Most appraisals for personal property occur long after the client has made their own purchases or has inherited the property, and very often the first appraisal of personal property is only made after the death of the owner. An enlightening article by appraiser Elin Lake-Ewald for Wealth Management, of which a link to the full article via the title is below, provides a real-world example as to why estate planning really should begin when you buy your first major work of art, furniture or other collectible.

In many cases collectors do not have their collections appraised for insurance to update the replacement cost in the years after the purchase or reviewed to take into account the condition of the property as it ages. Also, as collectors begin any kind of estate planning, they often do not discuss with the family how to divided the property, let alone determine what their family's interest is in the property. Often what little information that the family recalls of most of this property after the collector has passed away is at best incomplete or incorrect. Therefore, unless the family member who originally purchased the property kept good records and the collector was on top of maintaining the property, whether physically and/or by up-to-date appraisals for insurance or estate planning, a good bit of important information will die with them. What if the children and other family members were not interested in inheriting some or all of the property, and the decedent and her or his family could have benefited from divesting of some of the property in a more favorable market? Or what if some of the art and other property is not really in the condition or by the artist that the collector believed and conveyed to the family?

In her very enlightening article - Have Clients Conduct Personal Property Review Before It’s Too Late - Lake-Ewald reviews how an estate planning assignment and appraisal revealed the reality that the client had not been able to see and provides an outline of a plan for collectors of art and other valuables to put in place starting now. Planning ahead from the beginning will smooth the way for yourself, your family members and any advisers involved in the estate and could considerably reduce the costs of appraisal, conservation or divestiture of property when the estate is to be settled.

With the run up to TEFAF New York and the May sales at Sotheby's and Christie's, Bloomberg has this interesting article on the effects of the stock market on the art market.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-26/is-stock-market-volatility-good-for-the-art-market

Not only does this article highlight the 1973 biennial's influence on the art market, especially via Robert and Edith Scull's consignment to Sotheby's Parke-Burnet that year, but it also highlights the tenuous nature of an artist's future in the market beyond their lifetime, especially without galleries to keep their market going.
www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-1973-whitney-biennial-helped-blow-open-market-contemporary-art?utm_medium=email&utm_source=11473892-newsletter-editorial-daily-12-05-17&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_content=st-T

The New York Times reported on the sale with a clip of the final bid
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/15/arts/design/leonardo-da-vinci-salvator-mundi-christies-auction.html?emc=edit_th_20171116&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=39707769

The Paris Photo Salon is in full swing. This article highlights the precarious market for art photography.
​
https://www.artprice.com/artmarketinsight/intense-activity-around-photography-in-paris

More art market participants than ever before now use a special tax strategy that enables them to defer paying capital gains taxes on the sale of art, making it an ever-more-important factor fueling art market turnover, especially for very expensive works of art. I call it the art market’s “rocket fuel.”
Unfortunately for art buyers, this tax strategy recently attracted the attention of the U.S. House of Representatives, which in early November proposed its elimination in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. But observers have predicted the demise of this special tax preference for art for the past 20 years, only to see it remain steadfastly in the tax code. What follows is an explanation of how the tax strategy works, and who is eligible to use it, followed by a discussion of what its repeal could mean for the art market.  

Click the link below to read the full article.
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-tax-strategy-fuels-art-market?utm_medium=email&utm_source=11195497-newsletter-editorial-daily-11-08-17&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_content=st-T

Artists and art dealers are finding ways to use more social media platforms to sell art as highlighted in this Forbes article
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zarastone/2017/09/19/how-a-26-year-old-artist-makes-40-of-sales-through-instagram/#25d35212192b

Like the markets for antique furniture, 19th century and Old Master paintings, the market for antique frames has seen an overall decline since 2008. Artsy provides an interesting look. ​https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-history-frames-market

Read this in-depth article that reveals the fascinating details - How do you make an artist into a key figure of art history? 
​https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-anni-and-josef-albers-became-21st-century-art-stars-1504713775

appraisalfoundation.sharefile.com/share?#/view/sb6f21b783fc4d35b

Also click the tab "Who is a Qualified Appraiser?" to find out more.