You’ve probably heard someone call art “a good investment,” whether at a dinner party, from a gallery, or from a friend trying to make themselves feel better about a large purchase.
The market certainly behaves that way at the top. The Art Basel and UBS global art market reported $59.6B in sales last year. Additionally, a Deloitte Private and ArtTactic survey in 2024 found that 51% of wealth managers now offer art-related services, up from 25% in 2011. And yet, unlike real estate or equities, there’s no MLS, no ticker, no standardized way to know what something is actually worth.
Sometimes art does function as an asset, but the truth is that most of the art market is incredibly difficult to evaluate in any standardized or transparent way. For all the sophistication projected onto the art world, a surprising amount of the market still runs on selective information, relationships, and a mix of ambiguity and elitism that people often mistake for depth.
That doesn’t mean art can’t hold value. It means that most people buying art are doing so inside a market that gives them very little usable information, especially once you move beyond the small circle of people with deep context, established access, or someone to call.
This is part of what makes prints and editions, especially when you’re starting out, so interesting. They are one of the few places in the art market where you can actually begin to understand and track market value. You can look at the issue price, the edition size, whether it sold out quickly, whether it resurfaces at auction, whether there’s real demand behind it, and whether that demand holds. You are still dealing with taste, timing, and risk, but you are doing so with more data than you get in most other corners of the market.
Below, I’m breaking down the Danielle McKinney edition I wish I’d bought, the cautionary tale every collector should understand, and the six things I’d look at before buying a print now.
