[OPE] Political economy of auctioneering

It is interesting to compare two recent newspaper stories on the "fake" poem
by Bob Dylan sold by Christie's
http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?from=searchresults&intObjectID=5215427&sid=49a8b8ba-f56c-4b73-93d9-8cca6f42f1dc.
(Compare Hank's lyrics
http://www.metrolyrics.com/little-buddy-lyrics-hank-snow.html ).

In the Reuters story,

Christie's announced on Tuesday the sale of the hand-written poem believed
to have been written in 1957 when Dylan was 16 and away at Jewish camp. But
Christie's failed to detect that the words, with a few minor variations,
matched those of a song previously recorded by Snow, who died in 1999 at age
85. Reuters discovered the lyrics matched the Snow song when alerted by a
reader. Reuters then informed the auction house.
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSTRE54J64I20090521

In the Ha'aretz story,

A "poem" purportedly written by a teenage Bob Dylan and up for auction at
Christie's is actually a song written by the late Canadian country singer
Hank Snow, the auction house said on Wednesday. Christie's announced on
Tuesday the sale of the hand-written poem believed to have been written in
1957 when Dylan was 16 and away at Jewish camp. But Christie's failed to
detect that the words, with a few minor variations, matched those of a song
previously recorded by Snow, who died in 1999 at age 85. Reuters discovered
the lyrics matched the Snow song when alerted by a reader. Reuters then
informed the auction house.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1086930.html

In the first story, we learn that Christie's claimed to be selling an
original poem written by young Bob Dylan, but it was discovered that this
was not true. In the second story, reporting a day later, Christie's
announces it is selling a song purportedly written by Dylan, but adapted
from Snow, something which however it failed to detect earlier. All a big
misunderstanding.

The content of both stories is almost identical, except that Ha'aretz is -
admittedly a day later - kinder to Christie's because "sie haben dass nicht
gewusst", they're sorta innocent, the implication is that they could not be
expected to know that Dylan was imitating Hank Snow. Just a slight
difference in moral nuance. But point is, whatever the difference in nuance,
if you think for yourself about the story in either version, it is difficult
to miss what really happened there.

Jurriaan

"There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief,
"There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief.
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth,
None of them along the line, know what any of it is worth."

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Received on Tue Jun 2 13:40:40 2009