Last month, I said that if enough of you wrote a six-word story about the Scottish Doll, an object purchased for Significant Objects but then thrown into the garbage, I’d pick a winner and issue a prize. Forty-odd stories later, … Continue reading
According to our highly scientific Adjusted Sales Rank table, the following objects were the 25 most significant of our experiment. Let’s consider these significant objects visually — i.e., without mentioning which authors wrote which stories, and without reference to the … Continue reading
As you can see, we’ve launched Significant Objects, Volume 2. We plan to publish 50 stories, and auction off 50 objects, with proceeds at the end going in what we hope is an impressive lump sum to 826 National, a … Continue reading
Thanks for volunteering your efforts! As we move ahead into the next phase of the project — we’re calling it Significant Objects v2, at the moment — we are indeed lining up a new roster of writers. But before you … Continue reading
On Friday, I posted an Adjusted Final Price table, which allows us to compare our 100 objects’ final prices with their final prices adjusted for Duration Factor. It took a bit of doing, but — after the jump — please find … Continue reading
I say “sorta” because although there really is a contest, the winning story won’t be posted to eBay. Why not? Because the Scottish Doll was thrown away, and therefore can’t be sold on eBay. Read about the Scottish Doll’s fate … Continue reading
After several days of scrutinizing price data, it’s time to scrutinize the stories themselves. While Josh added “tags” in real time describing each object, lately we’ve decided it might be useful and interesting to add tags that describe narrative elements … Continue reading
In cleverly devising a way of dealing with the Duration Factor, Josh addressed the potential effect on prices of both increased demand (as more people learned about the project) and dwindling supply (as we ran out of objects). It’s assumed … Continue reading
We’re having fun geeking out over the quantitative aspects of Significant Object’s experimental phase, and this coming week we’ll offer more tables and charts and graphs. We’ll also kick off the qualitative analysis (i.e., analyzing the stories’ style, mood, voice, … Continue reading
Some of you have speculated that the Significant Object experiment’s duration affected sales prices — that is, you’ve speculated that objects auctioned off in the experiment’s first weeks no doubt sold for less, on average, than did objects auctioned off … Continue reading
We’ll be back with a savory table stuffed full of data tomorrow. In the meantime, please enjoy these holiday-appropriate tchotchkes. *** Oh, and if you want to get a jump on the Xmas-shopping crowd tomorrow, why not pick up a … Continue reading
Here’s another way to parse the data from the experimental phase of the Significant Objects project. After the jump, you’ll discover a table that not only lists the 100 objects, the authors of the 100 stories associated with those objects, … Continue reading
In response to email and queries in this site’s comments about buying a Significant Objects Mug (i.e., because of our project’s mug logo, which Joe Alterio whipped up for us in a hurry when we suddenly decided to retire our … Continue reading
Well, folks, here it is. A comprehensive rundown of the entire S.O. 100, ranked by final selling price. Thanks to this neat-o plug-in, you can also adjust the chart to see it ranked by the price we paid for each … Continue reading
As announced last week, we’re busily retooling Significant Objects as a charitable fundraising effort. We’ve assigned half a dozen objects to new writers, and we’ve already lined up a couple dozen more contributors, new and returning, too. Later this week, … Continue reading
A few moments ago, the auction for our 100th item (the Missouri Shotglass, story courtesy of Jonathan Lethem) ended. Moment of silence, please. The research phase of the Significant Objects experiment is over; next, we’ll analyze the data. And while … Continue reading
Today’s installment of Dorothy Gambrell’s popular webcomic Cat and Girl riffs on significant objects:
It’s really weird to look at our store and see just one item! But there it is: Missouri Shot Glass + Story by Jonathan Lethem. And the auction closes in less than 24 hours … who will end up with … Continue reading
