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The market for collectibles has been one of the last bastions of the sort
of informational inefficiency that works against retail consumers. This
inefficiency is what allows the informed to profit easily from the
ignorance of the general public. The Internet is changing all of that, to
a large extent leveling the playing field in real time. The effect of this
is to make the business tougher for those would be dealers who bring
little expertise and no retail service to the business.
The string instrument business has now seen
another barrier to market efficiency challenged by Tarisio
Auctions latest venture: a subscription-based photo archive. When we
posted our first issue 8 months ago we here at
Soundpost Online were planning to host the Tarisio archive. Tarisio has
since decided to post the archive on their own, with our enthusiastic
support (and a few technical recommendations).
The archive should be most welcome in rural
areas where it is difficult to see many examples of a wide range of
makers. The archive represents a large number of makers with photos from
experts Dmitry Gindin, Eric Blot and others. If the archive is not yet
comprehensive it promises to grow as others contribute. There is no
substitute for viewing the actual instruments and the best images possible
from the Tarisio Archive are certainly not on a par with the reproductions
possible in a book format. But when one considers the price of books on
the subject Tarisio's archive seems cheap at the subscription
price of $50.00 annually.
The dark side of the proliferation of
information is that it informs would be forgers just as it informs
consumers. Hopefully, conservative experts can stay ahead of the forgers!
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