[ExI] Antiques as a store of value

[Emlyn]

On 13/02/2008, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Feb 12, 2008 7:19 PM, PJ Manney wrote:
> > Your 2 cents are correct.  The psychology is rife in any form of
> > collecting.  It could be art, cars, stamps, etc.  In fact, the
> > reproduction often raises the original's value because the fame of the
> > object is heightened and therefore it's more desirable as an object.
> >
> <snip>
> >
> > The prices reflect the knowledge that these things can be sold at any
> > time to another person just like the buyer.  They are valued
> > commodities and investments in a psychology that is unlikely to
> > change, as long as there are a small group of people with unbelievable
> > amounts of money and many more without.
> >
>
>
> Agreed 100%!  That is exactly the way the art and antique market operates today.
>
> My point is that (still to be invented nanotech) molecular copying
> will produce another absolutely identical specimen. Not a copy, not a
> print, not a similar object, but an object that is atom by atom
> identical.
> Put two in the same room and nobody will be able to tell the difference.
> They will both have the same spots of the artist's blood where he cut
> his finger, etc. Every test you can do, x-rays, carbon dating,
> chemical paint testing, will all come up with the same results.
>
> If you cannot know which is the original, where is the added value?

And there's the rub. You can know which is the original, but you have
to keep your eye on it. It becomes a shell game.

I'd expect these markets to respond to the kinds of copying you
propose with an increasingly intense system of tracking the originals
at all times. As long as you can keep some hopefully trustworthy,
hopefully infallible technological eye on the prize at all times, it
stays a prize.

It might break down eventually due to fraud, of course.

-- 
Emlyn

http://emlynoregan.com