[babybottom]

Hi, this is my first post here, but I wanted to discuss an issue that I've been struggling with for a while.

I got into collecting art fairly recently, and to date I have acquired up to 60 pieces, be it original oil on canvas, prints and whatnots. 

My challenge is the proper and correct documentation for all the pieces that I have at the moment. This includes invoices, records, COAs and the like. The reason why I started doing this is because I like to keep a global asset list updated for my will, and art does fall within this as well. I also don't see myself buying and selling the pieces I have, but I do want to have that option if my tastes change over the years, hence I'm setting up a private art gallery in my basement to display the work, and to allow friends/others to purchase the pieces if they are willing to meet my asking price.

So far I've been using Microsoft Word to keep tabs of my pieces, but here are my challenges:
1. How do you guys track the market value of the pieces you have on hand? do you sign up for any resources or websites to update?
2. Proper filing of documentation- on a separate folder for reference? Currently I have softcopy invoices, hardcopy print outs, delivery papers etc- what is really necessary for provenance, and what is not?
3. COAs- that come in all shapes and sizes- I've started to laminate some of those that I've gotten (Saatchi artists are one of the worst when it comes to this)- how do you guys store your COAs properly and do you often reference them?
4. I love to find out details of the artists I buy from, and it just ends up as a massively mismatched word document- I am trying to find pictures, write ups etc and its a nightmare.


Finally, I've gotten so frustrated with the process that I've started to hunt down any software that can help me with the cataloguing. I've just started using Artworkarchive-am still on their free trial, and have uploaded approximately 10 pieces so far. Its a pain in the ass but also rewarding to see the fields get populated with all the information. Do you guys use other software and if so, what would you recommend?

Thanks in advance!

[Deleted]

Apr 8, 2021 4:44:34 GMT 1 babybottom said:

Hi, this is my first post here, but I wanted to discuss an issue that I've been struggling with for a while.

I got into collecting art fairly recently, and to date I have acquired up to 60 pieces, be it original oil on canvas, prints and whatnots. 

My challenge is the proper and correct documentation for all the pieces that I have at the moment. This includes invoices, records, COAs and the like. The reason why I started doing this is because I like to keep a global asset list updated for my will, and art does fall within this as well. I also don't see myself buying and selling the pieces I have, but I do want to have that option if my tastes change over the years, hence I'm setting up a private art gallery in my basement to display the work, and to allow friends/others to purchase the pieces if they are willing to meet my asking price.

So far I've been using Microsoft Word to keep tabs of my pieces, but here are my challenges:
1. How do you guys track the market value of the pieces you have on hand? do you sign up for any resources or websites to update?
2. Proper filing of documentation- on a separate folder for reference? Currently I have softcopy invoices, hardcopy print outs, delivery papers etc- what is really necessary for provenance, and what is not?
3. COAs- that come in all shapes and sizes- I've started to laminate some of those that I've gotten (Saatchi artists are one of the worst when it comes to this)- how do you guys store your COAs properly and do you often reference them?
4. I love to find out details of the artists I buy from, and it just ends up as a massively mismatched word document- I am trying to find pictures, write ups etc and its a nightmare.


Finally, I've gotten so frustrated with the process that I've started to hunt down any software that can help me with the cataloguing. I've just started using Artworkarchive-am still on their free trial, and have uploaded approximately 10 pieces so far. Its a pain in the ass but also rewarding to see the fields get populated with all the information. Do you guys use other software and if so, what would you recommend?

Thanks in advance!

I have given up on this, I have a list of the works I have lent to friends or museums and normal folders where I have the invoice, bill of sale or COA of the work, I also take a picture of each work with my dogs or childs in front of it to have a chronological reference, especially for works I have exchanged. What sense does it make to put the value in there, what are market prices? The manipulated auction price or market prices with buyer Premium or the price with a mark-up in the gallery? Most are moon prices, but well, I think a list is good, but if you have a piece of paper in the folder for each work, that's enough.
If you have 60 Banksy Canvas oder 60 Space Invader you have a good list by your insurance and can drink a beer.

[babybottom]

Thanks for the feedback. I do like the idea of putting all my art in an easily retrievable for, it does give me some pleasure doing this. I started out with vintage lego on excel spreadsheets and its a habit that has translated into my art collection. Its partly for my asset list, also for my own documentation (had a bet with the wife about how much I've spent on art so far, and thankfully came under her own estimated amount, but not for long!). Given the amount I've spent though, I am thinking of buying insurance to cover any accidental damage, and while it would be very cool to have those 60 banksys, mine is mostly made up of pieces that tell our personal stories. I've also found value in working with a framer I can trust completely with my artwork, and now a forwarding agent for those international shipments as well.

Right now I'm using a 3 tiered plastic tray container with lids to keep my documents- bottom tray for marketing material and correspondence with artists, middle tray for invoices, bill of sales etc, and the top for all the various COAs. It works well but is rather ghetto.

I'm still going to keep at it and see how far this will take me. Would still appreciate any inputs on software that anyone is using!

[Richy Rich]

Maybe I’m doing it wrong but I just see something I like and put it on the wall? Talk of spreadsheets and cataloging gives Richy’s art boner the floppys

[ajr]

Excel and pdfs of invoices stored to cloud. No need to track market value, but nice to have a catalogue.

[aurora5]

I use Airtable (https://airtable.com/) - basically a glorified (albeit beautiful) spreadsheet.

Besides being able to easily create custom tables, I can store documents (after scanning them), add photos of the artworks, and create custom fields (such as purchase price, size, material, artist bio etc). As I use it as a database, the data is all linked and it's easy to find when I'm looking for something particular.

Regarding your other question, I don't keep tabs on the current value of each artwork. I'll only do some research if I need it (for a sale, insurance, etc), or when I see some news on here, an auction, gallery etc