Mecum Auctions, Monterey, August 17-19, 2023
Mecum Auctions is Walmart among the five Monterey car week auctions: There’s an ample selection, much of the inventory is relatively inexpensive, some of it is seriously out of the ordinary and there is enough premium product to keep buyers intrigued. Mecum has gradually transitioned to offering more high end, expensive, cars including late model […]
RM Sotheby’s, Monterey, August 17-19, 2023
After a pair of post-COVID years in the rarified stratosphere RM Sotheby’s three-day Monterey auction came back to more dense atmosphere in 2023, still exceptional but less effusive than it was in 2021 and 2022. It showed that RM understands it (and its Monterey competitors) can’t simply bulk up with hundreds of cars to build […]
Broad Arrow|Radius, Jet Center, Monterey, August 17-18, 2003
2023 was Broad Arrow’s second auction at the Monterey Jet Center coincident with the Hagerty Motorlux kickoff party. Last year was Broad Arrow’s first live auction, although the Broad Arrow team has decades of experience, coming mostly from RM. I’m going to put the numbers first to get the details out of the way: The […]
RM Sotheby’s, Monterey, August 18-20, 2022
It’s been five weeks since leaving Monterey with incipient Covid-19. The infection wasn’t bad, but it has lingering consequences. But, finally, here’s the final result from Monterey 2022 and it’s RM Sotheby’s epic sale with $243 million changing hands. To put it in perspective, in 2017 Sotheby’s evening contemporary art auction in New York totaled […]
Gooding & Co., Pebble Beach, August 19-20, 2022
In common with pretty much every other Monterey auction Gooding & Company continued its strong comeback from the weak 2019 performance with strong 2022 results. The numbers that Gooding delivered are exceptional. 38 of the lots offered were bid to $1 million or more. 27 of them sold bringing a total of $74,262,500 including buyer’s […]
Mecum Auctions, Del Monte Golf Course, Monterey, August 18-20, 2022
Mecum Auctions has in the past deluged its Monterey auction with truckloads of consignments, both cars and motorcycles. In only the third year here in 2011 there were 743 lots offered. There were 735 in 2013 and from 2014 through 2018 there were over 600 each year. That emphasis on volume seems to have tapered […]
Broad Arrow, Monterey, August 18, 2022
Broad Arrow is, despite the decades of experience of its team, the new kid on the block. Started just a year or so ago, it gained support from Hagerty which then was morphing from a privately held company to publicly traded after a merger with a SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) led by Rob Kaufmann […]
The 2022 Monterey Auctions
One 7-figure Car Short of Half a Billion Dollars First, an explanation of why this report is so late. I returned from Monterey with Covid, then gave it to my wife. The last week of August and the first one of September were a write-off to our recoveries which was without complications or hospitalization. […]
RM Sotheby’s, Portola Plaza, Monterey, August 12-14, 2021
RM Sotheby’s returned to their Monterey form in 2021, putting together a smaller consignment that overflowed with quality vehicles. RM fluctuates between two and three day auctions with the third day usually being a single collection or a themed consignment as in 2019 when the Thursday sale was all Aston Martin. This year the Thursday […]
Mecum Auctions, Del Monte Golf Course, August 12-14, 2021
Mecum came off a lowball year in 2019 to score its highest sale total in the Monterey sale’s thirteen year history as well as the highest sell-through rate at 77%, 15 points higher that the best-ever performance in 2012. The seven-figure lots were equally impressive with sixteen lots bid to a million dollars or more […]