Now that we have a few of these GorbyTokens at our disposal, let’s figure out how to move these totally new things on the art market out the door.So what features do these things have?
- PRINTABLE — Enclosed in the wallet card is a large .jpg which can be printed.
- COLLECTIBLE — The signature and number are your guarantee of authenticity.
- COA — The Reverse of the card carries your guarantee certificate.
- BACKGROUND — You get FOUR full-color art artist’s history scrapbooks.
Protections:
- Front cover matches the enclosed .jpg.
- Front cover image is what’s called for on the Reverse.
- Personal Signature of Artist & Hand-numbered.
- The .jpg matches the Description.
In addition to the safety of a personal signature and number, the wallet card itself can be slabbed and sealed and identified by a third-party grading service, as you would handle a rare sports card.
The whole idea is that they can PRINT the .jpg to their heart’s content. The only thing I’m selling is the signed & numbered WALLET CARD.
They can view the .jpg on pretty much any device, and send it around the world, if they want to. The WALLET CARD is what they’re buying, to support the community and to support the artist’s work.
Now, as far as giving the buyer some sort of edge in the cryptocurrency market, you can forget that aspect of marketing — it’s safe to say that those will continue to rise and rise until the day the bubble bursts.
It happened before, with the dot-com craze — in one single hour, not even a whole day of stock trading. It all went down and never came back, and the same will happen with Ethereum.
This is a fight for the planet, and it’s serious. The impact of Ethereum mining is very deep and the damage and impact are being felt all over the planet.
So you’re trying to peddle a new artform — hopefully with your own art inside, as well as from other artists including myself — and it’s going to be a tough road, unless you strike a responsive chord in your customers, and I don’t know what that’ll be.
Frankly, I don’t think it’s possible by ordinary means to introduce anything new into the art market — it’s very sticky and fussy, extremely tense, tending to cling to already existing trends, meaning the usual gang of recognizable artists.
That’d be Picasso, but not the whole output of nine decades — just the cubist stuff.
Dali is another familiar artist, but only his melting clocks. The public might be dimly aware of Rembrandt and Renoir, but they won’t be able to tell the difference.
It’s discouraging at first. Almost nobody knows about art, and most folks don’t much care. They’re happy with a plain off-white paint on their walls, and they have nowhere to put a piece of sculpture.
You won’t do any better trying to sell ceramics — even Picasso owls don’t go for much anymore.
Forget about jewelry — your handmade stuff will be too expensive, and you can’t make them any cheaper.
How about opening yet another Hamburger Joint? You’ll be competing with chain stores that offer whole meals for $3 just to get the customer in the door.
That’s the market these days. The only way out is up.
That’s why I propose that you concentrate on high-end art at prices you’d never dream of asking.
Be courageous, be bold, be daring!
Now, how are you going to get your GorbyTokens out there on the open market, making money for you and opening up art channels for your own artwork.
There’s no way to tell what’s going to work. Promote your GorbyTokens and your own art cards on every outlet you’re capable of reaching, but don’t expect ordinary results.
You’ll need a miracle.
The odds of just coming out even are against you, but if you’re an artist facing the 21st century, you’ve got to try, and this is one way to do it.
I can help you to get your artwork out there, and I can indicate to you what you’d have to accomplish in order to do the same for yourself or someone else.
- MAKE IT — Create the artwork for your USB wallet card and organize the digital stuffings, but don’t yet order the wallet card.
- LIST IT — Put it up somewhere, and make sure you tell them it’s going to take a few work days to get it to them, because it’s not made yet.
- MANUFACTURE IT — Send the software and graphics to get the USB wallet card made.
- SIGN IT & NUMBER IT — Finish the package and get it ready for shipping.
- PACK IT & SHIP IT — Get it out the door as fast as you can, allowing for the time to get it from the flash drive factory.
I realize that this is way over the heads of most folks, not just technically, but just in terms of business and office management, so I decided to make my help available to those who want to develop their own wallet cards with their own artwork.
There are several choices you have here:
- HIGH-END — High-priced items are featured and high prices are asked.
- PROMOTIONAL — Low prices make this attractive to the new collector.
- ARTISTIC — Strictly sold as an art object.
- BOOKISH — Could be any kind — I’m featuring RARE Incunabula books.
- TICKETS — Maybe a concert ticket could be featured.
- COLLECTION — A collection of letters might be a good example.
- HISTORICAL — Something that is profoundly historic would work here.
- PERSONAL — Things about the artist might be of interest to collectors.
There are so many things we can do with this, but always keep in the forefront of your mind that most people will not be interested in what you have to offer.
Now, if one of your things sold for $69 million dollars, and you’re offering similar things for a dollar, they might perk up a little, but don’t expect wild enthusiasm, even for a get-rich-quick scheme like blockchain Ethereum NFTs — they’re having a hard time selling the idea, which you can verify by noting the enormous number of blockchain NFTs offered on OpenSea.
Most of them have been there for a long time, waiting for a buyer, but none come along. The main reason is that most folks don’t have $1000 on average to invest in a crazy Ponzi scam like cybercurrency.
Only when it stabilizes will it be an actual currency. At the moment, cybercurrency is like an electronic poker chip.
Your electronic art sales will start the same place your ordinary art sales started — with your immediate social circle, expanding outward from there, if you can manage the expansion — it takes constant effort, and it’s not trivial.
Social Media Marketing takes skill, time, effort, compassion and luck. Lacking any one of those factors, you’re bound to fail.
You CAN make it in this brutal art environment, but you need to ADAPT, and fast. Get into my workshops and make your artwork sell. You should be able to support yourself from art sales, but you have to start somewhere, and at the moment, NFTs are what’s selling, but only those made by million-dollar cyber-artist Beeple.
You don’t want to be another Beeple. Be yourself. Will your art sell? If it’s good, it will. You need to achieve an objective view of your art’s place in the world of art history.
If you produce popular decorative pieces, you’ll have no trouble selling. If you’re actually exploring new pathways and levels of artistic dynamics, you might need to keep the day job.
Think of your USB collectibles like nickels in a slot machine that offers to pay a jackpot in the millions, but hasn’t ever paid off since it was installed May 28, 1931.
In short, good luck.
On the other hand, what can you do besides play the lottery to catch a big win? Sure, your artwork has no chance, but there’s always the chance that it might. Jackpot Fixation, that’s what you need, and my GorbyTokens are the perfect answer, unless you really need to win.
If you’re an ordinary artist, you’ll have four shows a year and you’ll produce a piece every month or so, and you’ll have a day job like most of your actor and musician friends.
It’s no better opening a spa or gymnasium. You’re automatically limited to the number of customers by the surrounding economy.
With GorbyTokens, you can get out into marketing areas that weren’t open to you when your artwork wasn’t digital. Now it is, so it is.
It’s not about the art. It’s about you.
If there’s nothing marketable about you, you’ll have to find something that is — like Chagall, Matisse, Picasso, Dali and Renoir — and actually, you can find things that work here, like this:
The most amazing Renoir original work on paper you’ll ever be offered: PIERRE-AUGUST RENOIR — Stella 18 — CLAUDE RENOIR, DE TROIS-QUARTS A DROITE, 1908 — OF THE UTMOST RARITY, POSSIBLY UNIQUE.
Softground etching, 1908, 162mm x 130mm to the platemark on 257mm x 294mm GREEN TINTED Holland Paper watermarked “D & C Blaucw” with the typical ornamental design within, some slight discoloration at the top right, due to age; no tears, no repairs, as issued thus. Two States in an edition of 100, most of which have been lost.
PENCIL NUMBERED BY THE ARTIST, 9/100, but no other impressions are known.
A LIFETIME IMPRESSION, not stamp-signed by his sons following his death, as was typical of many of the surviving studio prints, some of which were below standard. This is a fine, rich impression on a very unusual paper, and therefore rare and possibly unique.
So I could maybe wrap the .jpg up in a wallet card and have it slabbed. Keep in mind that it is a UNIQUE — I’m not publishing a print, nor would you be able to print from this .jpg, because it comes to you slabbed and sealed.
You in fact never see the .jpg — but you do see the image on the front of the singular wallet card, numbered 1/1. Not a multiple, see? So it’s a unique work of art, a signed and numbered “found object” — which happens to be a USB Flash Drive wallet card wrapped in a third-party grading slab.
How much?
I’m going to ask $1.2 million for it. Too much? Not at all, and go find another like it. A unique Renoir work of art is next-to-impossible to find — or make me an offer with which I can live.
The original Renoir is also up for sale, for the same price — think of the USB wallet card as a way to promote and publicize that fact, and possibly alert customers to the Renoir for sale.
See You At The Top!!!
gorby