Friends, I have a problem. I don't know if it's because I'm becoming more of a curmudgeon as I grow older, or perhaps I simply don't have enough of an artistic temperament: but I look at the prices that some people want for their products, and I shake my head in utter disbelief. I simply can't see any semblance of value in the product, compared to the price being charged.
My thoughts on this were sparked by a New York Times list of recommended Christmas gifts priced at over $250. To show you what I mean, here are three selections from that list, with details, pictures and pricing information from the vendors' Web sites.
Duplex Birdhouse from Anthropologie: "Modeled after an iconic home style in our native city of Philadelphia, Austin + Mergold design each avian apartment with the hope that it will inspire ruminations on the ways in which we share our space with urban birds, and how their habitats are strikingly similar to our own. Made with the comforts of our feathered friends in mind, these dwellings feature a weatherproof corrugated cardboard interior that's ideal for nesting."
- Reclaimed barn wood, copper, acrylic, weatherproofed cardboard
- 15"H, 11"W, 21.5"D
- Handmade in USA
Price: $400.
Lobmeyr Drinking Glasses from Cooper-Hewitt: "Ted Muehling's newest design for famed Austrian crystal manufacturer Lobmeyr.
Set includes one of each glass: Double Old Fashion, Champagne, Beer, and Wine."
Price: $1,684.00.
Xtra Terrarium from Esque (see p. 15 of their 2010 catalog): No description given.
Price: $800.
From a utilitarian perspective, I find the asking prices obscenely high, far beyond any possible practical value these items may offer their owner. From an artistic point of view, there may be some excuse for them, because after all, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"! If someone really likes something, they're welcome to pay whatever they think it's worth to them. On the other hand, I can't regard drinking glasses, or a terrarium, or a birdhouse, as objets d'art. As far as I'm concerned they have a functional value, and that's it. From that perspective, as I said, these prices are (at least to me) mind-bogglingly stupid.
Am I daft? Is there more to these things than appears obvious at first, to justify those prices? Or is the very fact that someone is asking $400 for a birdhouse made out of bits of a worn-out, torn-down barn, or $1,684 for a set of four drinking glasses (not high-quality lead crystal, either, but plain ordinary glass - the same material used in four equivalent drinking glasses that will cost me $10-$15 almost anywhere else), a reflection on the crazy nature of the US economy today? Has the reality of 'practical value' gone out of the window?
*Sigh*
Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong century . . . I just don't get this sort of thing! What say you, readers? Am I out of line, or do you share my bewilderment at these prices?
Peter
11 comments:
Having read about P.T. Barnum I am not bewildered by those prices. But I sure wouldn't pay them.
The New York Times isn't really known for being in touch with reality ...
crazy prices, crazy
The price for exclusivity and haute chic is often self delusion and stupidity coupled with more money than common sense.
Noel
While the glasses look nich there's no way I'd pay more than $20, maybe $25 for them
Completely agree with you, Peter!
A fool and his (or her) money are soon parted......
Hmmmm.... I'm obviously in the wrong business. I think I could build a bird house from garbage. The real question is, are there really idiots paying those prices, though? Just because they ask for $400 doesn't mean they get $400.
Conspicuous consumption. I can throw an approximation of that birdhouse together in an hour out of the scrap in my wood pile using about $10 in labor and materials, but the person who buys the $400 one will make sure people know how much was spent on it.
These are the same people who end up with gold plated toilets. And they're just as useful.
I have a couple of double-wall Pyrex coffee cups from Bodum, they look nice and work well. They were 25 or so dollars a pair, which I regard as fair for their material and workmanship. The products you've shown? Preposterous, I think.
Jim
On the one hand, if you want hand made, you pay hand made costs. If you want hand made by someone who has to pay New York City living costs, you pay *high* hand made costs. There are those for whom it matters that a thing was made by a local craftsman and not a third world slave.
Most of us only feel like that about a few things (have a Holland and Holland on your wish list?) - but which those few things are differ.
So frankly... won't buy, don't care.
What *does* bug me though is when my town shells out tens of thousands of dollars for crap piled on the lawn in the name of "art." That I don't get a choice about saying "no thank you, I'll save for someone who actually *can* sculpt."
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