to an incredible research tool USE IT even to buy that painting you want to match your couch or to put above your fireplace. $300 or more for a painting from a famous unknown artist with a fake resume is too much money to waste it don’t you think?

These are artists (below) whose works are a great investment. I warn you, you will see many unscrupulous sellers copying the style and even an entire painting from these real artists, don't get confused, even though the paintings might look similar the potential investment value is not even close, no matter what the similar ones claim and no matter for how much they sell.

Leonid Afremov - eBay ID vitebskfineart
Debra Hurd - eBay ID d.hurd
Tim Gagnon - eBay ID gagnonstudio
Gino Savarino - eBay ID ginito
William Hawkins - eBay ID sdg-art
Laurie Pace - eBay ID ellepace
Manuela Valenti - eBay ID mvstudio*gallery
The Raw Artist - eBay ID therawartist
Elle Holbrook - eBay ID abstractelle
Rita Monaco - eBay ID arteitaliana
Sarah Davis - eBay ID simba1025
Andre Dluhos - eBay ID hart64
Michael Fräser - eBay ID vikingwolf
Hall Groat II - eBay ID classicoilpainting

more artists coming soon..... do you want your artist to be listed here? post a comment requesting us to check him out. we won't post them if they are not legit or if we find something suspicious...