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Boechout, AntwerpHi everyone,
Several artists have written that placing teddies on e-bay often generates limited interest. I wanted to check it out for myself, so last weekend I was browsing through the "artist bear" section on e-bay and I did spot a few lovely teddies.
One of them was an 18" OOAK bear by Belgian artist Liliane Vandepaepeliere (Lily Bear): Liliane has been making bears since 1992, but now specializes in felines and other animals. I have found some of her cats on sale at the Toy Shoppe.
Bidding started at £ 39,00 and the bear looked really beautiful, so I decided to take a little gamble and bid £ 40,00 (the bear was offered by a collector, not by the artist herself). After a few days no new bids had been made, so I expected some annoying people to bid during the very last minute. As I sat eagerly behind my laptop, counting the minutes before the bidding would end, I decided to raise my bid, but not really expecting to win the teddy. But as the last seconds slowly crawled by ... nothing happened ! Nobody except me had bid on this beautiful teddy; I had won it for
(in a shop this bear would certainly be priced over £ 200).
First I did a little dance of joy :dance: , but then I thought : hey this is actually not good news. 
If nobody wants to bid on such a lovely artist bear, then bidding on new artist bears will probably be low as well; which is a bad thing for the artists themselves; which in its turn is a bad thing for teddy bear lovers, because some artists might decide to give up bear-making all together.
Anyway, I am very happy to have "Louis" in my hug, but still worried that the "teddy bear market" is really suffering from the economic crisis. Hopefully things will start to improve soon. Here are a few pics of "Louis":
Hugs, :hug:
Peterbear
Louis really is a pretty bear, Peter! I'm surprised that he went for so little, but then many bears don't seem to be selling at all.
On the other hand, eBay buyers can seem very capricious, and some artist bears have sold recently for very good prices. Perhaps there are fewer people buying at all, but when the few have their heart set on something, they find the money for it?
Thanks for sharing the photos,
Becky
Past Time BearsYou got a very lovely bear at a bargain, indeed, Peter! Lucky you. Could you explain the last photo, though? Interesting.
desertmountainbearOh yes, I see you turned poor Louis into a bear vase LOL
Joanne
ps He is a wonderful bear, I always watch the bargins too.
Bears by EdiePeter, it seems that artist bears often go for a lower price if it is a collector reselling the bear rather than the original artist. I think there are several reasons for this. One is that the artists usually have a list of collectors who they notify when they have bears for sale and of course the reseller doesn't have access to this list so a lot of people who might have been interested in bidding just don't see it. Another reason might be that the collectors want to buy the artists latest work and see items that are being resold as older work that is perhaps (not necessarily correct of course!) not as good as what they are doing now. Another factor is that they cannot be positive that the bear is in the EXACT ORIGINAL condition as when the artist created it. I HAVE had people buy my bears and remove some of their clothes or accessories and then resell them. Or the bear might have been kept in a smoking home, or sitting in sunlight, or etc. etc. However I am sure these cases are rare and an astute collector can certainly pick up some good bargains on ebay - and sometimes finding a critter that is NOT what the artist is producing now is a good thing if you liked their earlier work but missed out on one getting it at the time.
Your bear is darling and a great buy!
Emo BearsI agree that re-sold bears don't sell for as much as the original artist would have gotten (which is a good thing) and so much depends on what it is catalogued as - and how it is catalogued.
For example, I own an Anime Kitten from Jenny Loves Benny. I lurve him and bought him direct from Jenny, on eBay and won him for £65; I think he cost around £70 with postage. I was lucky to buy him at that price as no-one else was interested and interest in her work is pretty high. Mostly I can't afford to buy her bears.
I bought a Jenny Loves Benny Anime Bear (same size, slightly different accessories, and my kitten is earlier) on eBay recently. I bought for the minimum bid of £35 incl postage. Bargin! That's half what I paid for my other which I considered to be a bargin.
The difference? The Anime bear was titled (imaginatively...) "Shoki, an Anime Bear". To anyone searching/browsing the teddy bear categories, it was just an anime bear. To me, a JLB fan, I recognised it for what it was straight away, and indeed, in the 'fine print' it stated that is was indeed a JLB bear.
It wasn't clear from the title or the description that it was a new, undisplayed with tags etc, OOAK Artist bear. I can't help feeling that she may have fetched more money had she been advertised as a JLB.
Oh well, the collector's loss is my gain. 
YorkshireHi Peter, what a fantastic bear Louis is, lucky you! :dance:
I have also been very lucky with Ebay and now have a variety of bears from artists that I would not have been able to afford brand new direct from the artist. I have two Mawpaw bears, two Madabout bears and four Beani Bears of Lichfield.
I have also purchased direct from two artist's on ebay and have been the only bidder and won the most fantastic bears and although I am thrilled to own such gorgeous bears I do however feel so sorry for the artists. I appreciate the time, money, effort and talent that has gone into these bears and I wish I just had more money to give them.
I pop into the artist section on ebay most days :redface: and I do think that new bears generally are getting more bids than rehomed bears, especially those artists that are well known.
Jaina, I agree alot has to do with bad advertising - alot of my luck has been down to this.
Hugs Ali
Boechout, AntwerpCould you explain the last photo, though? Interesting.
Sue Ann, today we celebrate mother's day here in Antwerp (though not in the rest of Belgium 
).
My hug of teddies always buy a bouquet of flowers for my mum, because she also loves them dearly (though she will not always admit it 
) and these are the flowers my teddies told me to buy . Rather silly, I know, but hey, we like it.
Does this answer your question?
Hugs :hug:
Peterbear
Hello Peter,
You certainly got a good bargain with the lovely little Louis and I am sure he couldn't have wished for a happier new home.
"Happy Mothers Day" to your Mum, she is very lucky to be receiving such lovely flowers from your bears!
Take care,
Hugs
Marilyn 
... and yes, ...... I know, ......... I SHOULD be bearing!!!!!
Past Time BearsAhhh - yes, I do get it, Peter. Your bears have lovely taste in flowers . . . a very nice gesture to their 'grandmum'.
Baird'sBearsHi Peter,
I've just received a most wonderful "orphan" I bought from a seller on BearPile.
It's Mikki Klug's beautiful felted Highland Cow--so breathtaking that even my (Scottish born) husband is impressed!
Where is Mikki, by the way?
There's a difference between low prices paid to artists (sad and unfair) and low prices paid to resellers (depends on their degree of desperation). The upside is that these resellers might be thinning their collections in order to buy more new artist bears.
Many buyers of "orphans," like myself, could never afford such treasures at their original prices.
I don't think all artists would like it if resellers flaunted their names too freely--after all, the creation might not be in its original studio-fresh condition.
Creative Design Studio (RKR4CDS)Basically, with VERY few exceptions - probably less than a dozen artists - there is no secondary marketplace.
Never buy a Teddy for its 'future investment value'; only for what you love.
Pessimistic - No, realistic.
It will not have that perceived value, unless you've had a one in one trillion lucky occurrence.
There's never been a secondary marketplace and if history stays the same, never will be.
It's just a fact, a summation of all of the above wisdom!
And eBay would be the last place to market them, from the Seller's standpoint. But a Buyer can do very well there!
"a bear by kim"he is gorgeous xx
congratualtions for grabbing a bargain.
you are right though, low prices arent good news for any one.
im trying to keep my prices low, not making a profit, but just enough to buy more bear supplies and keep going and hopefully we'll all come through in the end x
