Do you view limited editions as legitimate art product?

Do you view limited editions as legitimate art product?

Yikes - what a great question!
Is a reproduction art?
The original hand produced object is art; an artist put hand to brush, chisel, mouse (?), knife, Gatorade bottle or whatever and made something. It is unique and can never be hand replicated again. In other words there is only one. Now the image is photographed, then a print is made on some sort of support. Now we must ask is photography art? If we say yes then obviously the piece is now a photograph that is an object of art. I believe certain photographs are art, based on composition, subject, quality, production, timing and if needed certain enhancements. Following this line of reasoning, if the subject is art, the composition is the art, the uniqueness is art, timing is not an issue, and the color is correct; then it is left to quality (archival) and production. If the output is of "permanent" quality and the production is limited then it's art. If you over produce the object (posters) it becomes a commodity and is NOT art.

As a collector of objects of art I do not collect anything that is not original.
As a painter of original paintings I do not and will not allow my works to be printed. As both I do not criticize those who do, I feel it devalues ones body of work by making them widely available. From a marketing guys point of view I realize lots of folks can't pay me several hundreds or thousands of dollars to buy one of my originals. My solution (recent) as suggested by a couple of gallery owners who have encouraged me not to change the above policy I am now making some much smaller pieces; they start at $350.00. I understand that some folks can't afford this; I also accept that some folks are not in my marketplace.