How does a limited edition work and what should you look out for?

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

There is something odd about fine art photography: artificial scarcity is deliberately maintained. Expensive photographs are (almost) always part of a limited edition. That is strange, since you could print a photo infinitely many times. So how does it work?

What is a limited edition?
When you buy a photograph, it is either part of a limited edition or an unlimited edition. Most photographs fall into the latter category: IKEA produces endless quantities of photographs with the same image.

But online you often deal with unlimited editions too, such as stock photos and image libraries for news photos.

It is different with photographs sold at a gallery or displayed at an art fair. Suddenly, there is scarcity in the market. On (or next to) the photograph, you will see:

- The number of photographs in the edition
- The position of the photograph in the total series

For example: if you buy the 3rd photograph from a series of 20, the front or back of the photograph will say: 3/20.

About Artist Proofs
Most series consist of 5 to 30 prints of a unique photograph. Usually, around 2 Artist Proofs are added to these, indicated as + 2AP.

Artist Proofs are (officially) the first prints approved by the photographer after printing. The photographer usually keeps these himself. The print may later be offered for sale after the edition has sold out, at a much higher price. Or the photographer uses them to lend out temporarily for an exhibition.

Who decides the size of the edition?
The gallery and the photographer decide together how many prints of the photograph will be sold. And that is where the artificial scarcity begins. Without scarcity, there is no pressure to buy the photograph now. Besides, the photograph is hardly an investment if it can be printed endlessly.

When deciding the size of the edition, the photographer's popularity among collectors is taken into account, among other things: the more popular their work, the smaller the edition and the more expensive the photographs. If it is an up-and-coming photographer, the series is somewhat larger and the prices are lower.

With more well-known photographers, even the position of the photograph in the edition matters. If you buy the last photograph, it is almost always many times more expensive than the first few photographs.

Extremely large "limited" editions
Photographer Peter Lik makes optimum use of limited editions. He does stretch things rather far, though: 995 prints of each photograph are available. Each time 10 per cent of the prints are sold, the price rises significantly. The sooner you buy, the cheaper your print.

And he also has 45 Artists Proofs available. They are not intended for an exhibition, because Lik is not popular in that circuit at all.

No, he would rather sell those 45 prints for an even higher price than the regular prints. They shamelessly sell for 200,000 dollars or more.

Want to read more about this crafty businessman? I previously wrote an article about his clever tricks on my blog.

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