Actually, the provenance adds way more than 1000% or whatever. That 1000% is the provenance discounted by the chance that it's totally made up and, therefore, outright fraud.
Look at this story: [1]
"As Van de Hoeven recalled, they were sitting in her sun-flooded living room, making small talk about how Zodiac could have been a great movie, had it not been so slavishly devoted to ’70s period detail. When Tarantino noticed the figurine on the mantle, he jumped up from the sectional couch."
That didn't happen. If it had, the figuring could be worth a lot more than $50.
$50 - the new price - is in a lemon market of fake stories.
If they really want to test the price of a story, why not do it in a way that isn't fraud?
Why don't they start with real stories about objects that have actually been verified, in a printed book for example from which they can quote, and then simply do the experiment by not mentioning this true story in some cases and mentioning it in others?
This would decrease the "fraud discount" SIGNIFICENTLY since in the cases where you DO mention the story, you can also mention the references that actually back it up. There's no real chance you're just inventing it. For example, if a distinctive custom object was photographed with Obama, you can link to the photograph while "telling the story".
In the version where you don't tell the story, but only describe the object, you don't link the photographic proof either.
That way you can really tell how much value the story adds, instaed of how much value discounted by the chance (which is in this case the reality) that it's just being made up.
[1] EDIT: for the source I followed their link "The project was so successful (and so interesting) that they have now repeated it 5 times and put all the results up on the web. It is also a book." which links to http://significantobjects.com/about/ - I'm quoting from the first picture I followed on the right sidebar, since I wanted to see what these stories sounded like.
Look at this story: [1]
"As Van de Hoeven recalled, they were sitting in her sun-flooded living room, making small talk about how Zodiac could have been a great movie, had it not been so slavishly devoted to ’70s period detail. When Tarantino noticed the figurine on the mantle, he jumped up from the sectional couch."
That didn't happen. If it had, the figuring could be worth a lot more than $50.
$50 - the new price - is in a lemon market of fake stories.
If they really want to test the price of a story, why not do it in a way that isn't fraud?
Why don't they start with real stories about objects that have actually been verified, in a printed book for example from which they can quote, and then simply do the experiment by not mentioning this true story in some cases and mentioning it in others?
This would decrease the "fraud discount" SIGNIFICENTLY since in the cases where you DO mention the story, you can also mention the references that actually back it up. There's no real chance you're just inventing it. For example, if a distinctive custom object was photographed with Obama, you can link to the photograph while "telling the story".
In the version where you don't tell the story, but only describe the object, you don't link the photographic proof either.
That way you can really tell how much value the story adds, instaed of how much value discounted by the chance (which is in this case the reality) that it's just being made up.
[1] EDIT: for the source I followed their link "The project was so successful (and so interesting) that they have now repeated it 5 times and put all the results up on the web. It is also a book." which links to http://significantobjects.com/about/ - I'm quoting from the first picture I followed on the right sidebar, since I wanted to see what these stories sounded like.