Can Man Who Found Long Lost Ansel Adams Glass Negatives Sell Prints?
Reader Ken points us to a “feel good” story of a guy, Rick Norsigian, who found a box of old glass negatives at a garage sale in 2000, which he bought for $45 (bargained down from the $70 the other guy wanted). It turns out that a bunch of experts have now agreed that the negatives are actually previously unpublished works by Ansel Adams. Most of the article focuses on how Norsigian got the negatives, why the experts seem pretty convinced the negatives are from Adams and even how the negatives might have ended up in Southern California. However, right at the beginning, the article says the negatives “may be worth $200 million.” Oddly, this isn’t elaborated on until the end, when they claim that sales of prints from those negatives could net Norsigian $200 million: It could be a while before he sees the profits from the sale of prints from the negatives, but Streets estimates over the next 25 years it could mean over $200 million for Norsigian. Ken wondered about that statement, since t
