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Comment by beaconstudios | Hacker News Reader

There are other vices that can eat into millions. Conspicuous consumption and buying ridiculous luxury vehicles, for two examples. There's diamond studded, gold plated everything these days for the millionaire who wants to own the most expensive phone, bra, watch, shades, handbag and so on.

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But even the price of a diamond has a limited range. Art on the other side has no upper limit. A little canvas with something conceptual drawn on it can easily reach tens of millions of dollar.

I always thought that part of the pleasure people get by shopping is purchasing things that are stlighly more expensive that they can afford. That goes from buying the cheapest scarf at Hermes to buying an expensive car and anything in between depending on your means.

Problem, how do you get that pleasure when you have over $500m at the bank? Comes art dealers, who will happily make you believe that this really exclusive conceptual thing is worth more than an entire building. I don’t think most wealthy buyers care the slightlest about art. But they can finally access that same stingy pleasure a secretary can get buying a Hermes scarf.

A great deal of the art dealer world is essentially money laundering.

Money is a instrument of power. When you can buy anything it’s hard to get that dopamine release.

One can be both rich and still have a deep appreciation of art.

If you "appreciate art", you're going to buy $20,000 pieces from brilliant artists, not the name brand stuff that is only marginally more merit worthy if at all.

A great deal of art collecting by the wealthy are people who discovered a particular artist while young, and they felt a great impact from that art, but only later in life were they able to spend the large sums needed to own some of it for themselves. Parts of David Bowie’s collection are an example of this, artists whose work he fell in love with in the 1960s as a young man still far from wealth.

I'm going to peg this at less than 2% of name brand art purchases.

Since perceiving art is highly subjective, couldn't it be subject to the same kind of placebo-like effect that makes a more expensive wine taste subjectively better than a chemically identical cheaper wine?

I think it is safe to say that people who store art in a safe or a secure warehouse in Geneva do not buy art because they enjoy looking at it.

But isn't that at investment, then? A secretary will show off his scarf (let's make him a man and tone down the sexist undercurrent), not bury it.

You are seeing sexism when there is none. I don't think buying expensive cars, clothes or gadget is a male vs female thing.

Call it an investment. But that still not for the love of art.

Art is an investment and if it's worth $1 million now, it's guaranteed to be worth a lot more in 10 years. Same with exclusive cars - although the gaudy gold plated ones probably won't appreciate as much as the 60 year old Ferrari mentioned elsewhere.

Art is literally an investment asset class, with preferential tax rules in many jurisdictions. It's also used to avoid money laundering regulations.

But not all pieces appreciate in value. There have been many cases of forgery and other fraud perpetrated by high profile galleries.

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/th...

Art is an investment and if it's worth $1 million now, it's guaranteed to be worth a lot more in 10 years.

If you know that for sure I have some crypto currencies to sell to you. Guaranteed to make you a mint in 10 years.

Sarcasm aside. You're statement is bullshit. While it's possible that art apreciates significantly it's also very possible that a piece of art depreciates in value massively.

Usually this has very much to do with an artist falling out of fashion. Suddenly the prices for his works are only 1/3rd what they used to be.

If you want to read up on a more knowledgeable opinion I provide a link.[1]

Money quote : Certainly, it [art] can. A couple of decades ago, a Rand Corp. study estimated that only 1/2 of 1% of all paintings being sold at that time ever resold for more money than they had originally sold for.

[1] https://www.quora.com/Can-a-fine-art-painting-lose-value

edit : change of a redundant word + parts of my comment ended up in the quote

I wouldn't claim guaranteed. The price only goes up while enough people believe the price should increase, and I think certainly counts as a 'greater fool' investment. On one hand, there is an entire industry propping it up. On the other hand, it is a fashion. On the third hand, it will become less useful as a store of wealth as banking and tax regulations tighten.

Old cars are interesting. A 60 year old Ferrari is now worth so much because they are so rare. When they were made, those Ferrari's were a terrible investment because most of them would not be around in 60 years time.

I don’t think it’s really guaranteed.

the most expensive car you can buy is like a 60 year old ferrari, and its definitely under a billion, unlike the drug trade, but op is right that gambling scales so easily.

i wonder how these poker sites are allowed to operate from offshore and take all my money :(

I thought they weren't? https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2011/04/15/founders...

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