How I find affordable vintage paintings on Ebay

A reader asked how I found nice, yet affordable paintings on ebay, since it seemed overwhelming to her (and it can be!). I thought I’d share my approach (although I’m sure other readers have great ideas and I’ll hope you’ll share!).

I start off in the “Art” category and then select “Art from Dealers & Resellers”, and then limit this to “paintings”and then “between 1900-1949″ and then “oils”. You’ll find the limiting categories on the lefthand side of the page. I’m partial to landscapes, so I often limit my search to “landscapes” as well. Tonight, this search yielded me 414 paintings, which is managable to me in terms of browsing since I like to spend hours on ebay (ha!). If I’m feeling lazy and cheap, I’ll further limit my search to “unsigned” as unsigned paintings are usually are less expensive. Tonight adding that filter reduced the 414 paintings to 42 — a manageable number to browse.

Here is a link to that search. I’ve found that 1900-1949 is the sweet spot of inexpensive (I’ve bought framed oil landscapes for under $75) and yet enough age to still feel authentically vintage. The further back you push the date, the more expensive (and usually the nicer) the art. Of course this doesn’t eliminate expensive art on ebay — you’ll still have to dig through the $2000 dollar paintings, but you can always sort by starting bid price. I consider a framed oil painting under $200 affordable, since taking a painting to be framed can cost upwards of $200 alone. If I can get a framed oil I like for under $100, I’m in heaven.

The painting above is from one of my favorite ebay sellers, the Danish based Thygesen Gallery. It is currently listed at $26 It sold for $105 — framed!!