19 Oct 2023/42 min/Coldie
MLow X Coldie Part 2
A studio show and tell with the stereoscopic OG: the 30 percent collecting rule, buying back his own Genesis piece, and the View-Master lineage behind Decentral Eyes.
Part 2 with Coldie moves to video on purpose: Part 1 was text, so this time MLow can see the wall of trinkets behind him (a Van Arman, Die With The Most Likes, David Henry Nobody Jr) and Coldie can hold things up to the camera. The first half is his collector philosophy from 2018 SuperRare days, when a 1 ETH sale meant about 180 dollars and nobody knew what a 1/1 was worth. His rule: spend roughly 30 percent of every sale on peers' work, both to spread love among Telegram friends (Hackatao, XCopy and the rest) and on the explicit thesis that the collectors were going to be the winners.
The centerpiece story is the legendary flip. He sold his SuperRare Genesis piece to VK Crypto, the original whale, who later listed everything at criminally low prices with the ethos that the next collector should benefit as much as he did. Having just sold a Hackatao piece (Only One Owns It) for 50 ETH, Coldie bought back his own Genesis for about 17 ETH plus a Matt Kane and Pindar Van Arman's first robot painting. He frames retaining your own work as a hedge on a hedge: if artist royalties vanish, held inventory is the only way to bet on yourself.
The back half is craft lineage: the childhood View-Master and an early 1900s stereopticon, the Los Angeles stereo club where 70 year old masters trained him at 23, and Ray Zone, the king of 3D comics, who taught him trade secrets and near the end of his life called him a competitor, a passing of the torch. He walks the technical evolution of his portraits from anaglyph to wiggle GIF to Photoshop's 3D camera (the piece that made ROBNESS phone him), praises Transient Labs story inscriptions, and closes with blunt advice: make it a hundred times before you know what you are doing, and never collect what you do not love.
What this episode teaches
- The 30 percent rule
From his earliest sales Coldie spent roughly 30 percent of every sale on other artists' work: a hundred dollar sale meant thirty dollars of art. It supported friends, compounded into what he calls an insane collection, and rode his thesis that the collectors would be the winners.
- Buy back your own work as a royalty hedge
He calls retaining and repurchasing his own pieces a hedge on a hedge: artists still battle for royalties every day, and if royalties disappear, held inventory is the only way an artist captures their own appreciation. He puts his collector hat on and buys his own work when it lists cheap.
- Accessibility beats purity
His anaglyph mints were truer stereo but required 3D glasses nobody owned. The wiggle GIF compromise lost true stereo but got adoption immediately. Ship the format the audience can actually experience.
- Archive everything; tools catch up
A self described digital hoarder, he kept every concert frame he ever shot, repeating the mantra that someday he could view his art in full color digital 3D. Twelve year old Flaming Lips frames from 2011 are now becoming new work. Sometimes you hold a JPEG twelve years before it gets good.
- Apprentice to the last generation while they are alive
At about 23 he joined a Los Angeles stereo club and let stereographers in their 70s teach him everything about stereo photography, design and lenticulars. Ray Zone handed him trade secrets, then called him a competitor: the torch passing that makes his lenticulars craft, not gimmick.
- Make it a hundred times first
His advice to new artists: do not rush, do not chase hype or get rich quick, expect nothing perfect, and stay in the creator box. Make, stamp it when happy, release, and make new things, like children who eventually move out. Confidence to evolve comes only from volume.
- Collect only what you love
For collectors: open an art history book, watch documentaries, prepare so that when opportunity meets preparation you recognize the next Basquiat instead of running with the sheep toward pumping volume. If you do not love what you buy you will burn out; go trade penny stocks instead.
- Context must travel with the token
He praises Transient Labs story inscriptions for letting artists and collectors attach stories and corrections to the token itself, because once we are all vaporized and the work sits in an auction house, the context is what matters. It also ends his old habit of burning and reminting a piece five times over typos.
The conversation, topic by topic
The wall of trinkets
On video for the first time, MLow inventories Coldie's background wall: a Pindar Van Arman, Die With The Most Likes, a gemstar, David Henry Nobody Jr, whose studio MLow had just visited. The show and tell format shapes the whole episode.
Finding a floor in 2018
Coldie recalls the early SuperRare era: no floors existed, artists incrementally established them, and a 1 ETH sale at about 180 dollars felt great for someone doing art fairs. Artists made the best art they could while collectors got originals for a couple hundred bucks, and he saw where that would lead.
Collecting off the beaten path
He is not a hype buyer and ignores OpenSea volume, digging where nobody looks: the night before, he picked up a 2020 Max Osiris piece for almost nothing. Everything he collects is self funded from art income; before crypto art he never had money for art at all.
VK Crypto and the legendary flip
VK Crypto, the original whale, bought everybody's grails, then quit and listed everything at ridiculously low prices, telling Coldie he wanted the next collector to benefit just as much as he did. A week after selling Hackatao's Only One Owns It for 50 ETH, Coldie swapped nearly the same ether for his own Genesis piece (about 17 ETH), Matt Kane's piece number 83, and Pindar Van Arman's first robot painting.
Betting on yourself
He also holds a Vitalik Buterin portrait, number three, minted on Artists Unleashed, an experimental platform by Johnny Dollar, which never sold, an accidental self investment. MLow matches the theme: after the FTX collapse tanked a collection he curated, he bought its ultra grails himself, reasoning who better to own them than the curator.
The collection as scrapbook
Coldie says pieces signify relationships and moments, not mint dates: the scrapbook of his collection is often more valuable than the pieces. He had just sold Mario Klingemann's Split Personality, a GAN portrait that was also stereoscopic, bought after Matt Kane introduced him to Klingemann's work.
Story inscriptions and the follies of minting
Both use Transient Labs story inscriptions: MLow to fix a description error on a new collection without touching provenance, Coldie confessing he once burned and reminted a piece five times over dyslexia driven typos. Coldie argues on token context will matter enormously once the work outlives its makers.
Art school, dual tracked
Coldie trained hands on: painting, textures, color theory in gouache, then Photoshop class after painting class. Mark making with real charcoal versus a charcoal brush taught him to see differently. Going all digital for crypto art became a creative detriment, and he has recently returned to physical work, including a stereoscopic canvas burnt with a blowtorch.
View-Master, stereopticon, and time travel
He demonstrates a childhood View-Master (seven stereo pictures per disc) and a family stereopticon from the early 1900s with a Wild West lasso card. Nostalgia sent him to eBay, where the only Batman View-Master reel available was the exact 1960s Adam West set he grew up on; looking into it, he says, he time traveled to being seven.
The stereo club and Ray Zone
At about 23 he found a Los Angeles stereo club whose 70 year old masters took him under their wing. Ray Zone, king of 3D comics, who won a Grammy with Tool for the 10,000 Days packaging, taught him his secret tricks; before his death he told Coldie he now considered him a competitor, the greatest compliment he ever received.
Evolution of the Decentral Eyes technique
First mint: an anaglyph requiring red and blue glasses almost nobody had. Then left and right frames as a wiggle GIF, which multiplied the audience. Then Photoshop's 3D camera enabled revolving portraits: ROBNESS phoned him gushing about the Andreas Antonopoulos piece, said he was onto something important, and bought the first two. After Effects came later, and a CryptoVoxels gallery now arranges the portraits in sequence, ending near the Snoop piece.
MLow's own archive release
MLow describes releasing photography shot in 2015 and 2016 nearly a decade later, once comfortable with his own voice: angsty work from an angsty time, bought by Van Arman and ROBNESS, covered by NFT Now. Coldie frames it as living your creative journey in real time instead of waiting centuries to be collected.
Advice for artists and collectors
Artists: no rush, make it a hundred times, ignore the outside world, release and move on. Collectors: study art history, buy only what you love, and remember the relationships; Coldie, at 40, is in a Twitter thread with collector homies including OMZ and Bharat, making new friends, which he calls the hardest thing to do at his age.
In their words
“If I made a hundred bucks on a sale, I'd spend 30 bucks on a piece of art.”
Coldie“I want the next collector to benefit just as much as I did.”
Coldie, quoting VK Crypto“If artist royalties weren't there, how else do you bet on yourself? And it's by retaining, right, and growing.”
Coldie“The scrapbook of my collection, I often think, is more valuable than the pieces themselves.”
Coldie“You got to make it a hundred times before you even know what you're doing.”
Coldie“If you don't love what you're buying, you're in the wrong game. You're gonna burn out.”
ColdieCite this conversation
Coldie in conversation with MLow, "MLow X Coldie Part 2," The MLow Show, 19 Oct 2023. https://show.mlow.xyz/e/2023-10-19-mlow-x-coldie-part-2.html. Quoted from a machine transcript.
Quotations come from machine transcripts. Check wording against the audio before republishing.