Open vs Limited Edition

[Dabow]

Hi All,

I've been pondering the best approach for Fine Art print sales for a while and would like to get the opinions of other photographers when it comes to Open and Limited Edition prints, especially anyone who has experience in sales of both:

Should Open Edition images also be available as Limited Edition, and vice-versa? Of course by doing so you may be opening yourself up to more sales, but at the same time you may be putting off prospective collectors of limited editions i.e. the fact that a Limited Edition, at a higher price, is also openly available may devalue the image's worth in the eyes of the buyer. So the LE will have a run number and may have an artists stamp... but this is the only thing that separates it from the open edition. Print size and quality will probably be the same. Thoughts?

I'm also interested to hear what anyone thinks about price scaling of LE prints i.e. the price of the print escalates by a small percentage after each sale, thereby any buyer is safe in the knowledge that their print is already worth more than what they paid for it. Just something I'm throwing around, but I'd like to know what others think or if anyone's tried this approach themselves.

[AcadieLibre]

This is how I decided to sell my fine art photographs. Each and every photo is a limited edition print, signed, dated and series number. I also charge the same price for them but my prices are fairly steep. I looked into it and lots of good arguments for open ended print runs and limited edition runs. The best line a woman told me was all her prints were limited editions, limited to the people who are willing to pay for them.

And lets say for some reason you actually sell all the limited edition prints but there is a clamoring for more of a particular photo you can make changes to the photo no matter how slight and offer it as exclusive edition which is also limited. And a lot of other ways to be able to use the same print and sell more then the limited edition copies.

That said I would never rerelease an image I made a promise on only selling limited editions so I would never do what I mentioned above but if you want you can get around it. I also attach a letter a authenticity. I have not yet come even close to getting to the limited numbers but as a someone who sells fine art photography I think selling limited editions helps your image.

Now if it is hugely popular you can sell poster versions a lot lower cost but it keeps in tact the limited edition of the Original print. Poster are not prints. I am happy when I sell one, so selling all my limited prints for any photo may never happen, but does make them exclusive lol.


Anyway just my thoughts on it, interested in other opinions also.

[Dabow]

AcadieLibre - thanks for your reply.

I've settled on selling Open and Limited edition, but Open are only available in a smaller size, whereas Limited are larger and of course much more expensive. I've also added price scaling i.e. the price of each LE print increases by a percentage after each sale.

You mention steep prices - what do you consider steep, for how many prints in a run and at what size? Are you selling direct or via a website?