Arguably the greatest American art collectors in terms of ROI were civil servants: The Vogels. He was a high school dropout working nights as a USPS clerk sorting mail. She was as educated, Bachelor’s and Masters, and worked as a librarian. Their small apartment became a bit of a salon for yet-to-be-discovered modern artists. The Vogels purchased artworks of struggling artists, as well as encouraged them:
One doesn’t need to be a genius to make exceptional investments/profits in art and rare books. In fact, the ROI with rare books is much greater than stocks or real estate. Rare books and art are far easier and cheaper to maintain/store and insure than real estate.
For the record, the first printing and moveable type occurred sometime in 100-200 AD in China, where paper was invented. The Chinese characters were carved onto wooden blocks, and the ink recipe survived to this day.
Also, I think MBS purchased a painting by one of Leonardo’s apprentices: Salvador Mundi. If one studies Leonardo’s mastery of optics, prisms, water, etc., he would have painted the crystal globe’s see-through images accurately. The crystal globe is much too simplified for Leonardo’s talent and attention to detail. His Last Supper fresco is an example of Leonardo’s mastery of what the eye sees:
MBS hired an art expert or two to establish the provenance of Corpus Mundi. But if you pay an art expert enough, he or she is likely to tell a buyer and a seller what he/she wishes to hear.
Recommended reading: The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time, by Keith Houston, W.W. Norton (2016)
Another example of Leonardo’s mastery of optics and perspective is the Mona Lisa’s smile. Often described as “enigmatic,” if you walk back and forth in front of the Mona Lisa, her smile makes subtle changes. Ergo, enigmatic. Again, the crystal globe of Salvator Mundi seems too simple for Leonardo. But perhaps, like some of his few other paintings, the painting wasn’t finished. The Mona Lisa wasn’t finished (see unfinished background landscape) even though Leonardo intermittently worked on it.
“Four hundred years before Gutenberg, a Chinese commoner named Bi Sheng preempted the German. As told by Shen
Kuo, a contemporary Chinese historian:
During the reign of Qingli 1041-1048 AD), Bi Sheng, a man of unofficial position, made movable type. His method was as follows: he took sticky clay and cut in it characters as thin as the edge of a coin. Each character formed, as it were, a single type. He baked them in the fire to make them hard. He had previously prepared an iron plate and he had covered his plate with a mixture of pine resin, wax, and paper ashes. When he wished to print, he took an iron frame and set it on the iron plate. In this he placed the types, set close together. When the frame was full, the whole made one solid block of type. He then placed it near the fre to warm it. When the paste [at the back] was slightly melted, he took a smooth board and pressed it over the surface, so that the block of type became as even as a whetstone. [...] For each character there were several types, and for certain common characters there were twenty or more types each, in order to be prepared for the repetition of characters on the same page. When the characters were not in use he had them arranged with paper labels, one label for each rhyme-group, and kept them in wooden cases.
This is movable type, almost to its dictionary definition: the printing of a text from symbols on discrete blocks that can be rearranged and reused as necessary. Unfortunately, this passage contains all that is known of Bi Sheng's invention. Did he cut his letters into the surfaces of clay blocks, for example, or did he sculpt them in relief? The Chinese had a tradition of taking rubbings from engravings in stone and another of printing from wooden blocks carved in relief, leaving this most basic question unanswered.
Worse, although Shen Kuos account of Bi Sheng's system has the confident tone of an eyewitness account, no physical evidence survives to corroborate it.” — The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time, Keith Houston
FYI: The chapters about medieval illuminated manuscripts are fascinating (see Book of Kells).
The Duveen frame is perfect for physical assets. Sports teams, Old Masters, land. Supply fixed, demand rising with the wealth that abundance creates. That trade is already running and the Thrive Eternal announcement is the institutional version of it.
The category worth adding is the one AI creates by making everything else abundant. When content is infinite, attention becomes scarce. When analysis is commoditised, judgment becomes scarce. When credentials are replicable, trust becomes scarce. These aren't assets you can buy at auction. They're assets you have to build over years, and they compound precisely because they can't be replicated or acquired.
The Gilded Age had Duveen selling Old Masters to new money. The abundance age will have its own version, but the scarce asset won't be a Raphael hanging in a mansion. It'll be the handful of people and institutions whose word still means something when everyone has access to the same information and the same tools to produce it.
As someone who’s been collecting rare books and manuscripts for >10 years and seen appreciation, a couple of thoughts:
1. Art is impossible got accurately benchmark because of survivorship bias
2. Scarcity != value appreciation. There are many Warhols compared to manuscripts but warhols have cultural significance *today* whereas manuscripts do not (comparatively)
3. Liquidity is a premium that’s hard to bake in and handicap. Stradivarius violins probably appreciate more than S&P and is more liquid than, say, post-war artists
4. Collectibles. Still underrated and distinct from “art”
The first time Anduril's drones will have to go up against Ukrainian drones in an actual war, the whole company will be fucked, they will be sooo fucked. In competitive tests they've been an embarrassment.
I get it - scarcity, spot on. Well observed. But all this floats on top of the physical world, where the abundance has to be produced by things that actually work. Physics cannot be cheated and success in war cannot be cheated.
Perhaps the truly scarce asset is equity in some of those Ukrainian drone companies who've begun signing deals with Gulf States and EU members. Hardly anyone knows their names yet ... but perhaps that will be changing soon.
Outstanding essay!
Arguably the greatest American art collectors in terms of ROI were civil servants: The Vogels. He was a high school dropout working nights as a USPS clerk sorting mail. She was as educated, Bachelor’s and Masters, and worked as a librarian. Their small apartment became a bit of a salon for yet-to-be-discovered modern artists. The Vogels purchased artworks of struggling artists, as well as encouraged them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_and_Dorothy_Vogel
One doesn’t need to be a genius to make exceptional investments/profits in art and rare books. In fact, the ROI with rare books is much greater than stocks or real estate. Rare books and art are far easier and cheaper to maintain/store and insure than real estate.
For the record, the first printing and moveable type occurred sometime in 100-200 AD in China, where paper was invented. The Chinese characters were carved onto wooden blocks, and the ink recipe survived to this day.
Also, I think MBS purchased a painting by one of Leonardo’s apprentices: Salvador Mundi. If one studies Leonardo’s mastery of optics, prisms, water, etc., he would have painted the crystal globe’s see-through images accurately. The crystal globe is much too simplified for Leonardo’s talent and attention to detail. His Last Supper fresco is an example of Leonardo’s mastery of what the eye sees:
https://www.electrummagazine.com/2024/08/leonardos-secret-design-of-the-last-supper/
MBS hired an art expert or two to establish the provenance of Corpus Mundi. But if you pay an art expert enough, he or she is likely to tell a buyer and a seller what he/she wishes to hear.
Recommended reading: The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time, by Keith Houston, W.W. Norton (2016)
Leonardo da Vinci Rediscovered,
by Carmen C. Bambach, Yale University Press
Another example of Leonardo’s mastery of optics and perspective is the Mona Lisa’s smile. Often described as “enigmatic,” if you walk back and forth in front of the Mona Lisa, her smile makes subtle changes. Ergo, enigmatic. Again, the crystal globe of Salvator Mundi seems too simple for Leonardo. But perhaps, like some of his few other paintings, the painting wasn’t finished. The Mona Lisa wasn’t finished (see unfinished background landscape) even though Leonardo intermittently worked on it.
“Four hundred years before Gutenberg, a Chinese commoner named Bi Sheng preempted the German. As told by Shen
Kuo, a contemporary Chinese historian:
During the reign of Qingli 1041-1048 AD), Bi Sheng, a man of unofficial position, made movable type. His method was as follows: he took sticky clay and cut in it characters as thin as the edge of a coin. Each character formed, as it were, a single type. He baked them in the fire to make them hard. He had previously prepared an iron plate and he had covered his plate with a mixture of pine resin, wax, and paper ashes. When he wished to print, he took an iron frame and set it on the iron plate. In this he placed the types, set close together. When the frame was full, the whole made one solid block of type. He then placed it near the fre to warm it. When the paste [at the back] was slightly melted, he took a smooth board and pressed it over the surface, so that the block of type became as even as a whetstone. [...] For each character there were several types, and for certain common characters there were twenty or more types each, in order to be prepared for the repetition of characters on the same page. When the characters were not in use he had them arranged with paper labels, one label for each rhyme-group, and kept them in wooden cases.
This is movable type, almost to its dictionary definition: the printing of a text from symbols on discrete blocks that can be rearranged and reused as necessary. Unfortunately, this passage contains all that is known of Bi Sheng's invention. Did he cut his letters into the surfaces of clay blocks, for example, or did he sculpt them in relief? The Chinese had a tradition of taking rubbings from engravings in stone and another of printing from wooden blocks carved in relief, leaving this most basic question unanswered.
Worse, although Shen Kuos account of Bi Sheng's system has the confident tone of an eyewitness account, no physical evidence survives to corroborate it.” — The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time, Keith Houston
FYI: The chapters about medieval illuminated manuscripts are fascinating (see Book of Kells).
The Duveen frame is perfect for physical assets. Sports teams, Old Masters, land. Supply fixed, demand rising with the wealth that abundance creates. That trade is already running and the Thrive Eternal announcement is the institutional version of it.
The category worth adding is the one AI creates by making everything else abundant. When content is infinite, attention becomes scarce. When analysis is commoditised, judgment becomes scarce. When credentials are replicable, trust becomes scarce. These aren't assets you can buy at auction. They're assets you have to build over years, and they compound precisely because they can't be replicated or acquired.
The Gilded Age had Duveen selling Old Masters to new money. The abundance age will have its own version, but the scarce asset won't be a Raphael hanging in a mansion. It'll be the handful of people and institutions whose word still means something when everyone has access to the same information and the same tools to produce it.
As someone who’s been collecting rare books and manuscripts for >10 years and seen appreciation, a couple of thoughts:
1. Art is impossible got accurately benchmark because of survivorship bias
2. Scarcity != value appreciation. There are many Warhols compared to manuscripts but warhols have cultural significance *today* whereas manuscripts do not (comparatively)
3. Liquidity is a premium that’s hard to bake in and handicap. Stradivarius violins probably appreciate more than S&P and is more liquid than, say, post-war artists
4. Collectibles. Still underrated and distinct from “art”
n of 1 The Acquired Playbook
Packy, I am a little surprised you didn't work the notion of mimetic desire into this piece!
It’s almost the water the piece swims in!
👏👏👏 Great article. Congrats
Kids will be the scarce asset in the future.
The first time Anduril's drones will have to go up against Ukrainian drones in an actual war, the whole company will be fucked, they will be sooo fucked. In competitive tests they've been an embarrassment.
I get it - scarcity, spot on. Well observed. But all this floats on top of the physical world, where the abundance has to be produced by things that actually work. Physics cannot be cheated and success in war cannot be cheated.
Perhaps the truly scarce asset is equity in some of those Ukrainian drone companies who've begun signing deals with Gulf States and EU members. Hardly anyone knows their names yet ... but perhaps that will be changing soon.