I bought fine art from a gallery a few years ago, and sold it to a different gallery when I needed money
This involved phone calls to galleries in rich areas, and predicting what people care about. Setting up the meetings was not complicated, I just had to do it, which was an adventure.
The primary thing to understand is the economics first, aesthetics second or not at all. When you are a private collector, you’re a wildcard that can influence the galleries whole inventory of that era/artist/series, because art is just low float asset, where a tiny tiny percent trades and changes the price of 100% of the series not trading, based on the last price of the 1 that did trade.
so you have to think about the gallery that would care to know you’re about to crash their inventory value. theyll want to get your piece out of circulation as fast as possible, to ensure no public price history occurs.
It's also a trade in (often) one-off pieces. It's their job and skill. The gallery is in business because the staff has a feel for how much money they can get from whom for these pieces. They do have a network of potential buyers (who are or are not currently interested in your one or two pieces). They also know the people at other galleries, who have still more contacts. These contacts are not just collectors - they are all the consultants and curators who work for them.
Some pieces are bought by the gallery because it "specializes" in that artist or genre. They know what they paid and got for other pieces. Perhaps nobody else does.
And then a piece is sometimes sold not just "because it's the price" but because it has sat long enough and it's time to go.
This involved phone calls to galleries in rich areas, and predicting what people care about. Setting up the meetings was not complicated, I just had to do it, which was an adventure.
The primary thing to understand is the economics first, aesthetics second or not at all. When you are a private collector, you’re a wildcard that can influence the galleries whole inventory of that era/artist/series, because art is just low float asset, where a tiny tiny percent trades and changes the price of 100% of the series not trading, based on the last price of the 1 that did trade.
so you have to think about the gallery that would care to know you’re about to crash their inventory value. theyll want to get your piece out of circulation as fast as possible, to ensure no public price history occurs.