Loading…
5
PSA: that "rare" vintage tube you're hoarding is just old paint, not gold
Ran into a lady at the swap table in Portland last Saturday who had a half-empty tube of some 1980s Prussian blue she was guarding like a dragon. She told me it was "collector grade" and wanted three times what a fresh tube costs. I asked if she'd actually painted with it recently and she said no, it was too precious to open. Meanwhile the paint inside is probably dried or separated and useless for anything except texture experiments. I get wanting to preserve something, but this is the Art Supply Swap, not a museum. I traded her a full set of my extra brushes and a nearly new pad of watercolor paper for that tube, just to prove a point. Opened it that night, and yeah, it was thick as toothpaste and crumbled when I tried to spread it. Does anyone else run into people who think old art supplies gain value by sitting untouched, or is this just a Portland thing?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
abbyr961mo ago
Oh jeez, that hurts to read. I completely feel for you on this one. I've seen the same thing at swaps in my area, people treating half-used paint like it's a rare vintage wine or something. The sad part is, most pigments from the 80s were honestly not better than what we can get today, sometimes they're worse because the binder breaks down over time. You did the right thing calling it out, even if it cost you a nice brush set to prove it. Hope that trade at least gave you a funny story and maybe a cool texture piece down the road.
8