Print Sale Result

Well, I have to hand it to Ctein. His post yesterday was too hard a sell for my taste—I was uncomfortable with it—but it was just what was needed. It got the word around, and sales of Phil's print took off on the last day. Yesterday at noon (when the sale was originally scheduled to end) we had sold 80 prints. By the time it actually did end—today at 2—the count was 204.

I have a lot of people to thank here—photographer and master Kona-grower Phil Rosenberg, of course; TOP reader Del Bomberger, who in his "day job" is a high level fundraiser, who has been very kindly lending his advice; Ctein, for ably administrating the sale and for his "9th inning piece" which Del thinks was a big part of what made the sale a success; and of course the generous TOP reader who anonymously donated the use of his beautiful condo to help spur more sales and thus more income for my fund for a new office with a new abode wrapped around it. And, last but not least, hundreds of TOP readers! Two hundred and four, to be precise.

Next up will be a really beautiful classic landscape taken by my friend Jack Macdonough, who is one of the very few people I know who actually makes a good living selling prints (not easy to pull off, as many of you might know). The print will also serve as a nice example of what a Leica S-series camera with one of its SOTA* lenses can do. I've got that slated to start at noon on Sunday, June 8th. It will run for three days, until noon on Wednesday, June 10th.

We've also got something new cooking...an old bookseller friend of mine, Andy Moursund, has made some very attractive posters of old classic photo book covers. We're planning to offer these as regular catalog items (i.e., no time limit, they'll just be there for anyone to buy whenever they want to). These will cost no more than $50 and less if we can manage it. They're very attractive, and quite cool IMHO.

Mike

*"State of the art," as every audiophile knows.

Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

MarkB: "Wow, I guess I took your assignment too literally...I certainly 'blew it' and even missed the extended deadline of that gorgeous print! Can't wait to see what comes of the sale, both in terms of future print sales and future habitations."

John Brewton: "I think the print sale was an awesome undertaking. While I appreciate the image it was not to my taste (not B&W). However, while I'm sure the vacation was enticing, Hawaii is not anyplace I'm interested in traveling to and is most certainly not on my bucket list. Sorry for this time around. Looking forward to the next offering."

Michel: "Outstanding. Congratulations. Can't wait to get my print. Now I have to save some money so I can get all these prints framed and up on the wall."

Neil Partridge: "Great result on the print sale. Please could you let us know how we'll be contacted regarding submitting our entries for the competition. Thanks."

Mike replies: You'll get a letter delivered with the print that will explain. Working on it now. [UPDATE: X that. You'll get an email from me. —Mike]

Craig: "Funny, I immediately recognized SOTA as a turntable brand but never understood it to mean State Of The Art. Probably too busy trying different sized shims under my Rega tonearm trying to optimize the vertical tracking angle to pick up on the reference."

Comments

[Jayson Merryfield]

Congrats on the success, Mike!

Will you have the time/energy/ambition to continue with the current pace of sales here on TOP? Perhaps not one a month, but it is exciting that there are more regular print sales (and book sales too one day? An update is overdue, methinks...) and it would be a shame to waste the momentum that TOP seems to be building. :)

[Frank]

I also blew it. I saw Ctein's post and read "12 o'clock" and thought I had until midnight. Ah, well. Next one maybe.