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 Thursday, April 10, 2008
Auction of recently uncovered Arbus photos abruptly canceled
Posted by Antique Trader Staff

Wrote about this a few weeks ago. A dealer in NYC sold a box of pics he found in a box lot for $3500. Turns out there was a trove of unknown Diane Arbus photos in there - very interesting ones, to be sure - and they're worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.



The dealer who sold them is suing the dealer he says duped him out of the find of his life. The sale was supposed to have happened yesterday, I think. Turns out it was abruptly canceled. Both the New York Times and our friend Kristi Roberts at Here Be Old Things have been covering this pretty well, so I'll leave it to them. Kristi was going to the sale, and even went by the showroom to get a sneak peak.

I know that a lot of times it's buy and sell at your own risk in this business, and that they seller should have known that he was giving away a fortune at such a small price - the first clue should have been when the buyer who bought the box said, "there's nothing in there worth much at all, but I'll give you $3500 right now for the whole thing, no questions asked. 'kay?"

Money is money, I suppose, and there are no rules that say you have to play fair. Or are there? The speculation is that the original seller may just hve succeeded in his lawsuit. We'll see later.

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4/10/2008 10:34:52 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)  #  Comments [1]
4/11/2008 12:53:15 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
As a dealer, Bayo Ogunsanya purchased these photos from someone - probably for less than $3500. Should the original seller be suing him for the difference between what he sold them for and what Bayo Ogunsanya got from the other dealer? Where does this stop? Caveat Emptor? How about Caveat venditor? "Let the seller beware". I suspect that if Bayo Ogunsanya had later discovered that the item had been worth only $200, he would not have been beating down the door to give back the difference.

In my opinion, anyone who sells something is responsible for knowing what it is he is selling. If these photos were sold at auction without attribution, what would they have brought? That is the value of this box of photos in the sale Bayo Ogunsanya made. Anything extra was windfall. The new owner was able to attribute the photos. That is his windfall profit. His was a greater profit? Tough, that proves the value of education.

Mike
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