RM Auctions, Auburn Fall, Auburn, IN, September 3-5, 2020
If there’s any remaining question about how well the collector car auction market is adjusting to CoViD-19’s restrictions and revised value chains it’s nowhere better seen than in the recent history of Auburn Fall. It handily beat 2019’s pre-CoViD sale total and nearly matched it in average transaction value. It didn’t match 2018’s sale total […]
Worldwide Auctioneers, Auburn, Indiana, September 5, 2020
Auburn, Indiana is Worldwide Auctioneers’ home turf and after building a successful series of sales under tents in a field and at the NATMUS Cord Front-Drive (“L-29”) Assembly Building they last year moved into the former Dean Kruse WWII Museum complex across I-69 from the Auburn Auction Park while maintaining their momentum. Worldwide’s Auburn auction […]
Gooding & Company, Hampton Court Palace, September 5, 2020 “Passion of a Lifetime”
Gooding & Company made a splash with its first auction outside the U.S., setting record after record with only a 15-car docket featuring the collection of Hubert Fabri. There was no insignificant car on the docket. They ranged from a concours restored Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost Alpine Eagle tourer to a pair of aged, peeling, used […]
RM Sotheby’s, Shift/Monterey, August 14-15, 2020
The culmination of RM Sotheby’s summer of Online Only was the online replacement for their annual blockbuster auction at Monterey, for online styled “Shift/Monterey”. With a total sale of $30¼ million it was at the top of the Monterey replacements with a total changing hands over twice either Gooding’s $14.4 million or Bonhams $12.8 million. […]
Bonhams, Quail Online, Los Angeles, California , August 10-14, 2020
An organization that traces its history back to 1793 should be expected to be traditional, staid and fiercely resistant to anything that resembles innovation. That has not been the case for Bonhams approach to online auctions. In the UK Bonhams started a series of affordable classic auction sales called MPH last year, a venture that […]
Gooding & Company, “Geared Online”, August 7, 2020
Gooding & Company sailed into the COVID-19 canceled Monterey Car Week with the first of the three online auctions, creatively called “Geared Online”. It was Gooding’s first online only auction. Contrasted with Gooding’s usual Pebble Beach auctions it wasn’t a big sale, with just 54 lots. There were some heavy cars with six bid to […]
RM Sotheby’s, Online Only: Open Roads, The European Summer Sale July 14-22, 2020
RM Sotheby’s is gobbling up the online space for major auctions. They hit the ground running with the quickly restructured RM Auctions Palm Beach auction, followed up two months later with a late May Online Only presentation, then in quick succession did a remarkably successful European sale on June 11, this European Summer auction and […]
Barrett-Jackson Online Only, July 6-10, 2020
Barrett-Jackson’s second “Online Only” auction of 2020 followed closely the substance and Proxibid-based format of the first one, seven and a half weeks ago including the prevalence of reserves on most of the cars. The results were similar if slightly lower, although if B-J had found a home for its headline lot, a 2018 Ford […]
Mecum Auctions, Eddie Vannoy Collection, Jefferson, NC, June 29, 2020
Mecum Auctions has been stalled since its Glendale, Arizona auction in March. Their business model is spectator- and bidder-dependent, a vast show with vendors and exhibitors. That doesn’t translate to online-only. For the Eddie Vannoy auction Mecum created a hybrid: bidders and guests only at the venue in western North Carolina; an open online bidding […]
RM Sotheby’s Online Only: The European Sale
June 3-11, 2020 Featuring the Petitjean Collection This was RM Sotheby’s third online only auction, succeeding its canceled second annual auction at Techno Classica Essen in Germany. The feature was the 96 cars from La Collection Petitjean, all offered at no reserve after decades of static storage and, as it turned out, indifferent cosmetic attention […]