I was reading this book (“stabbed with a wedge of cheese”) that lists a variety of odd stuff. and in it, (under the category of odd jobs) was a line about a policeman in New York who’s focus was on art forgery, and went on to mention that he was instrumental in breaking up an art forgery ring, and locating “forged art worth an estimated 3.5 million”
says who? is it based on the value of the original piece? the quality of the forgery? a percentage of the value of the original piece? I mean who’s to say that what he found wasn’t a dime store knock off of the Mona Lisa???
I mean, when the cops find a stash of stolen merchandise, we can KNOW what the value of stuff is on the market place, even with drugs, we have some idea of the “going” price for 2 rocks of crack. But this??? any ideas???
Well, I would say the value is the amount of money that can be conned out of innocent people. In this case, that would be the value of the original art pieces. Just like they value a drug catch by the street value, really.
…or what it’s insured for. But then you’d have to ask, “How does the insurance company decide how much it’s worth?”, and I have no idea. I think they pick numbers out of a hat, myself. How in the world could a painting be worth 29 gazillion dollars, or whatever it was that the Japanese paid for Van Gogh’s Sunflowers?
What I mean is, the insured value of the original art, and presuming that the forgers, if they hadn’t been caught, would have been able to sell their fake art at something approximating current market prices. What’s a Van Gogh going for, these days?
Two years ago, the Dutch government payed about 80 million Guilders (some 35 million USD) for a Piet Mondriaan called Victory Boogie Woogie. If you ask me, Mondriaans aren’t special to begin with. But our government decided that it was worth NLG 80 million to regain this piece of national art history - fair enough.
But bear in mind, there are some things that are beyond pricing. A few years ago, a Japanese insurance company did a bid on Reambrandt’s Nachtwacht (Night Watch). They offered two billion guilders, or some USD 800 million. Our prime minister contacted the board of the insurance company himself and asked them firmly but politely never to bid on the Night Watch again. It is not for sale, not for any price.