The new trend - auctioning collections
05/20/2015
Entire collections or parts of them seem to be appearing more and more frequently at auctions. Mecum, for example, will be offering several vehicles from the collection of John Wickey, a first-class muscle car fan, on June 5/6, 2015 in Seattle.
Bonhams has had the bulk of the Maranello Rosso Collection under the hammer over the last 12 months, while RM Sotheby's has repeatedly attracted attention with auctions of entire collections, most recently with the Andrews Collection, last year with the Sam Pack Collection, in 2013 with the Don Davis Collection and previously with the sale of an entire museum, the Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum.
However, Artcurial took the cake in February 2015 when the Baillon Collection was sold for record prices as the barn find of the century. But a year earlier, the liquidation of an Alfa Romeo collection had already caused a sensation.
What was striking about many of these offers was that they went under the hammer without a minimum price, i.e. they were sold without reserve.
More and more collectors (and heirs) seem to prefer to leave their vehicles "en bloc" to an auction house. The auction house returns the favor with PR and marketing masterpieces, and the cars end up changing hands at comparatively high prices, making a good profit for both seller and auction house.
A few years ago, collectors would probably have preferred to sell the vehicles themselves or at least split them up between different auction houses and offer them one by one.
By the way, you can find our auction reports here.
