Welcome to Cultural Assets Insider for 3rd January 2022 – FREE version.
We analyze offerings across the landscape to discover undervalued, mispriced, and hidden gems.
Table of Contents
Cultural Assets performance 2021
Cultural assets finished 2021 up around 50%, one of the best-performing alternative asset classes of the year. The categories contained within cultural assets – music, historic, science items, and toys – mostly moved counter to the more well-known categories like sports cards, video games, and other collectables.
Last Week in Cultural Assets
Fractional secondary markets
Another solid week for cultural assets to round out 2021. Toys were the biggest winner while paintings and science items also put in a good show.
Auctions
As you can imagine, it’s been a quiet couple of weeks on the auction front as most venues shut up shot for Christmas.
Heritage spoiled us a bit with an alternative movie poster auction ending 17th December, though, and there were some real treats to be found.
Unlike traditional film posters, the entire set comprised modern prints featuring new and novel art and reimagining of the films themselves.
Here’s what Heritage has to say about alt film posters:
Over the last decade and a half, the Alternative Movie Poster has emerged as a cutting-edge collectible with a rapidly growing base of artists, collectors and galleries. Many modern collectors have discovered that the alternative images on these posters are vastly superior to the traditional images created by the film studios to promote their films. Part pop culture and part fine art, these high quality, limited-edition prints feature the art of some of the most renowned commercial and comic art illustrators working today.
The biggest winners were a /400 print for Return of the Jedi and a /50 for King Kong, but a few other treasures got a bit less attention:
- Ken Taylor brilliantly captures Rambo’s pathos, moulding his facial features into the terrain. Haunting.
- This only went for around $2k, but the art itself is stunning. One of my favourites. Reminds me a bit of The Raw Shark Texts.
A few others to check out include Dune, Blade Runner, The Shining, and a Clockwork Orange.
If you want to learn more about Alternative Posters, make sure to check out both Mondo and the Spoke Art Gallery.
Many of the posters achieving $1k+ came from Mondo and originally sold for around $50.
Three posters currently available that I like a lot:
Mondo also has some amazing original vinyl, if that’s your thing.
As always, do your own research and only buy art that you love.
This Week in Cultural Assets
Fractional IPOs
Just one item up for IPO this week at Rally.
- Market Cap: $13,000
- Inferred Value: $9,000
- Drop Details: 1/3/22 on Rally
- Recommendation: [INSIDERS ONLY]
Secondary Markets
One new item trading this week on Rally – NASA Apollo 11 Buzz Aldrin Control Stick. We wrote about the controversial history of this asset when it IPO’d. At the time of writing, it’s set to open slightly down in trading today.
- Market Cap: $231,500
- Inferred Value: $225,000
- Recommendation: [INSIDERS ONLY]
At Auction
Heritage (again sorry) is currently running an Urban Art Showcase auction this week and there are a few notable pieces from KAWS. It also features a couple of pieces from Damien Hirst, including one from his NFT project The Currency. Japanese artist Takashi Murakami also features with two lithographs.
Both Murakami and KAWS have pieces currently trading on the Otis secondary market.
What’s next in Cultural Assets
Several of the major auction houses are thrusting into 2022 with some vigour.
Perhaps the most anticipated auction comes from Sotheby’s, which kicks off its Master Paintings and Sculpture series in late January. It features several lots expected to top seven-figures, including the Correggio above.
Sotheby’s is also featuring an extensive American collection including the priciest tomahawk I’ve ever seen.
Christie’s is auctioning off the Peter and Barbara Goodman collection, which is full of American folk art. It includes a $20k set of stacking cups very much like the ones my children play with. They’re also auctioning off a wide variety of 19th century American art, which isn’t to my taste but is apparently very popular. Lots of horses and such.
Heritage Auctions has its usual slurry of collectables through January including a sledge hammer.