Five strategies to invest in fine art profitably have been put into action at a company called Treasure Investments Corporation that showcased its capabilities in a display at the recent FreedomFest Conference in Las Vegas that unveiled a pure silver head of the famed “David” monument designed by Michelangelo.
“We own the single, largest master mold collection in the world, consisting of over 2,600 original plaster molds from 230 different artists,” said Mark Russo, founder and chairman of Treasure Investments Corporation and Museo (Foundry) Michelangelo, of Battle Ground, Washington, not far from Portland, Oregon. “A plaster mold, or a mold of an artwork, is the negative of a positive and allows us to recreate the image, or any image, as an original in either one to the edition or as many as 10,000.”
The molds primarily are cast in bronze, the main medium, as well as precious metals such as silver, gold and platinum, cold cast resin and stainless steel. The molds are used to depict wildlife, patriotic images, as well as biblical, cultural, western and Renaissance art, Russo said in a recent presentation at the FreedomFest Conference.
Five Strategies to Invest in Fine Art Profitably: 1. Supply Charity Auction Statues
The size of the fine art can be as small as two inches to as large as the biggest monumental statuary art in the world, Russo said. The company has five distinct profit centers. One is a charity auction business platform, developed in 1998, that Russo said is “most endearing” to him.
“It’s an amazing story,” Russo said. “I sold a sculpture of two eagles to a neurosurgeon in town, and he asked me to put some materials together because he was going to put it up for a fundraising auction event. I had a chance and opportunity to go to the fundraiser where I saw the eagle sell for an astounding amount of money. But in that moment, I realized by watching all the bidders in the audience, it was incredible. It was a frenzy. I thought, ‘Oh my gosh.’ The piece sold for $63,000 ultimately.”
But the production cost at the time was only $1,000. The huge profit margin led Russo to explore using that same business model to help other charities raise money. Nine months later, Russo said he had hired 172 employees who were creating millions of dollars of revenue and also generating millions of dollars for non-profits.
“That was a successful business model,” Russo said. “And I didn’t know how big it was at the time.”
It turned out there were more than 11,000 live, fundraising auctions in the country. His company was the only business then that was providing statuary to the charities with no strings attached. Russo said he ended up selling that business model two separate times and now is using the same strategy again without a competitor in the space.
With over 20,000 fundraising charities, Treasure Investments supplies them with fine art to sell at auction. It is a “phenomenal opportunity,” he added.
“I love it because we participate and raise money for causes that truly need those resources, and it’s been an anchor for us,” Russo continued. “We love that.”
“We are continuing to scale that model,” Russo said.
The quality of the art impressed Mark Skousen, PhD, who invested in paintings himself and later donated some of them to charity. Skousen, who heads the Forecasts & Strategies investment newsletter and is an economist who serves as a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University, also heads the FreedomFest Conference every year and gives Treasure Investments the most visible place in front of the entrance to the exhibit hall.
Mark Russo and Mark Skousen, head of Forecasts & Strategies, meet at FreedomFest.
Five Strategies to Invest in Fine Art Profitably: 2. Trade Show Sales
The second profit center for Treasure Investments is sales that it completes at trade conferences such as FreedomFest.
“We like to go to trade shows,” Russo said.
One of his favorites is FreedomFest, Russo said, but he also pointed out the company participates in the New Orleans Investment Conference that attracts gold investors. Other trade shows they attend include hard asset mineral conferences, bullion events and Barrett-Jackson’s “World’s Greatest Collector Car Auctions in Scottsdale, Arizona, and Palm Beach, Florida,” Russo added.
Going to a trade show is like doing field research to interact and gain immediate feedback from prospective buyers, Russo said.
Treasure Investments amassed nearly $2 million in art sales from events held earlier this year, Russo recalled. The company’s gallery partners also can be invited to display art pieces that they want to offer at their locations, he added.
The management of Treasure Investments expects to sell its fine art at 14 to 15 trades shows this year and likely will expand to 20 events for 2025, Russo said. Other pluses with the trade shows are that they provide “instant revenue,” allowing the company to identify what is hot and what is not, as well as respond quickly to bring an increasing number of the best-selling products to the market within just a few weeks, he added.
“No one in the world has the speed or capacity that we do,” Russo said.
Five Strategies to Invest in Fine Art Profitably: 3. Monument Division
The third of the five strategies to invest in fine art profitably with Treasure Investments is through its monument division. This business features large art pieces, such as a nine-foot, six-inch rearing stallion that the Ferrari Corporation commissioned in 1999. Monuments as large as 40-feet tall Eagle for Seven Feathers Casino Resort in Canyonville, Oregon, have been produced at the fine art company’s foundry. The company also produces twice-life-sized elephant monuments for parks, zoos and corporations throughout the world, he added.
“We have the ability to do those pieces very, very quickly from the inception of a design from somebody’s idea or we can provide access or help to design those pieces for somebody,” Russo said.
Five Strategies to Invest in Fine Art Profitably: 4. Gallery Networks
Treasure Investments has more than 97 gallery relationships, consisting of the top art galleries and dealers in the United States, Russo said.
The company places art pieces in the galleries on consignment and shares revenues for any sales with the gallery on a 50-50% basis, Russo said. For example, the company has six gallery relationships in Las Vegas, as well as in Lake Tahoe, California; Aspen, Vale and Beaver Creek, Colorado; Key West, Florida; and Tucson and Scottsdale, Arizona.
“It is a very strong leg to the table for our company,” which is continuing to expand those relationships, Russo said.
“It’s a great part of the business model and it brings in a lot of revenue,” Russo said. “It’s very exciting because we have the best relationships with the highest-end galleries in the entire world.”
Five Strategies to Invest in Fine Art Profitably: 5. Precious Metals
“We have been casting pure silver pieces for decades,” Russo said. “We didn’t really realize it, but we were the No. 1 producer of silver sculptures in the world.”
Paul Dykewicz stands next to the Pieta in pure silver.
Other castings of Treasure Investments have been produced in pure gold.
Russo showed a 1,000-ounce pure silver casting of a bull and bear at 1,300 ounces. Silver is elegant looking and radiates energy as the most conductive metal in the world, while also offering healing properties, Russo said.
“The second you pour a piece into silver, it is not live spot value anymore,” Russo said. “The second you transpose a 1,000-ounce bullion bar worth $25,000 into one of our master molds… it becomes a $200,000 statue in this case.”
A Potential Sixth Strategy is Art Leasing
A potential sixth profit center for the company is fine art leasing.
Many museums have art-leasing divisions for their paintings that bring in millions of dollars a year from artwork that originally was donated, Russo said. For example, the Portland Art Museum collected $2.3 million in revenue last year by loaning out donated paintings.
“We believe that our platform for leasing sculptures could be extraordinary as we would be the only ones in the world leasing million-dollar collections for a few thousand dollars a month,” Russo said, “Our ROI on that is at month 4.”
Imagine all the locations from designers to law offices to dental offices that could have a collection of statues worth a million dollars that they are literally renting very inexpensively and have the bragging rights to showcase on their premises, Russo continued.
The money from the rental income alone pays for the product cost, Russo said. Treasure Investments would be the only ones in the world doing it, he added.
In addition, Treasure Investments would own the inventory and collect rent, Russo said. That business is expected to launch later this year, he added.
The museum is the home of the assets that could be sold to let shareholders in the private company monetize their investments, Russo said. Ways to do so include the company going public, selling the entire business or, possibly a better and higher value for shareholders, would be to sell the assets of the museum to produce the highest value per share price, he said.
One of the pieces is a casting of Michelangelo’s famed Pieta showing Jesus after his crucifixion, held by his grieving mother, the Virgin Mary. Another is a bronze casting of Michelangelo’s Battle of the Centaurs, a relief by the Italian Renaissance artist created around 1492. It is the second sculpture created by Michelangelo.
Yet one more bronze statue is Farnese Hercules. It is the only bronze statue made from the original mold, Russo said. The marble version of the statute is in the National Archeological Museum in Naples, Italy.
It is a unique way to enhance the value of bullion by turning it into a work of art, Russo said. That transformation especially holds true if the mold came from a creation developed by the hands of a great artist, he added.
“It’s an exciting part of our business model,” Russo said.
Even though Treasure Investments is a private company, its shares can be purchased by “qualified” investors. Anyone interested in considering purchasing shares in the private company can contact Michael Shepperd, a partner and director, by emailing michael@foundrymichelangelo.com or invest@treasureinvestmentcorp.com, as well as by calling 1-360-954-5453.
Shares are priced by the private company at $5.00 each but Treasure Investments offered them at $2.50 for a 50% discount at FreedomFest and agreed to extend the promotional pricing to readers of my column who qualify and commit soon. The Regulation D offering of Treasure Investments allows the sale of private company shares without needing to register the offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). A Regulation D offering provides access to the capital markets for small companies that otherwise would face increased costs to register with the SEC.
The five strategies to invest in fine art profitably are succeeding for Treasure Investments, according to its founder, Mark Russo. The company’s plans for a sixth profitable revenue stream could be just months away.
Paul Dykewicz, www.pauldykewicz.com, is an accomplished, award-winning journalist who has written for Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, USA Today, the Journal of Commerce, Seeking Alpha, Guru Focus and other publications and websites. Paul, who can be followed on Twitter @PaulDykewicz, is the editor of StockInvestor.com and DividendInvestor.com, a writer for both websites and a columnist. He further is editorial director of Eagle Financial Publications in Washington, D.C., where he edits monthly investment newsletters, time-sensitive trading alerts, free e-letters and other investment reports. Paul previously served as business editor of Baltimore’s Daily Record newspaper. Special Sale for Graduation Season! Paul is the author of an inspirational book, “Holy Smokes! Golden Guidance from Notre Dame’s Championship Chaplain,” with a foreword by former national championship-winning football coach Lou Holtz. The uplifting book is great gift and is endorsed by Joe Montana, Joe Theismann, Ara Parseghian, “Rocket” Ismail, Reggie Brooks, Dick Vitale and many others. Call 202-677-4457 for reduced pricing on multiple-book purchases.