Valuable limited editions in SL.

I read that there was a charity auction in SL where rare unique or limited edition fashion items were sold. One dress reportedly made L$460,000!

I'd been wondering what sort of market there was for rare or antique (as old as 5 years!) items in SL. Even with copybots and counterfieters, presumably the object can be checked for 'creator'. But what's to stop an original creator from realeasing something that was a limited edition back onto the mass market as a full-perms freebie at a later date?

My most significant almost unique item is my jazzy blue, purple and black leotard that I made soon after I came to SL nearly 2 years ago. Although I offered copies for sale for a while, nobody ever bought one. I did give one to a friend, and that is the only other example in SL.

To the best of my knowledge, the only real 'collectors market" has been in Starax sculptures.

I know I'd love to get ahold of a couple of the Washu Zebrastripe early anime/kid avvies. Oh, and rarer Linden Bears, too.

Mari

With apologies to people who managed to get these objects, I really wish LW would copybot some of these and start selling them again.

They don't belong on every corner but I think the grid is a nicer place when people can see them. I know that my appreciation of what can be done in SL and my desire to roam the grid and see what's out there really increased after I stumbled across some of his work.

Here is the leotard mentioned in my OP - not that it's valuable or anything, except to me!

Nothing, and it does happen even with some "respectable" brands (although the only LEs - be it limited in quantity or time - I ever buy are clothing related), although it wasn't quite "full permission freebie" but either as part of a sale, or as a L$1 (limited permissions) freebie.

I remember some including:
Desmond's tulips
2 Pontiac cars that were LE (2 individual cars not 2 types)
Various LE things made for RFL
A LE armoured outfit from Chaos

In kid spaces, there's the limited edition holiday dress (usually only about 30 are sold) from Angelina's Little Girls Clothes.

Robin Sojourner also sells a limited edition holiday bear

The big Relay For Life thing that was going on over multiple sims had an auction of some designer clothing and some of those fetched a very very high price, into the hundreds of thousands of L$. I suspect that a some of the reason those values got so high was because it was for charity. I was astounded when I went to see if I wanted to bid on anything.

Washu is still around. If you haven't already you might send her an IM and ask if she still has them in inventory.

Alienbear Gupte has made limited edition jewelry for fundraisers in the past year. I'm sure she's not the only designer doing these. Charity fundraisers are great for these.

Du-uhh. Good idea. Would be nice to have for historical reasons, I tink.

O_o

IMO, I couldn't imagine spending even half of that on anything, even if it was very cool mainly because of the potential of the asshat server rendering it even rarer.

She gived me her oldest kid avvie. Times sure were different then. I'll take piccies over th weekend.

most of the items i made are about to become extinct, except to the very few who made purchases or received gifts. i'm changing my product line.

To me, the risk would be that the item was not really very unique. If the creator is still in SL, how would I know for sure that they are not going to release the item to the public at some date?

I have a few Starax items and would happily spend good money on getting more (anyone got the hippo? I lost mine and miss him). As Starax is now a different avatar, there is a finite number of his items, which makes them rare.

The Linden bears are the same. Ones from Lindens who have now left are obviously harder to find. I also have a few of the bears that 'famous' residents made. They are on display in a 'Teddy Museum' halfway down Hill Street on Tin Teddy island - should you wish to go see. If anyone has any Linden/resident bears for sale, I would definately be intersted in expanding my collection, btw.

I have also bought a couple of Limited Edition clothes - but only from designers I would trust not to release them as commons at some point. My beautiful Dazzle LEs are copy, not transfer, so technically valueless (if you can't sell it, it has no sales value, I guess) - but I adore them, and wear them alot. Perhaps I am a snob, but it does feel good to know you have something special -and I might point out that I only bought them as they are STUNNING dresses, not just because of their limited numbers.

it's not necessarily something that's rare that has value, many many residents have made content and only sold a few items, and not just because they aren't good. Starax has made good content and as much as I am aware it wasn't produced as limited editions, very few if any new content creators who do similar builds today would not get a similar status even if they only sold a limited edition.

Also Starax builds were mainly set to 'transfer' I believe, and being transfer allows the work to increase in value because it can be passed on. But with Light Waves new work and I'm thinking about the Greenies limited freebies here, this is very unlikely to become collectible because most are set 'no-transfer'.

Sad thing is any great work that's no transfer will die with it's owner eventually, it impossible to pass it on to another person to keep showing it or to auction it for charity.

Random Calliope is a gifted creator of fine jewelry. He does make LE items and one of a kind items very successfully.

http://randomcalliope.blogspot.com/

Nothing, other than integrity and wanting to maintain a reputation. Same as in RL.

limited editions sound a bit alien in a world where nothing wear down and everything can be reproduced at no cost.
It sounds like artificial scarcity, not sure if it's that good.

I would prefer making even more and new amazing stuffs rather than trying to make them rare when they aren't.

Some thoughts on this.

I made 100 limited edition tulips once, sold them for $L 10 and have evidence that some of them exceeded 1000x their initial sell price.

Also, I have evidence that a region rollback duplicated some of the tulips. I know this because an honest tulip owner had it happen to her, and she destroyed the duplicates.

There is only one way, really, that I can see limited edition items ever work.

1) register them with serial numbers

2) run an independent exchange saying who owns which one

...and even with (2) you are going to have problems. Who will watch the watchmen? What if the watchmen leave? How will they really know what happened transactionally between two avatars?

Another thing I've discovered - if you take an item to inventory for a long time, and it is the *only* instance of a texture, there's a chance that texture will be erroneously deleted from the asset server. Well, it used to be that way; that might be fixed now.

But for a time there was some degree of risk if something isn't set out in a region, and that risk might remain.

I still stand by my vow not to make any more tulips. Not that it matters much, I guess. Who really cares any more? I think they are pretty much worthless now.

Desmond... /me shakes head. How can tulips be worthless? Intrinsic value is always emotional, anyway, isn't it? (May I have one? )

They're no more alien in SL than in RL, where the printing costs of a photograph are miniscule compared to the cost of a limited edition print from a famous photographer.

I share your sentiment about what you'd rather make. But many folks like having rare or unique items, and I see nothing wrong with that.

I ah, don't have any and can't make any more!

That was the whole point! laughs

You can still find a few if you know where to look - try near historic Caledon or historic Winterfell for your best chance. They aren't for sale, though I think Basti sells some obviously different 'replicas' for next to nothing - totally different colors - in Caledon II.


You'll either get someone to:

a) just give you one

b) fight you to the death for one

...there's not much inbetween, any more! Good luck getting one.