RM Sotheby’s “The Junkyard”: The Rudi Klein Collection, Los Angeles, October 26-28, 2024
There are places we know, or hear mentioned, but rarely if ever see. Places like Caruso’s on Long Island, the legendary A.K. Miller in Vermont, even Austie Clark’s museum (as much storage yard as museum.) Every once in a while, usually part of an end-of-life event, they surface and are dispersed in a flash of […]
RM Sotheby’s, Hershey, October 9-10, 2024
RM’s post-sale press release quoted RM’s President Gord Duff, “It’s always an experience coming back to Hershey. There’s something about the atmosphere—whether it’s the history, the people, the swap meet, or the cars—that makes it feel like a homecoming.” And that is exactly how it feels. It’s early Fall, a delightful season in Pennsylvania (when […]
RM Sotheby’s, Monterey, August 15-17, 2024
Nowhere is it more clear (at least on the numbers as contrasted with walking through the preview) that the relative importance of RM Sotheby’s Monterey auction is determined by 7- and 8-figure cars. 46 lots were bid to $1 million or more; 36 of them sold bringing a total of $116,510,500, 69% of RM’s three-day […]
RM Sotheby’s, Cliveden House, Taplow, Berkshire, U.K., June 12, 2024
Not having budget to travel to the U.K., nor to stay at the site, I watched this first-time sale unfold online, recording the block hammer bids. I thought I’d polish up old skills from the COVID era and compose an auction report from the auction video, the catalog, and the online photos. That proved to […]
The 2024 Monaco Auctions, May 9-11, 2024 – Artcurial, Bonhams and RM Sotheby’s
Every two years the Auto Club of Monaco presents the Monaco GP Historique. The course is set up for the Monaco GP two weeks later with pits, paddock, grandstands and the track arranged for the GP but instead of Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc (congratulations Charles on your maiden hometown win) it’s old cars on […]
RM Sotheby’s, ModaMiami, March 1-2, 2024
Replaced by Hagerty’s Broad Arrow Auctions as the headline auction at the Ritz Carlton Amelia Island in 2023, RM Sotheby’s retrenched with an auction in the Amelia woods last year then announced they would move to South Florida this year with a standalone auction and concours under the name ModaMiami. The setting was the classic […]
RM Sotheby’s, Arizona Biltmore, January 25, 2024
Fortunately I have help from a few of my friends…. I wedged my head firmly between my gluteus maximus muscles in Scottsdale and thought RM’s auction was the 26th, not the 25th. Arriving Friday morning I was greeted by … nothing automotive. Andrew Newton and Greg Ingold saved the day, in fact saved the week, […]
RM Sotheby’s, Las Vegas F1, November 17, 2023
Formula One racing came to Las Vegas with a vengeance on the weekend of November 18. It was a given that it would be spectacular and – other than the seemingly inevitable win by Max Verstappen – it was. Like just about anything happening in Vegas, it was over-hyped, over-produced and the action was long […]
RM Sotheby’s, Hershey, October 4-5, 2023
Hershey is not RM Sotheby’s most significant sale, but it is one of its most enjoyable and intriguing. The cars offered are so unusual that often there are several we’ve never heard of before. They aren’t the best concours-queens, but are positioned to reflect the Hershey AACA Swap Meet environment. In other words there were […]
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 […]