What Is Going to Change?

With Rupert Banner, Philip Kantor and Gordon McCall joining Bonhams at least one auction anomaly will be cleared up: the incongruous presence of Bonhams auction at Quail Lodge supporting (or being supported by, depending upon your point of view) a high profile event organized by Christie’s consultant Gordon McCall.

It’s had everyone dancing very carefully to avoid trodding on toes for years. At least now the lines of communication will be rationalized.

Gordon’s Wednesday Airport Party at the Jet Center can focus on good times and cross-promotion, perhaps augmented by a caravan of Bonhams auction cars across the Laureles Grade between the Carmel Valley auction venue and the Airport to spice up both events.

Kruse’s commitment to presenting an auction at Concorso Italiano ended this year and – no surprise – that eminently unsuccessful venture is being thankfully discontinued. That and Christie’s withdrawal leaves Monterey down two venues and selling sessions from 2007’s exhausting schedule.

As 2007 demonstrated, there is plenty of inventory crowding onto the Monterey Peninsula during the Pebble Beach week. Christie’s Thursday afternoon slot meshes neatly with Bonhams already-established Friday afternoon time. And Bonhams has been aggressively adding non-automobile inventory to an entirely separate jewelry and watches session before the cars on Friday. It’s no stretch of the imagination to see Bonhams adding a Thursday session in Christie’s absence, maybe cross-selling off the Airport Party’s existing cross-selling promotions to auction non-automotive trinkets there? It would free up The Quail location to focus on cars and automobilia.

Philip Kantor gives Bonhams an advantage in adding Christie’s annual Rétromobile sale and semi-annual Le Mans Classic auction to Bonhams’ schedule. However RM Auctions, which is pushing aggressively into Europe after great success at Maranello this May and in anticipation of a very high profile auction in London coming up on October 31, 2007, is unlikely to let either of these established and successful venues slip away without making a strong pitch for them. We’ll have to wait to see how these sales turn out.

Rupert Banner (who began his collector car auction career with Bonhams’ Malcolm Barber at Sotheby’s) is moving to New York (or its environs) to head up East Coast business development, leaving no place in Bonhams roster for Christie’s hard-working and industrious East Coast rep, Christopher Sanger. Bonhams, too, has invested in establishing a successful sale venue at the Museum of Transportation in Brookline, Massachusetts in late April. It competes directly with the Christie’s sale which Christopher Sanger organizes at the Greenwich Concours d’Elegance in early June.

Bonhams has added two days to the Brookline auction with estate items, maritime antiques and collectibles and other non-automotive consignments (as they are doing also at The Quail). There is no reasonable likelihood they’d be foolish enough to throw that investment away to take up the Greenwich venue and two Northeast sales within two months is commercial suicide.

The Greenwich Concours venue is inherently limited by area to no more than forty cars, making it ideal for an auction company that wants to establish a Northeast US bridgehead. That could be RM Auctions. It also could be Gooding & Company.

It’s all really quite intriguing and should keep the announcements flowing for several months to come.

Rick Carey