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3 minutes ago, k12 said:

it is numbered, but can't anyone just number it to make it look real?

well that's certainly possible - it's one of the major reasons i don't like that unnumbered fakes/reprints are on the market. everybody loses except the assholes selling them. i've said it before but these people shouldn't be rewarded for this sort of behavior.

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2 hours ago, k12 said:

it is numbered, but can't anyone just number it to make it look real?

Warpig is easy enough to track down outside of eBay through his aol address and we have done so earlier in this thread. It all points back to a print shop that is located in Brooklyn. That means he has the equipment to make copies of Lithographs and has access to good quality paper to make them look legitimate enough to pass off using his fake “VIP” story.

Does that mean the numbered litho you bought from him is fake? Not necessarily, but think of this... he also sells shirts which are brand named Gilden from venues where it is known that they didn’t sell Gilden brand shirts and he tries to pass those off as real. He is not an honest businessman.

It would be interesting to see a picture of the numbering on your lithograph and compare it to a photo of one that was known to be bought at the venue. Some numbers are printed in sequence by the printer while other shows had hand-numbered lithographs. If they look completely different, then that removes any doubt you bought a high quality fake. If they look similar, then you could have bought a legitimate lithograph that was left over from the show.

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Warpig’s VIP story is plausible, what’s not plausible is that he has a connection to the GNR camp. And, if he did have such a connection it’s even more doubtful that he would use that connection to profit from it. The fact that we never see any low number lithos on eBay indicates to me that if a crew member was given a litho he was strictly told not resale it. That’s an assumption on my part, but it’s what i believe. So, I just don’t  see this guy having access to the GNR world first and formost and profiting from said connection. And if he did I believe he would be able to show some kind of Provence to validate his story. The only I don’t understand is why he doesn’t duplicate Euro or Japan lithos. He could have purchased a Kobe and made a small fortune duplicating those lithos. I’m certain many people here would purchase a Kobe duplicate.

Edited by The Holographic Universe
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19 hours ago, Dacatzass said:

Warpig is easy enough to track down outside of eBay through his aol address and we have done so earlier in this thread. It all points back to a print shop that is located in Brooklyn. That means he has the equipment to make copies of Lithographs and has access to good quality paper to make them look legitimate enough to pass off using his fake “VIP” story.

Does that mean the numbered litho you bought from him is fake? Not necessarily, but think of this... he also sells shirts which are brand named Gilden from venues where it is known that they didn’t sell Gilden brand shirts and he tries to pass those off as real. He is not an honest businessman.

It would be interesting to see a picture of the numbering on your lithograph and compare it to a photo of one that was known to be bought at the venue. Some numbers are printed in sequence by the printer while other shows had hand-numbered lithographs. If they look completely different, then that removes any doubt you bought a high quality fake. If they look similar, then you could have bought a legitimate lithograph that was left over from the show.

here is a picture s-l1600.jpg

 

and his address is a freaking print shop in Brooklyn? isn't that a giveaway he is a fraud?  and I was actually at that Show, and there were alot of them leftover as I remember thinking of getting one, but I got one from Night 1 and I didn't want to drop another $50, if this person has connections to GNR it could be plausible he is getting the left-overs I guess, wish there was a way to know for sure

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That looks legit to me.

But I've never really doubted the numbered lithos out there. It's the ones without numbers that are not genuine to me, even if they're 'real'..... if that makes any sense. Like I said, I always thought it was fishy that he never sold any unnumbered lithos until people started asking him about the numbers. Then he suddenly started mixing numbered and unnumbered lithos. To me, it looks like the action of someone trying to make his story plausible by mixing in real lithos.

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On 2/10/2018 at 4:03 PM, The Holographic Universe said:

I purchased a Rocky litho from warpig and the quality was the same as legit litho I purchased from Man in Japan.

Same here, however some have pointed out here (and in other threads and other Facebook groups/forums) that because these are lithographs and not silkscreens they can be easily discounted.  I don't know much about the printing process to know about any of that but assuming that's true then I guess anyone with access to a decent printing press can do this.  As we all know, some of the lithos were made with “special effects”.  This would include 7/23/16 NJ, the New Orleans glow in the dark, the Perth spider, and the Hershey chocolate bar design to name a few.  Again I don’t know much about the printing process or how easy those would be to fake.  Has he sold any of those?  I am not saying that just because he hasn’t proves that he is bogus, I am just curious.

On 2/10/2018 at 7:35 PM, amaninjapan said:

I don't have an opinion either way about the shirts since I don't collect them or pay attention to them. I've only ever been discussing lithos.

I know you are discussing lithos.  I may be dumb but I am not that dumb, lol!  The point is not to change the subject to shirts.  The point is to show examples of legit items that he is selling.  Not only that, but if you look at this dude’s feedback (not just the numbers but actually go back and look at everything he has sold), he was selling plenty of things before he ever started selling GNR lithos, including lithos/posters/silkscreens/etc. from other bands.  He just is going to one day decide to risk his reputation by getting into fake lithos?

Posters are too different from numbered lithographs in my opinion.

Again, I understand that posters are different than lithographs in many respects.  I brought it up to show an example in the past of the band only giving certain things out to VIPs.

I always go back to a quote I heard on a TV show as a kid - "A lie is most convincingly hidden between two truths."

The best way to hide a fake is to mix it in with real items. That way if anything is ever questioned, this exact type of conversation pops up. Someone just says "but look at all these real ones!" and the seller gets the benefit of the doubt. That's how fake paintings are sold for millions. People mix them in with real paintings and the fakes are assumed to be real as well.

I always found it VERY strange that he was selling ONLY unnumbered lithos and then when people started to question him... ... wow now he's selling numbered ones as well. He had nothing but unnumbered 2016 US lithos and around the time multiple people started questioning his lithos, suddenly he started listing fairly cheap numbered lithos - Australian lithos that we all know were available online to purchase for cost price, cheap 2017 US lithos etc. Investing in a few real ones to sell to give authenticity to the fake ones you're selling is a sneaky-smart decision if it helps keep the money flowing in.

As for the solid feedback, two reasons:

1) If you paid $50 for a fake item when a real one would cost $300, you'd be happy to leave positive feedback too. You're happy you got a convincing fake for cheap instead of blowing out your budget on a real one
2) If you complain on Ebay now, all the seller needs to do is accept a return and refund the money. Once the buyer receives the money back, they're not allowed to leave feedback. If they've already left feedback, the feedback is deleted. This happened to me when I bought an 'authentic' patch for a sports jersey that ended up being an obvious fake. I left negative feedback, demanded a full refund. I got a full refund and Ebay sent me a message saying my feedback was removed since I received a refund. Ebay feedback is NOT what it used to be.

Agree to the possibility for sure and that is a great quote!  I know myself and quite a few others that questioned him early on, and boy did we.  Even then he hadn’t switched to numbered ones yet, so it hadn’t happened exactly like you are saying but that’s all semantics anyway.  Your point is valid and does remain.  However he does have numbered rare ones as well.  Some of the Canadian ones are some examples.  I disagree about your first feedback point.  If I paid $50 for a litho I would not be happy if I found out it was fake later.  Yes, happier than if I had paid more, but still not happy.  Agreed though about your 2nd feedback, however it’s not just about positives and negatives.  It’s also about neutral feedback and, more importantly, about the comments people leave.  Yes, most people leave generic bs comments.  But if I ever have something to say I say it there.  You can still be happy but give a warning to others.  Or leave neutral feedback with some info in the comments as well.  All without demanding or getting a refund. 

However I think most of us are missing the most important thing here.  Imagine you were going to sell a knockoff on eBay and not admit to that in the listing.  Personally I would be concerned about two things.  One, making it as convincing as possible, and two, making sure my ass is covered vis-à-vis lawsuits.  GNR and/or the artist and/or Bravado (whoever it is that owns it) only own the image, right?  I don’t think there is copyright when it comes to the numbering.  OK, perhaps the concern for lawsuits goes out the door since it appears that eBay doesn’t give a rat’s ass.  Then your only concern is making it convincing.  Meaning why the hell didn’t he number them to begin with if he was faking them?  I would have if this was my endgame.  You could make the argument that numbering them could get you caught, but the chance of thatis pretty small.  Someone that owns a lithograph that matches your number would have to call you on it which means that they would have to be watching all these auctions and that is quite unlikely.

Been there, done that. It usually doesn't work that way. The artist sells the design to Bravado and the production of the lithos is usually out of their hands.

Do they sell the design to Bravado?  Don’t get me wrong, I am not doubting you, and thank you for looking into this and answering my question, but if the design was sold to Bravado then how the hell does Sara Ray get away with selling the ones she was selling on etsy?

At the end of the day - this is how I feel: The numbered lithos are exactly that - numbered lithos. Hypothetically, if I get a litho direct from the printer that I know is legit but unnumbered, to me that's still not real. Anybody who has collected limited edition prints knows how "Artist Prints" are usually valued much, much, much lower than the real run. They're leftovers, offcuts, imperfect prints, damaged prints etc. If these lithos are magic 'extras' then they're like APs except even less valuable since we don't know where they come from and they're being sold by some random guy. So it just amazes me people are willing to pay more for a sketchy litho than the original cost price of a real litho.

If Bravado was out there making clearly and obviously unnumbered lithos that were easy to distinguish from the numbered lithos and they were charging $25 a pop then I would be all for that. The non-limited lithos would be clearly different, people would know which type they were getting and people wouldn't be paying limited edition prices for something that is obviously not limited edition. I know there's a lot of people out there who 'just want a cheap one' and aren't willing to pay the premium prices some of these designs are going for now but in my opinion, this isn't the way to do it.

Paying premium prices for lithos that are not part of the proper numbered run disadvantages pretty much everybody.

- It legitimizes the sellers' practices and rewards them for doing the wrong thing
- It drives up the prices of fake lithos, rewarding all the scumbags - "Oh if the fakes are just the same as the real ones, I guess I'm willing to pay a little bit more for a fake"
- It reduces the price of real lithos, punishing people selling real lithos - "Oh if a fake is just the same as the real ones, then why should I pay more for a numbered one?"
- It promotes flooding the market with non-authentic lithos
- It makes it more difficult to distinguish what's real and what's not

Obviously people are allowed to spend their money on whatever they want. I just don't like rewarding bootleggers. Even if it means I have to pay a premium for a litho to know it's legit, at least I'll know it's legit.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel the same way, I would much rather have a numbered lithograph than unnumbered.  I purchased them because I felt at the time it might be the only way for me to get one and, as noted already, I feel they are legit.  If I ever buy a numbered lithograph of a design that I already have unnumbered, I will sell the unnumbered one for the same price I bought it for or less certainly.  If I ever sold a numbered one that would be a different story. 

As for the next thing, if you are talking about prints that have an AP on them and numbered, I have always heard of them called Artist’s Proofs.  I actually know that most people consider those to be more valuable.  Here are just two links discussing it:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Vintage/Value-of-an-quot-Artist-s-Proof-quot-as-compared-to-a-numbered/td-p/23795238

http://www.simplyjackvettriano.com/blog/what-is-the-difference-between-a-limited-edition-print-and-an-artists-proof

As for the price these lithos are selling for, I’m sure everyone would much rather pay less always.  Same for the numbered lithos.  I think part of it is the market and part of it is people like me who feel (perhaps inicorrectly) that it might be their only chance to get one anytime soon.  I bought one or two unnumbered lithos from warpig, and he was later selling numbered lithos of the same design.  Of course I wasn’t happy and I told him.  I believed his response.  On the other hand I also paid far less than what the numbered ones in question sold for.  I might have even purchased the numbered ones that he started selling (the same design that I have unnumbered) except I wanted to hold off on spending.  I agree about creating cheaper versions and will comment on that later.  I agree with you last sentiment but only if these were for sure fake.  If we go with the position that they are legit unnumbered lithos then I would have to disagree with you about them having an adverse effect on the market.  The only way to prove that would be to talk to someone that bought an unnumbered one and ask them if they would rather buy that than a numbered one, even if the numbered one cost more.  I can’t speak for everyone, but I would certainly pay more for a numbered one had they been available at the time of purchase.

But your point does remain for ones that truly are fake.  Who knows, perhaps a lot of lithos (not just from warpig) sold on eBay have been fake!  No real way to know.  What should be done (of course it would take some work and there would likely never be a complete list) would be to make a list of what numbers people own out there and update as they are sold/traded.  Then if you go to buy one on eBay for example, you could check the list.  Again not foolproof, but a start.

 

 

On 2/10/2018 at 10:59 PM, The Holographic Universe said:

The Lord of Lithos has spoken.

PS-(Said with affection)  

All hail the lord of lithos!  Look man, amaninjapan is a great person, an excellent wealth of knowledge on lithos, and a well-behaved forum member.  But so are a lot of us.  That’s the great thing about the forums/facebook groups, a place for all of us to come and share our knowledge/evidence, and learn something.  But blind faith is never a good thing.  Just because amaninjapan says does or says something doesn’t mean it should be taken as gospel (I am not saying you yourself are doing that).  I think he would agree.  And the same with me or anyone else on here.  Hell, even Axl!  Remember when soon was the word, lol?  Listen to all viewpoints, examine the evidence, and then make a judgement for yourself.  Even then, unless there is incontrovertible evidence you may want to qualify your statement.  Instead of “These lithos are fake bullshit”, maybe more like “I feel these lithos are fake bullshit and here’s why.”

On 2/10/2018 at 11:18 PM, amaninjapan said:

Haha

Well look, I obviously can't discount the possibility that there are unnumbered lithos out there in the wild. I mean, let's face it there's almost no limited edition product out there that is confined to literally the number they said they made. One of my favorite cars ever, the Mclaren F1 LM, was limited to a production run of five cars to commemorate the five Mclaren cars that finished the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans. But of course, even for that car, six of them exist because another one was built and kept by Mclaren.

If - and it's a big if - if these unnumbered lithos are from the same batch as the genuine numbered lithos, I'm STILL skeptical of the sellers "VIP spares" story. I have multiple reputable sources that VIP lithos are numbered and am inclined to believe them. What is far more likely to me is that they are print overruns. And if a real numbered litho sells for $50, I am sure as shit not going to spend more than that on a copy.

It's only a matter of time before someone buys a fake with a shitty attempt at handnumbering.

 

Again here I feel different.  It’s semantics about the definition of VIP.  Yes, I absolutely believe a handful are taken off the top for the band.  And I think these are for the band, band families/close friends, workers (Beta, Fernanado, Del, as examples), the inner circle if you will.  My definition of VIP (not including the sold VIPP packages here) is rich people, famous people, the venue owner and family, etc.  Basically people not in the inner circle but still considered VIP at these events.

On 2/10/2018 at 11:38 PM, estrangedtwat said:

I'm with A Man in Japan.   Not just cause he's a fellow ex-pat in Japan, but cause he's done his homework thoroughly and the man clearly KNOWS HIS SHIT.

I've always said Warpig is just too fishy to be trusted.  At the end of the day people can do whatever they want with their money, but I hate fakes/phonies/bootlegs in all manner of items I collect.  If I want the real thing, it better be the real thing.  I would gladly buy a repro Cinci or London if it's advertised as such and priced accordingly for the FAKE it is....but people selling dubious items and not being forthcoming pisses me off.

We don’t know they are fake!  Sure we can all have opinions but quite frankly I haven’t seen evidence to convince me either way.  We need to be careful about accusations here.  Don’t get me wrong, I do not personally know warpig.  But in the past on this forum we have debated (and boy did we) a seller that was selling old club days flyers on here.  And some people were saying some nasty shit.  Now I have no problem saying nasty shit if we know for sure (with proof) someone is selling fake shit.  But the seller of these flyers (concertgirl I want to say) back then had a legit backstory, but the quality of the flyers was too nice for most people.  Anyway somehow they found out what people were saying here on the forum and the admins/owner at the time shut the conversation down.  We don’t want that to happen here.  Of course if it did we do have other avenues to discuss these things still.  But I think the other evidence in this person’s favor is enough maybe not to convince everyone they are legit, but certainly not to label them a piece of shit, bastard, etc (again, not saying you are doing that).  Like I said, until evidence comes forth that call for that.

On 2/10/2018 at 11:46 PM, amaninjapan said:

This forum and this thread in particular is a huge wealth of knowledge and I'm definitely grateful to have made friends (and trades!) here. I've learned a metric fuckton of stuff from here that I wouldn't have learned from anywhere else. We have a lot of people here with a lot of lithos, a lot of experience buying lithos from different concerts in different countries and I think we're all on the same page.

Agreed, I am learning things all the time on here and other forums and Facebook groups.  You know, what the internet was actually intended for!

On 2/11/2018 at 4:07 AM, Dacatzass said:

Warpig is easy enough to track down outside of eBay through his aol address and we have done so earlier in this thread. It all points back to a print shop that is located in Brooklyn. That means he has the equipment to make copies of Lithographs and has access to good quality paper to make them look legitimate enough to pass off using his fake “VIP” story.

Does that mean the numbered litho you bought from him is fake? Not necessarily, but think of this... he also sells shirts which are brand named Gilden from venues where it is known that they didn’t sell Gilden brand shirts and he tries to pass those off as real. He is not an honest businessman.

He is not mailing from Brooklyn I can tell you that!  Again, why wouldn’t he have just numbered them then?  He is selling fake shirts with Gildan tags?  Where?  If you are referring to the Australian shirts, those had tags on them when they were sold at the venue.  Confirmed by people who were there at the shows.

On 2/11/2018 at 2:34 PM, The Holographic Universe said:

Warpig’s VIP story is plausible, what’s not plausible is that he has a connection to the GNR camp. And, if he did have such a connection it’s even more doubtful that he would use that connection to profit from it. The fact that we never see any low number lithos on eBay indicates to me that if a crew member was given a litho he was strictly told not resale it. That’s an assumption on my part, but it’s what i believe. So, I just don’t  see this guy having access to the GNR world first and formost and profiting from said connection. And if he did I believe he would be able to show some kind of Provence to validate his story. The only I don’t understand is why he doesn’t duplicate Euro or Japan lithos. He could have purchased a Kobe and made a small fortune duplicating those lithos. I’m certain many people here would purchase a Kobe duplicate.

Yeah, but who ever said they have a connection to the GNR camp?  Warpig never claimed that in any of our messages but if he did say that, I suppose it’s plausible as anyone else claiming it.  What could be happening here is semantics again.  For example when I hear the term GNR camp, I think the band, band families, management, close associates (Del, Jarmo, etc.).  For example someone that works for Bravado I personally would not call in the GNR camp.  But someone else might use that term so it’s hard to know without asking them.  But look at all the Metallica stuff this guy has sold.  And all of the legit GNR shirts.  It’s clear to me this guy has some kind of connection to the industry at the very least.  Think about the numbered lithos he is selling.  I am going to say those are legit (of course I fell the unnumbered ones are too but let’s put that aside for the moment).  Otherwise if they are fake why wouldn’t he have numbered them all along (I mean that statement alone in my mind practically proves the unnumbered ones are real but again that’s besides the point I am making right now).  He has sold multiples of these numbered ones of the same design yes?  You could make the argument that he bought these at the shows like many other sellers.  But if that was the case wouldn’t he have sold them at the time the shows happened (like all those other sellers) instead of now?  As for Euro or Japan lithos all I can say is exactly!  Why not sell fakes of super rare lithos?

On 2/12/2018 at 12:11 AM, amaninjapan said:

That looks legit to me.

But I've never really doubted the numbered lithos out there. It's the ones without numbers that are not genuine to me, even if they're 'real'..... if that makes any sense. Like I said, I always thought it was fishy that he never sold any unnumbered lithos until people started asking him about the numbers. Then he suddenly started mixing numbered and unnumbered lithos. To me, it looks like the action of someone trying to make his story plausible by mixing in real lithos.

Yeah but has anyone ever said otherwise?  Of course they are not the same in terms of desirability and price as the numbered ones.  I don’t think anyone is debating that here.  As for everything else you stated please see responses above.

 

I have reached out to a few people that may be able to shed light on things.  I will let you know what they say, if anything.  Now I promised to get back to the topic of creating cheaper copies of the lithos for folks to purchase.  And here I want to start to out that perhaps our anger/frustration/energy needs to be pointed in a better direction and/or put to better use.  The first thing I don’t understand is why for the New Zealand/Australia/Singapore shows the leftover merchandise was given to a third party to sell but not for other shows.  Yes, for some shows there was no leftover merchandise, but for some shows there definitely was according to multiple accounts.  And when the New Zealand/Australia/Singapore show leftover merchandise was being sold on that 3rd party website no one involved with the band let us (the fans) know about it.  Thankfully we have some very watchful fans or who knows, perhaps we never would have known.  Worse than that is why in the fuck they don’t sell leftover merchandise on their own goddam website?  Metallica does. 

As amaninjapan pointed out, perhaps they should make cheaper poster-like copies of the lithos to sell at shows.  You can have lots of those for sale, and then a limited amount of the more expensive numbered copies.  I still don’t know of a great policy to have when it comes to selling the numbered lithos but something needs to be done for sure.  Or, as others have pointed out, a book or something with all the lithos.  Thankfully we have the amazing lithorati.com website!  I’d also like to know why the artists don’t sell prints of their designs (I touched on this earlier with Sara Ray).  But more than anything how about some well-placed anger toward eBay?  Forget about warpig for a moment, this fucking company lets off kinds of goddam nonsense be sold on their site.  How about having to prove your item is legit before selling on there you know?  Imagine some website existed where you could buy things that you know are legit.  You may not be able to know the full details of how the seller acquired the item, but the seller has to tell the website the full details.  I don’t know, something like that.  Again, excluding warpig for the moment there are clear fake items being sold on eBay currently.  I am talking auctions where the seller admits the item is a fake and or a reproduction.  OK they admitted it, but there are still intellectual property right violations, something that should be a concern for any company, especially a US-based company where these laws exist.

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Question for Uzi you're illusion or anyone else who has framed their own. What was your best method for getting the lithos flat again after them being rolled up in a tube?

looking to get some frames from Michaels, thinking of ordering some 22x28 Mats for 18x24 prints and doing that size frame. Probably will still do professional framing for shows I went to in order to include ticket stub.

thanks for any advice!

on another topic, why have the lithos become so big? So many bands are doing them now and they really are an awesome keepsake now that they aren't the old huge poster from back in the days of old that you'd never hang anywhere.

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14 minutes ago, troccoli said:

As for the next thing, if you are talking about prints that have an AP on them and numbered, I have always heard of them called Artist’s Proofs.  I actually know that most people consider those to be more valuable.  Here are just two links discussing it:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Vintage/Value-of-an-quot-Artist-s-Proof-quot-as-compared-to-a-numbered/td-p/23795238

http://www.simplyjackvettriano.com/blog/what-is-the-difference-between-a-limited-edition-print-and-an-artists-proof

Interesting, because I've collected a handful of posters from places like Dark Ink and Bottleneck and APs have always been considered less valuable because they are the ones that didn't make the cut; they have errors in them, damage, misalignments etc. But I know that for some Metallica, Pearl Jam and Dave Matthews Band posters however, the APs are much more expensive and collectible because they're not rejected prints and also usually lower volume. But the way that poster collectors on Expresso Beans seem to talk about it, I had just assumed they were exceptions and that the norm was that APs were inferior products.

22 minutes ago, troccoli said:

As for the price these lithos are selling for, I’m sure everyone would much rather pay less always.  Same for the numbered lithos.  I think part of it is the market and part of it is people like me who feel (perhaps inicorrectly) that it might be their only chance to get one anytime soon.  I bought one or two unnumbered lithos from warpig, and he was later selling numbered lithos of the same design.  Of course I wasn’t happy and I told him.  I believed his response.  On the other hand I also paid far less than what the numbered ones in question sold for.  I might have even purchased the numbered ones that he started selling (the same design that I have unnumbered) except I wanted to hold off on spending.  I agree about creating cheaper versions and will comment on that later.  I agree with you last sentiment but only if these were for sure fake.  If we go with the position that they are legit unnumbered lithos then I would have to disagree with you about them having an adverse effect on the market.  The only way to prove that would be to talk to someone that bought an unnumbered one and ask them if they would rather buy that than a numbered one, even if the numbered one cost more.  I can’t speak for everyone, but I would certainly pay more for a numbered one had they been available at the time of purchase.

I don't know man, that's basic economics, isn't it? If there's a product that a lot of people want but it's priced too high and then someone comes out with a similar but inferior product, some of those people are going to go buy the inferior product - Easier to find, cheaper to buy. The end result is that there's less people wanting the superior product so the demand for that product lowers. When demand lowers, the value lowers. And that doesn't even take into account the doubt that creeps onto the market - is what I'm buying one of the superior versions or inferior versions? People are then less likely to spend like they're buying the superior product out of fear that they might be receiving the inferior product. But then buyers are now competing with more people for the inferior product (a lot more people in the world with $50 to spend than $500, for example), so it drives the cost of the inferior product up.

32 minutes ago, troccoli said:

What should be done (of course it would take some work and there would likely never be a complete list) would be to make a list of what numbers people own out there and update as they are sold/traded.  Then if you go to buy one on eBay for example, you could check the list.  Again not foolproof, but a start.

Yeah sadly this will never happen. I think the vast VAST majority of litho owners don't even know about the collectors market for them. They just grabbed their litho from the show, took it home and carried on with their lives. It was pretty interesting though when that guy posted months ago showing someone on Ebay selling the same numbered litho as theirs! Was it St Louis? I don't remember what the end result was with that. Anyway, it would nice to have a database but even if EVERYBODY in this forum listed EVERY litho they had, it'd be a drop in the ocean and most litho numbers would never get a name attached to them. A litho registry would be pretty funny though. That's the sort of thing only reserved for million dollar Ferraris and paintings haha!

36 minutes ago, troccoli said:

Again here I feel different.  It’s semantics about the definition of VIP.  Yes, I absolutely believe a handful are taken off the top for the band.  And I think these are for the band, band families/close friends, workers (Beta, Fernanado, Del, as examples), the inner circle if you will.  My definition of VIP (not including the sold VIPP packages here) is rich people, famous people, the venue owner and family, etc.  Basically people not in the inner circle but still considered VIP at these events.

I think the more important question is whether the VIP lithos that the band takes off the top are numbered or not. I have proof that at least some are, but honestly the longer we have this conversation, the less relevant it becomes. Has anybody noticed that the guy hasn't sold unnumbered lithos for a while now? He just put a bunch of lithos on Ebay again and now they're all magically numbered. I just can't trust what type of product he's selling :wacko:

41 minutes ago, troccoli said:

We don’t know they are fake!  Sure we can all have opinions but quite frankly I haven’t seen evidence to convince me either way.  We need to be careful about accusations here. 

I've never made any accusations. I just stand by what I know - and that is: He has sold unnumbered lithos from shows that we know sold numbered lithos. Those at the very least are lithos that are not part of the 'limited edition' run that was for sale and that is enough for me to consider them not worthy of purchase. If the situation is even worse and they're copies, that's another thing. But it's a fact he has sold unnumbered versions of known numbered lithos and the provenance of those lithos is vague and mysterious. That's enough to count me out, at least.

48 minutes ago, troccoli said:

He is not mailing from Brooklyn I can tell you that!

He's based in New York though. His Ebay account says New York and a few people who have sent me private messages asking me to help verify lithos they've bought have also said that the tracking info he gave has them coming from New York. Can't say whether it's Brooklyn but it's definitely New York.

51 minutes ago, troccoli said:

As for Euro or Japan lithos all I can say is exactly!  Why not sell fakes of super rare lithos?

He's only ever sold US lithos or Australian lithos that were available to purchase online from bandshirts. If you believe he's selling copies, that sounds like he only has access to stuff printed in the US. Euro lithos were distributed by a different company and so were Japan lithos. People who make art forgeries don't go around trying to sell the Mona Lisa, they go around selling lesser works. Not going to cause much of a stir if you sell someone a fake litho for $80, but if you try to sell a fake for $1000, you might end up biting off more than you can chew!

59 minutes ago, troccoli said:

The first thing I don’t understand is why for the New Zealand/Australia/Singapore shows the leftover merchandise was given to a third party to sell but not for other shows.  Yes, for some shows there was no leftover merchandise, but for some shows there definitely was according to multiple accounts.  And when the New Zealand/Australia/Singapore show leftover merchandise was being sold on that 3rd party website no one involved with the band let us (the fans) know about it.  Thankfully we have some very watchful fans or who knows, perhaps we never would have known.  Worse than that is why in the fuck they don’t sell leftover merchandise on their own goddam website?  Metallica does.

I'm 99% certain Bandshirts and Gig-merch weren't third parties, they were the official merch distributor just like Creativeman was the distributor in Japan. I bought my New Zealand lithos from bandshirts and when they arrived with edge damage, I talked to bandshirts about it. He said that they got damaged in transit TO New Zealand so even the ones sold at the show were damaged. So they were all printed in Australia, shipped to NZ and then leftovers were shipped back. It just looks like that was the SOP for bandshirts and Gig-merch. Even Universal Japan sold a very small handful of leftover Japan merchandise on their website but it was all small stuff like leftover bandanas and badges.

But yes, GNR really needs to sell their leftovers on their website. That's just lost money right there.

 

1 hour ago, troccoli said:

As amaninjapan pointed out, perhaps they should make cheaper poster-like copies of the lithos to sell at shows.  You can have lots of those for sale, and then a limited amount of the more expensive numbered copies.  I still don’t know of a great policy to have when it comes to selling the numbered lithos but something needs to be done for sure.  Or, as others have pointed out, a book or something with all the lithos.  Thankfully we have the amazing lithorati.com website!  I’d also like to know why the artists don’t sell prints of their designs (I touched on this earlier with Sara Ray).  But more than anything how about some well-placed anger toward eBay?  Forget about warpig for a moment, this fucking company lets off kinds of goddam nonsense be sold on their site.  How about having to prove your item is legit before selling on there you know?  Imagine some website existed where you could buy things that you know are legit.  You may not be able to know the full details of how the seller acquired the item, but the seller has to tell the website the full details.  I don’t know, something like that.  Again, excluding warpig for the moment there are clear fake items being sold on eBay currently.  I am talking auctions where the seller admits the item is a fake and or a reproduction.  OK they admitted it, but there are still intellectual property right violations, something that should be a concern for any company, especially a US-based company where these laws exist.

 

Yeah absolutely amen to everything here. Make a limited edition of like 1000 available at the show, handnumbered. Then sell like 5000 online with printed numbers or something so that it's clear that it's different from the show version.

As for why the artists don't sell their prints - like I said, the artists sell the designs to Bravado. I've had an artist who did multiple designs both for the US and Europe confirm this to me. I've also had management at Bravado state that they "control the rights to the lithograph artwork" (his words). I suspect Sara Ray's situation is slightly different and possibly this is why she was an exception. Technically her litho wasn't the 'official' litho of the show, that was Buhler's surfer design. Technically also, the designs she sold on her Etsy website were different - they were slightly larger (same paper size but the one sold at the show had a huge white border) and they were different colors. Not that this really should change anything but we can only guess that something was different with her arrangement. Personally I would prefer that the artists NOT sell them on their own website. Some artists don't have a website and it'd be a clusterfuck trying to get them all to sell them by the same rules. I would much rather GNR to sell them from the official GNR merch site.

And yes, Ebay fucking sucks for not clamping down on reproductions. The douchebags selling $10 reprints on shitty A4 and A3 paper... how is this allowed? Pathetic sellers and pathetic Ebay for letting it happen. Ebay get their 10% cut on them, so they're in no rush to spend money or energy to fix the problem.

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51 minutes ago, Gordon Comstock said:

 

This is probably the worst litho IMO, especially knowing another design was given to the band:

bfc08457762515.59e2e12bdc722.png

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https://www.behance.net/gallery/57762515/Guns-N-Roses-Poster-Prudential-Center-101217

That's not an official litho though. It's not even on par with the lithos commissioned by Live Nation that were sometimes given away as (shitty) VIP gifts (which are also not official NITL lithos). This was commissioned by someone who has nothing to do with GNR (Prudential Center) and then a solitary poster was printed and given as a gift to the band.

It is literally on par with you paying me five bucks to shit on some toilet paper and then you giving the toilet paper as a gift to GNR.

Edited by amaninjapan
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8 minutes ago, amaninjapan said:

That's not an official litho though. It's not even on par with the lithos commissioned by Live Nation that were sometimes given away as (shitty) VIP gifts (which are also not official NITL lithos). This was commissioned by someone who has nothing to do with GNR (Prudential Center) and then a solitary poster was printed and given as a gift to the band.

It is literally on par with you paying me five bucks to shit on some toilet paper and then you giving the toilet paper as a gift to GNR.

I thought it was way nicer than the official one, and I know it's not official but the guy has done lithos for Eminem, the Roots, A Perfect Circle, and so on. It's not quite the same as some random guy just giving them some, uh, shit. :lol:

Edited by Gordon Comstock
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It is well executed, but I don't get the whole Celtic sword thing. It is not swords n roses after all.

Regardless if the guy made only one and presented it to the band, I guess it is worth seeing. I have seen worse, and I am sure Warpig will have special unsigned VIP copies of it up on Ebay soon enough.

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11 minutes ago, Gordon Comstock said:

I thought it was way nicer than the official one, and I know it's not official but the guy has done lithos for Eminem, the Roots, A Perfect Circle, and so on. It's not quite the same as some random guy just giving them some, uh, shit. :lol:

Nah, it does nothing for me. At least the official one has some thematic link to the band. Not the greatest design but not the worst. I think in terms of overall combination of artistic merit, execution and final product quality, Cleveland might be the worst. Iffy theme and kinda weird design, but the real kicker was that it was printed about 5000% darker than what I'm sure was intended.

6 minutes ago, Dacatzass said:

It is well executed, but I don't get the whole Celtic sword thing. It is not swords n roses after all.

Regardless if the guy made only one and presented it to the band, I guess it is worth seeing. I have seen worse, and I am sure Warpig will have special unsigned VIP copies of it up on Ebay soon enough.

I still find it sooo sketchy that that dude started out selling all unnumbered lithos - then he got called out for it by so many potential buyers asking him questions and now, oh look surprise surprise, every single one he sells now magically has numbers.

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35 minutes ago, amaninjapan said:

Nah, it does nothing for me. At least the official one has some thematic link to the band. Not the greatest design but not the worst. I think in terms of overall combination of artistic merit, execution and final product quality, Cleveland might be the worst. Iffy theme and kinda weird design, but the real kicker was that it was printed about 5000% darker than what I'm sure was intended.

Fair enough, I think Cleveland was better than the official Newark one but neither are stellar by any means. But I like the borders, I mean George '17 is one of my favourites (of the ones that I own) so it kinda makes sense I'd like that unofficial one. And I wasn't sure if it had been posted before so figured why not share it, but now I kinda regret it if it'll end up on ebay....

Edited by Gordon Comstock
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21 minutes ago, Gordon Comstock said:

 

Fair enough, I think Cleveland was better than the official Newark one but neither are stellar by any means. But I like the borders, I mean George '17 is one of my favourites (of the ones that I own) so it kinda makes sense I'd like that unofficial one. And I wasn't sure if it had been posted before so figured why not share it, but now I kinda regret it if it'll end up on ebay....

I doubt it will. The artist seemed to go out of his way to specify he only made one and gave it to the band (who apparently just gave it right back to Prudential Center to hang up on the wall haha).

But I agree with the border of George. It definitely makes it look nice. I don't think I would want a big thick border for every design but that one looked nice and appropriate.

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10 minutes ago, Slash1227 said:

Has anyone ever come across any hand numbered signed artist proof lithos sold at the shows? I was curious if they exist.

Hey! I do not think there's any signed ap lithos sold at shows, as the name 'artist proof' suggest. they are usually only copies printed by the artists and sold on their stores. However for GnR, the only print I can think of which has an AP is Sara Ray's Rocket Queen, San Diego if I'm not wrong. 

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