Plate Sales Data
Market record · auction and private sales
Edward Curtis's work has been actively bought and sold for the past fifty years, with a particularly intense market period beginning in the 1970s rediscovery and continuing through the present. The data below tracks where Curtis material — and these copper photogravure plates specifically — have placed in the auction and private-sale market.
The Curtis market — what gets traded
Several distinct categories of Curtis material exist in the market, each with different price ranges:
| Category | Description | Typical price range |
|---|---|---|
| Complete 20-volume sets | Full North American Indian | $250,000 – $2.28M |
| Single text volumes | Individual volumes from the set | $10,000 – $65,000 |
| Single portfolios | Individual large-format portfolios | $25,000 – $150,000 |
| Individual gravures (text) | Smaller prints from text volumes | $500 – $5,000 |
| Individual gravures (portfolio) | Large-format gravures | $2,000 – $25,000 |
| Gold-tones | Distinct Curtis process on glass | $100,000+ |
| Platinum prints | From separate negatives, iconic subjects | $75,000+ |
| Exhibition platinum prints | Rare, 1905–1906 | One sold for over $150,000 |
| Copper photogravure plates | The original artifacts | See below |
The complete set record
In 1972, a complete twenty-volume set of The North American Indian sold for $20,000.
Forty years later, in April 2012, a complete subscriber's set from the collection of Kenneth Nebenzahl — a rare-book dealer in Chicago — sold at Christie's for $2.28 million. The same publication, the same form, the same content. The intervening four decades saw Curtis re-established as a major figure in American photography, and his work's market value followed.
The copper photogravure plates — auction and private sales
First major auction: The first Curtis copper photogravure plate to be offered at major auction was Bear's Belly — Arikara, sold at Sotheby's New York on September 30, 2014. Final hammer price with seller's markup: $81,250.
Private sales from this collection:
| Plate | Sale price |
|---|---|
| An Oasis in the Badlands | In excess of $100,000 |
| Chief Joseph — Nez Perce | In excess of $800,000 |
| The Canyon de Chelly | In excess of $800,000 |
Each of these is one of the most iconic images in Curtis's body of work. The Chief Joseph and Canyon de Chelly figures stand as record-level transactions for individual copper photogravure plates and reflect the value structure that has emerged around the most-coveted images.
Where these plates have been exhibited
- Paris Photo Los Angeles, April 2015 — featured as "best in show"
- Paris Photo Paris, November 2015
- The Depart Foundation Gallery, 2017
- The Heather James Gallery, Palm Desert, California — private exhibitions
- Jackson, Wyoming — private exhibition
- Museum of the West, Scottsdale, Arizona — permanent display since 2022 (private collector's installation)
- Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Arizona — six-month show featuring plates from this collection, 2018
The valuation case
For a copper photogravure plate that is:
- One of a kind (each image exists in only one plate)
- Carrying Curtis's editing decisions in metal (his final working state, not a reproduction)
- Authenticated by Florence Curtis Graybill, Curtis's daughter
- From a documented, unbroken provenance chain
- Distinct from the thousands of gravures, gold-tones, and platinum prints in the market
— the valuation case rests on its position as the original artifact from which all related material derives. Recently, an iconic image from this collection, Bear's Belly, established the baseline auction precedent at $81,250 in 2014. Private sales of more iconic images have reached eight times that figure.
The plates should be valued in proximity to the exhibition platinum prints — the rarest comparable Curtis material — because both represent the artist's most committed, definitive form of each image, rather than the reproductive output that came after.
Currently offered
CurtisCamp currently offers two plates from this collection:
- Acoma Belfry (Plate 564, Volume 16, 1904) — $15,000
- Blackfoot Tipis (Plate 642, Volume 18, 1926) — $15,000
10% of all proceeds support Native American causes — the buyer chooses the organization.
The Camp Keeper's plate ownership exceeds what is being currently offered. Ask the Camp Keeper about availability.
Sales data current as of May 2026. Updated periodically.