Collecting
The Number in the Margin
You have found a photograph you love, and it says "limited edition". What does the pencilled fraction on the print actually promise, and how do you know the promise will be kept?
Look closely at the lower margin of a fine art photograph and you will usually find three marks in soft graphite: a title, a signature and a fraction. 3/10. The fraction is the smallest mark on the sheet. It records how many of these will ever exist, and where yours sits among them.
That is the promise of a limited edition. A fixed number of prints, made once, then never again. An open edition makes no such promise. It can be printed for as long as anyone wants one, and almost everything that matters about collecting photography follows from that difference.
The difficulty is that the words cost nothing. Australia has no standard for what "limited edition" means, and no register checks the claim before it reaches a label. Consumer law forbids misleading conduct, but only after the fact. On its own, the label tells a buyer very little. What matters is what stands behind it.
Two kinds of print
A limited edition is only as good as the discipline behind it.On editions
An open edition exists to meet demand. The image lives as a file, the file becomes a print whenever someone orders one, and the supply never runs out. Most print-on-demand sites and poster shops work this way, as does much of what is sold as wall art. There is nothing wrong with that. A beautiful open edition is a perfectly good reason to buy a photograph. It is priced as a product, and it stays one.
A limited edition exists to be scarce. Before the first sale, the artist decides how many prints will ever be made. When they are gone, the image is retired. The value of the print is, quite literally, the value of that promise. A limited edition is only as good as the discipline behind it.
What makes the promise real
Start with the number. An edition of ten is scarce. An edition of 950 is a print run with better stationery. Between the two there is no official line, and the right figure depends on the work: its size, its process, how many people are likely to want it.
The editions in our own shop run from nine to 100. Dani Watson's Twilight Serenade, The Twelve Apostles is an edition of nine, plus two artist's proofs, from $1,700. John Wiseman's Silent Majesty, photographed in Africa, is an edition of 15, from $1,050. Guy Little's The Anguish, a pencil, pen and ink wash drawing that took him 147 hours, is printed in an edition of 30, from $1,750. His 1992 photograph Charybdis is an edition of 100, plus one proof, from $1,300.
Nine and 100 are both limited, because both are fixed and both are published before anyone buys. A larger edition usually carries a lower price. It does not loosen the promise, so long as the number never moves.
Then ask how the edition is counted. When a photograph is offered in several sizes, some sellers count one edition across all of them: ten prints in total, in whatever mix. Others number each size separately, so a work in three sizes carries three runs of numbers. Per-size numbering can be fair if it is disclosed, but the figure on your certificate then tells you less. Ten per size in four sizes is forty prints, and the certificate should say so. Is the edition counted across all sizes, or per size? A good gallery answers straight away.
Ours is counted overall. At IRID, an edition of 15 means fifteen prints in total, whatever the size. Dani Watson's Strength is an edition of 100 across all sizes (60 / 28 / 12), from $175 for the smallest.
Is the edition counted across all sizes, or per size? A good gallery answers straight away.The question to ask
Last, the edition has to close. No anniversary reprint, no new crop, no second paper, no special edition in a different tone. When the last print sells, the only way to own the image is to buy it from someone who already does.
Miss any one of the three and the word "limited" is doing no work. A print made in large numbers, counted in a way nobody will explain, or liable to reappear should be priced, and valued, as the open edition it effectively is.
Size is a separate decision, and the room usually makes it for you. A listed size is the sheet alone; mount and frame add to it. Our framing guide sets 50, 76 and 102 cm squares on one wall so you can judge the jump between them.
Open and limited, side by side
| Comparison | Open edition | Limited edition |
|---|---|---|
| Supply | Unlimited, printed on demand | Fixed, then permanently closed |
| Scarcity | None | Built in, and declared before sale |
| Price over time | Static, priced as a product | Can rise as the edition sells, and after |
| Resale market | Essentially none | Possible, though thin for most artists |
| Documentation | Usually none | Signed, numbered, with a certificate of authenticity |
| What you own | A good-looking picture | A documented share of a finite artwork |
| Best for | Decorating a wall affordably | Building a collection that lasts |
The paperwork
Most artists keep a few prints outside the numbered edition, marked AP, for artist's proof. Once these were the first sheets pulled to check the work. Now they are usually kept, given away or sold later. The practice is standard. The proofs should be few, and disclosed from the start. Simon Ray's Exuviae Crosshatch is listed as an edition of 20 plus two artist's proofs, from $700, and that is how it should read: both numbers, side by side, before you buy. An edition of ten that turns out to carry fifteen proofs was never an edition of ten.
Collectors sometimes prize a low number, 1/10 over 9/10. With a modern archival pigment print the two are physically identical. The number records provenance only. If a particular number matters to you, ask for it. At IRID we can hold a preferred number once we confirm it in writing; the questions page explains how numbers are allocated. What coming early to an edition can mean for price is a question for Is a Photograph an Investment?
An edition of ten that turns out to carry fifteen proofs was never an edition of ten.On artist's proofs
The signature should be in the artist's own hand, usually pencil in the margin. A stamp, a signature printed into the image or a studio's signature is a weaker thing. The hand is part of what makes the sheet an artwork.
And there should be a certificate, signed or sealed by whoever issued it. It is the paper a future buyer, or an insurer, will ask to see. It matters to the artist too. In Australia, when an artwork is resold commercially for $1,000 or more, the artist is entitled to a five per cent resale royalty, and clear records help that money reach them.
How we answer the three questions
Every IRID limited edition is declared at release, and its size is stated before you buy. The artist signs and numbers every print. Artist's proofs, where a work has them, are listed separately from the numbered edition. When an edition sells out, it closes, and we never reprint it.
The edition is counted overall, across every size the work is offered in, so the second number in the fraction is the total. Our editions and materials page covers the papers, inks and care. Each print ships with a certificate recording the artist, title, edition number, image size and date of issue. It carries the blind-embossed IRID seal and a QR code that links to our authentication page, and we will verify any certificate we have issued, on request. If you sell the print one day, keep the certificate and your invoice with it. Together they are its history.
Settle all of this before you order. A print made for you cannot come back on a change of mind, though transit damage is ours to put right (shipping and returns).
Which to buy
Start with what you want the photograph to do. If you love an image and want it on the wall, with no expectation that it will become anything more, an open edition is a good purchase and often the right one, and it should be priced like one.
If you are collecting, if permanence and provenance are part of the reason, buy the limited edition and ask the three questions: how large is it, how is it counted, and will it ever be printed again? Get the answers in writing.
Long after the sale, the fraction will still be there in the margin, in the artist's pencil: how many there are, and which one is yours.
Dani Watson is a photographer and the director of IRID Gallery, which represents contemporary Australian photographers and publishes their work in limited editions.
Ask how any work in the shop is editioned, and we will answer in writing before you buy.
