RM Sotheby’s Online Only: Palm Beach, March 20-28, 2020
On Friday preceding the Amelia concours, RM Sotheby’s hosted a small gathering of its executives with a few longtime journalists and auction-watchers. It was March 6—an eternity ago in terms of the novel coronavirus threat. By the time most of us returned home from Amelia, it was clear it would be some time before we […]
RM Sotheby’s, Amelia Island, March 6-7, 2020
The End of the Beginning We didn’t know it at the time, but RM’s last session of its two-day Amelia Island auction at the Ritz Carlton marked the beginning of the end of live collector car auctions in 2020, at least until the so-called novel coronavirus (designated “2019-nCoV” by the WHO, distinct from the acute […]
Gooding & Company, Amelia Island, March 6, 2020
It seems weird, but posting this auction report a month after it happened is only part of the disruption in our lives over the past 30 days. So much has changed and Amelia, with its lighthearted, confident attitude, is so different from where we are in early April. It’s hard to concentrate even though Work […]
Bonhams, Amelia Island, March 5, 2020
This is the first report from the three auctions at Amelia, the last events before coronavirus and COVID-19 upended everything. The reports from RM Sotheby’s and Gooding & Company will follow shortly, along with an extended analysis of RM’s Palm Beach auction March 25-28, which quickly moved to an Online Only format with closing times […]
Artcurial Retromobile, Paris, February 7, 2020
Artcurial at Retromobile in 2020 had an abundance of wonderful cars. It was, however, the middle and bottom of the market that found buyers. The big money cars struggled, leaving the auction with its weakest performance in years. One of the feature elements, the sale of four gorgeous yachts at no reserve (gorgeous to contemplate, […]
RM Sotheby’s, Place Vauban, Paris, February 5, 2020
RM Sotheby’s left some $14 million on the table with just three lots this year (Jaguar D-type XKD 520, Daytona Spider 15535 and the Batmobile-ish Lamborghini Veneno that is not reported here but brought a reported high bid of $4,347,370 and had kids barely old enough to shave fawning over it in the preview), carving […]
Bonhams, Grand Palais, Paris, February 6, 2020
“Those were the days”. Bonhams Paris auction is set in the best location, the Grand Palais which hosted automobile and aviation shows in the early 20th century when Paris was the center of the automotive world. Bonhams brings back relics of the age once again to luxuriate in the ambience of the Grand Palais, accented […]
What Is Going On?
“May you live in an interesting age” is a curse attributed to Chinese sources. These days are an “interesting age.” It was ten days ago that I left for Amelia Island. Things were tentative. COVID-19 was largely confined to China but cases were showing up in northern Italy and Iran. There was some trepidation upon […]
Mecum Auctions, Osceola Heritage Park, Kissimmee, January 3-12, 2020 — Part II: Ford-Watson
This is Part II of Mecum Kissimmee, starting with Fords and ending with Watson (as in legendary Indy mechanic, crew chief and constructor A.J. Watson.) It’s a little shorter than Part I, mostly because it doesn’t have to include all those Camaros and Corvettes. It does, however, include the highlight of the auction calendar’s first […]
Mecum Auctions, Osceola Heritage Park, Kissimmee, January 2-12, 2020
When Mecum set up shop in Kissimmee eleven years ago it was an audacious bet that the team from Marengo, Illinois could – from scratch, without any tradition and a week before the long-established Scottsdale auctions – build a big mainstream collector car auction in the fields of central Florida. And have they ever done […]