Warhol Limited Edition at Auction

I have a couple of limited edition prints at home: 6/25 for one, and 75/200 for the other; but I've never really understood what makes a Limited Edition special. This week I decided to find out more (Read: Wiki).What prompted it? It was an Auction of a print by Andy Warhol in Indianapolis.

Limited edition prints, also known as LE's, have been standard in printmaking from the nineteenth century onwards. A limit to the print run is crucial, as many traditional printmaking techniques can only produce a limited number of best quality impressions. This can be as few as ten or twenty for a technique like drypoint, but more commonly would be in the low hundreds - print runs of over a thousand are regarded as dubious by the serious art market for original prints, even though with many techniques there is no loss of quality.

Edition sizes higher than about 500 are likely to be of print reproductions of paintings, of much less value, though some modern techniques blur this traditional distinction. As in other fields, the use of the concept has become largely driven by marketing imperatives , and has been misused in parts of the market. In particular, lithographic, photogravure, rotogravure, and giclee reproductions of prints, derived from photographs of an original print, which are most unlikely to have any investment value, are often issued in limited editions implying that they will have such value. These need to be distinguished from the original artist's print, carefully produced directly from his work and printed under the artist's supervision. In UK and New Zealand the Fine Art Trade Guild ensures the quality and verification of limited edition prints by employing a number of strictly administered regulations for all processes and aspects related to them.

A limited edition is normally hand signed and numbered by the artist, typically in pencil, in the form (eg): 14/100. The first number is the number of the print itself. The second number is the number of overall prints the artist will print of that image. The lower the second number is, the more valuable and collectible the limited editions are likely to be, within whatever their price range is. A small number of "artists' proofs" may also be produced as well, signed and with "AP", "proof" etc.

Obviously, I'm still no expert but I know a little more than I did two weeks ago, and that's always a good thing.