Valuation

 VALUATION 

Frequently customers walk in at Van Uffelen Gallery and Picture Framing or phone Picture-IT with an old framed artwork created by an obscure artist and asks us, if we know how this piece, which had been in the family for a while is worth. Instead of putting our finger in the air and trying to please the customer by giving them a figure in the hundreds or thousands of dollars, we refer that customer to a registered art valuer. There are seven registered Art Valuers in New Zealand – one in Invercargill, Christchurch, Gisborne and Lower Hutt, and three in Auckland. This means, that this customer most likely has to travel a distance from Palmerston North for an expert valuer to have an up close view of the artwork in question. Sometimes the artwork has to be taken apart to see if it has been framed to conservation standards. Being framed to conservation standards means, that the artwork has not been trimmed glued down or otherwise been damaged by careless framing practices in the past. More about conservation framing in the next article.
How do art valuers come to fix a price to an artwork; in other words, what criteria do they apply? The valuation of art involves taking a number of factors into account. First of all there are the two main subgroups.
-   Sentimental Value
- Monetary Value 

Sentimentally valued items have a lot of personal value to the owner, as it may have been created by a grandfather. This item will have little value to an unrelated owner, who merely wishes to purchase the artwork for its beauty.
Monetary value is also variable and is dependant upon the following two:        
- Fair Market Value
- Intrinsic value 

Fair value is the agreed price between a willing seller and buyer. This takes into account previously sold similar items.
Intrinsic value is when there is a lot of demand for a certain artist’s work. In this case, the value at which an artwork is sold can be inflated such as a Renoir painting sold at an Auction House. On the other hand the sale’s price can be much lower, if fashion and the economic situation are taken into account. At Van Uffelen Gallery/Picture-IT we have been in the business for over twenty and as soon as we opened our doors we had customers ringing, asking if we can put a price onto an artwork with such and such a signature at the bottom. We like to stick at doing what we do best and that is picture framing. If we are to be able to give a customer a fair indication of the true value of their artwork, then we would have to do this every day and check prices of sold artworks around the country at a regular basis. This will leave us with little time for picture framing. On top of that, if we give the customer a highly inflated value for something, which in hindsight quite obviously has far less value on the open market, then we would damage our reputation.The reply we always give customers, who like us to value their precious heirloom, is to have it independently checked by a professional valuer. After all, we are professional picture framers.