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How?

Well I have to say I was prepared to spend at least a few days researching artists featured in my stock, especially the watercolour paintings, and I began by keying literally one artist’s name into Google alongside the title for one of his paintings.  But rather than waiting hours or days to locate sites to help identify the majority of my artists, I got that information in less than 15 seconds, from the very first site returned by Google.  That site is www.findartinfo.com and it’s absolutely amazing; a bit slow but absolutely amazing. 

The site has a search box that allows you to key in the full name or just the surname of various artists of which there are many thousands listed at the site and pretty soon you’ll find your artists’ dates of birth and death (great for knowing if something is in the public domain), alongside recent auction prices for most artists’ work. 

It took me less than one day to study artist names for more than 100 watercolours and to know if any might fetch more than a few dollars and are therefore worth special care when listing on eBay.  I found many watercolours from artists whose work regularly sells for double figure sums and others worth just a few dollars. 

This meant I could quickly illustrate and describe items worth very little and take a bit longer uploading potentially more valuable items to eBay.  All in all my 100 or so watercolours took two days to list and seven days later more than twenty sold at prices ranging from £5 (less than ten dollars) to a whopping £67.  I made more than £1,500 on those few watercolours alone and I’m convinced those that went unsold on their first outing will sell sometime soon.

I still have many prints, engravings and paintings left to list, and I owe it all to that free search box at www.findartinfo.com.  You can sign up for a paid-for membership to the site and I’m sure that will be worthwhile, but for me the search box was all I needed to describe my paintings for pretty decent profits!

For the record, by signing up you get more extensive information about your artists, including illustrations of their work and facsimile signatures to compare against those on your paintings. 

One day’s access costs $4.95, one month is $14.95; six months costs $69.95

Now that I’ve decided to become an international art dealer (!!!) I’ll definitely consider signing up!