Andy Warhol
“Andy Warhol looks a screm
Hang him on my wall
Andy Warhol, silver screen
Can’t tell them apart at all.”
- David Bowie
It takes balls to be a swindler.
But sometimes even I am impressed by the braziness of some con artists.
Victor Lustig sold the Eiffel Tower. Gregor McGregor sold a country that doesn’t exist. George C Parker sold the Brooklyn Bridge twice a week for ten years.
You can add to that list a pair of Utah con artists who sold paintings by a dead man of a man who does not exist.
The couple sold six Andy Warhol paintings for $100,000 to their victim who ponied up a $25,000 deposit.
Problem is, the paintings were dated 1996 and Warhol died in 1987.
Not only that, the portraits were of Matthew Baldwin, the sixth Baldwin brother. There are only five Baldwins (thank god).
A man received a big surprise when he learned the six Andy Warhol paintings he purchased for $100,000 were fake.
They also tried to sell the man a lithograph of a pink cat that was actually a picture cut out of the newspaper!
I’m never one to blame the victim. We’ve all done stupid things in our lives. But the pay over $25,000 deposit for an artist you obviously know nothing about seems extraordinary stupid. Lindsay Lohen stupid. Sara Palin stupid.
The victim is now forced to eat only this
2 Comments to
They got there 15 minutes of fame.
I really want to see the paintings. And own them. Maybe they are worth that much now!