Paris competitionthe French magazine world-famous for its photojournalism announced Monday that it will auction a series of archival photos as NFTs to commemorate the publication’s 75th anniversary.
The auction, which begins today, will feature 75 Ethereum NFTs of iconic photos of the Paris competition archives. The digital files also come with numbered and signed physical prints of the same images. Starting bids for each photo start at 0.3 ETH, an amount worth approximately $1,062 when writing.
Paris competition Photos selected for today’s sale include cultural icons such as The Rolling Stones, Jack Nicholson, Orson Welles and John Travolta, as well as news stories about the Berlin Wall, Harlem and the Tour de France.
“John Travolta chez lui aux Etats-Unis”, 1980. Credit: Jean-Claude Sauer, Paris Match Archives
For the auction, Paris competition collaborates with the photo NFT platform Focus block And Super rare, the NFT marketplace. Today’s sale marks the magazine’s second foray into NFTs, following a January 2023 sale of 120 one-of-ones.
Emmanuel Daien, the founder of Focus Bloc, also helped Paris competition during the magazine’s first NFT sale last year. He told Declutter‘s SCENE that during that first sale he saw an interesting mix of traditional photo collectors and crypto-native NFT enthusiasts jogging to own pieces from the magazine’s history.
“Rendezvous with Jack Nicholson in Paris,” 1974. Credit: Jack Garofalo, Paris Match Archives
This time, Daien said, the magazine has opted for an auction format, rather than a fixed-price sale. It has also added a physical element to the NFTs, with prints accompanying the digital files – perhaps a nod to the expected sales success among traditional photo collectors.
Owners of Paris competition NFTs get full digital licensing rights to the photos they own. Paris competition reserves all other rights associated with the images.
Edited by Andrew Hayward