I put 35 euro on a hare print at the market and sold nine, so I put 45 on the same print a fortnight later and sold one

Genuinely still annoyed about this.

I've an edition of 40 of the hare, the one leaning into the wind with the ears back, black on cream Zerkall. Small, about A5. Hand pulled, all of them a bit different at the edges, which is half the point of the thing. I had it at 35 for the Saturday market in the square, sold nine in an afternoon, felt like a proper printer for once.

So I thought right, that's the market telling me something, and I put it at 45 for the next one. Sold one. To my wife's cousin, and I'm fairly sure she was being decent.

Same print. Same paper. Same hands. Two weeks apart. And I've gone back and forth on it since like an eejit, wondering was it the rain, was it that the other stall had the coffee, or did I just get the crowd that day and the price had nothing to do with it at all. Head melted.

The thing that nags me isn't the money, it's that I still don't know what the print is worth, and I've been doing this long enough that I feel like I should. Forty euro? Fifty? I've a notion that 35 was me pricing it for people I like rather than pricing the work.

Anyway I'm back at 35 for the next one because I'd rather shift them than sit looking at a box of hares in the spare room.

If anyone else has done the thing where you put the price up and it goes quiet and you can't tell if the price did it or the day did it, I'd love to hear it, because I'm starting to think you can never actually know.

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Mateo Serrano·2w

joder, this one hurts because I've done the exact same thing except with a bowl. sold a whole run at the market at 30, thought right, I'm undercharging, went to 40, and then just sat there watching people pick it up, turn it over, put it back. two Saturdays in a row.

thing is I don't think 35 was the market telling you the hare is worth 35. that was one afternoon, one crowd, one mood. you priced it where it sat in someone's hand without them having to think about it, and that's a different thing to what it's worth. 45 might genuinely be the right number, it's just not the right number for a stranger on a Saturday with cash in their pocket.

the wife's cousin bit made me laugh though. at least she was honest enough to buy it, mine just say "oh it's lovely" and put it down.

Lukas Brandt·2w

I think you are right that 35 was not the market telling him anything, but I would push back a little on the idea that 45 is the right number that just needs a different room. Maybe it is, maybe it is not. The trouble with print at that size and that price is it is an impulse purchase or it is nothing. At 35 it goes in the bag with the vegetables. At 45 the person has to decide they are buying art, and then they are not buying a hare any more, they are buying a decision. Different animal entirely, so to speak.

I have watched this on canvas too, though there the sums are bigger and the customer is already in a gallery and already expects to be making a decision. At the market the whole transaction is a mood. Raise the number and you change what is happening, not just what it costs.

So I would say, keep the 45 for the people who want to buy a print. Keep a stack of the 35 ones for the Saturday. It is not dishonest, it is just knowing which conversation you are having.

Niall DohertyOP·2w

That's a fierce good way of putting it. The 35 one goes in the bag with the spuds, the 45 one is a decision, and nobody at a Saturday market wants to be making decisions, they want to be handed a bag. And the "buying a decision" bit is the killer, because then the hare isn't a hare any more, it's a small bit of guilt in a paper bag going home under a cabbage.

Here's the thing that's been eating at me though. If it's a pure impulse price, then 35 isn't the right number either, it's just a number low enough that nobody has to think. Which is a miserable thing to realise about your own work at 40. I'd rather it went up than have it be something people buy because it's too cheap to argue with.

What did you do with the canvas lot in the end? Did the bigger sums hold at 45 or did the same thing happen, just louder.

Niall DohertyOP·2w

A bowl, and two Saturdays of it. That's the bit that gets me, you went back a second time with the same number and the same result, so you'd the data in front of you and it still stung.

But you've nailed the thing I was circling around and couldn't say straight: 35 wasn't the hare's worth, it was the number that didn't make anyone stop and think. There's a gap between "I'll have that" and "let me think about it" and the gap is about ten euro, apparently, no matter what's sat in your hand.

And here's the thing about the bowl. A bowl is worse, because everyone has a bowl and everyone thinks they know what a bowl costs, so they've a number in the head before they ever turn it over. At least with the hare they've nothing to compare it to. So you'd less room to move than I had and you still went and asked for it. Fair play.

I've done neither of the sensible things yet, mind. It's still sitting in the flat file at 45, some of the 40 unsold, and I keep telling myself I'll pull it out at 40 and split the difference like a coward. What did you do with the bowls in the end, did you hold the 40 or come back down?

Ramesh Jha·2w

Namaste ji. Reading this I am smiling and also feeling for you. The work is same, only the number changed, and the buyers also changed. Your nine buyers on that Saturday, they were the ones who had come out to the market wanting something, they had the 35 in the pocket and the mind already made. The next fortnight it is not the same people at all standing there. So it is not that your hare became worse, only that the right crowd was not in front of it.

Myself Ramesh, I do Mithila painting from Madhubani. Same thing happens here with the cooperatives. Price small also, big also, the sale depends on who is walking by that day and what they already came to buy. Do not lower your worth over one slow Sunday.

One suggestion if you will permit. Keep the 45 for the print itself, but put a small note with the hare, what is this animal, why he leans into the wind, how many pulls, the Zerkall. People pay more when they know the story. And maybe keep two or three of the 35 also aside for the regular market crowd, both rates are honest.

Nine in one afternoon is no small thing. That is the market telling you something good also, that your hands are worth looking at. The one sale to the cousin, that one we can keep aside and not count 🙏

Niall DohertyOP·2w

Namaste Ramesh, that's a kind way of putting it and I think you're dead right about the crowd. The Saturday lot had the bit between their teeth, they'd come out to buy. The fortnight after was a different square entirely, fellas buying spuds and a birthday card.

The Madhubani thing has me curious though. When the co-operative puts the price up, is it the tourists that go quiet or the locals? And does anyone ever put it back down again after, or is that a loss of face once it's said out loud? I only ask because I'm half tempted to drop the hare back to 35 and never speak of the 45 again, but I know my own stubbornness and I'll probably just sit there with the one sale and a face on me.