guessing the price of a couple of ansel prints

[paulr]

Yesterday, two days after my grandmother's 100th birthday, I was looking through old piles of stuff for a print of mine that I gave her a few years ago. She doesn't keep track of things too well, and I was afraid it might have ended up under the short leg of the coffee table.

Anyway, I didn't find it, but I did find not one, but two 24x30 framed Ansel Adams gelatin siver prints. This isn't as random a story as those old tales of the Rembrandt in the atic, since my grandfather (a playwright) became pals with Ansel back in the 50s. We also knew that my grandparents owned a couple of boxed portfolios of his prints at one point, but likely sold them when money was tight. One of the prints is the famous clearing storm over yosemite valley; the other is a landscape I'm not familiar with. The print quality is so-so ... pretty much like all his 'ain't nature grand' stuff after the 50s. But it probably isn't from much after the 50s, since that's the last time my grandparents had much contact with him. I'm going to have to go back and pop them out of the frames to look for more clues, but I'm assuming they're original, and probably printed within 10 years of the pictures being taken.

Any idea what these prints go for? I know plenty of people would love to hang onto these, but my grandmother needs to pay her rent more than she needs to look at yosemite!

[David Karp]

Check the back of the print for taking and printing dates. If I am not mistaken, Adams used to stamp the back of his prints with a rubber stamp that had blanks for these items, plus the title of the print. I think there is an example of this stamp in "The Print." That would help you date it. For value, try calling the Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite, or check their website to see if they have a similar print (vintage, size, etc.) for sale.

[Bill_1856]

Except for "Moonrise," AA's 16x20 prints of his well-known images lately go at auction for $20-25,000. There's a 10% comission at the big auctions, private galleries will take 25-50% of the sales price. So-called "vintage" prints may be worth a lot more. Can you describe the 2nd picture?

[domenico Foschi]

I sure hope the prints are worth lot more than 20.000. Your grandma could buy out her landlord...

[David A. Goldfarb]

But also bear in mind that Ansel made some low-cost reproductions, and though they are really nice prints and hard to distinguish from originals, they aren't nearly as valuable as the originals.

[paulr]

were the low-cost reproductions gelatin silver prints?
i haven't seen these prints without the glass, but i can tell that they're real prints and that they were hand spotted.

[Darin Cozine]

Funny I was just looking on ebay this morning for some prints. Reproductions are quite common and I have seen some fakes on ebay as well today. Standard reproductions vary in quality. I have seen some that rival original silver prints. As said above, check the back of the prints. You can allways take them to a dealer for an estimate.

[Mark Sampson]

The low-cost Adams photographs are called "Special Edition" prints. They are 8x10" photographs, "gelatin-silver" for you museum types, printed in quantity from the original negs; originally under Adams' supervision. The matte is embossed with "Special Edition" and are not signed.

It certainly sounds like you have genuine original prints, and the provenance makes sense- they are probably quite valuable.

[Paul Paletti]

ClearingWinter Storm in the 16X20 inch size sold at auction in NY for about $41,000 in Oct., 2004. I'm curious about the image size of your prints, since 24X30 isn't a standard size.

[paulr]

I probably estimated wrong ... must be 16x20.

[Paul Paletti]

When you take it out of the frame, there should be Ansel's signature , usually below the bottom right corner. This last year is the first time Clearing Winter Storm has outpaced Moonrise over Hernandez in its auction sale prices. I keep telling people that photography is a great investment.
By the way, watch out for the tax consequences upon sale. Everything above her cost basis is long term capital gain, but collectibles are taxed at up to 28%, depending on the amount received and your grandmother's other taxable income.