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 […]
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 […]
RM Sotheby’s, Arizona Biltmore, January 17, 2020
RM Sotheby’s experienced the same paradigm shift as most of the other Arizona auctions, a shortage of expensive cars and a general shift to more accessible consignments. The median transaction was the lowest since 2011; the average sale was the lowest since 2012 which also marked the last time RM had a total sale this […]
RM Sotheby’s, Taj Ma Garaj, Dayton, Ohio, September 28, 2019
Well, we’re a little late with this auction report. It got backed up with a succession of sales with more cars, but doesn’t deserve to be overlooked. Taj Ma Garaj was John Dixon’s passion, reflecting both his love of all things Porsche and also his inimitable if not unique desire to express his vision of […]
RM Sotheby’s, Olympia London, October 24, 2019
RM Sotheby’s moved both the date and the venue of its annual auction in London. The date slid 6 weeks later from the early September schedule of 2013-2018 while the venue moved to the Olympia exhibition and conference centre in Kensington. Neither seemed to have beneficial effect with the sale total the second lowest since […]
RM Sotheby’s, Monterey, August 15-17, 2019
RM Sotheby’s added a Thursday session for 34 Aston Martins, bringing their total consignment to 184 lots from last year’s 150. 64.7% of the Astons sold, not bolstering RM’s eventual 72.8% sell-through. But it was the Saturday appearance of the vaunted Porsche Type 64 (actually a modified Kraft durch Freude Wagen (the VW predecessor) Porsche […]
RM Sotheby’s, Fred Guyton Collection, St. Louis, Missouri, May 4-5, 2019
RM Sotheby’s sale of Fred Guyton’s collection in St. Louis was the second time in two weeks that a large collection was sold out to the bare walls. The collections were markedly different in concept from last week’s sale of engineer Frank Spain’s Tupelo Automobile Museum. Fred Guyton was an architect with, based upon the […]
RM Sotheby’s, Ritz Carlton, Amelia Island, March 8-9, 2019
RM Sotheby’s went back to a 2-day format this year and was aided by benign North Florida weather, unlike last year when the Concours pulled forward a day to avoid a predicted Sunday deluge. The sale featured several cars from the Youngtimer Collection of late model, low miles, original cars. This followed RM Sotheby’s success […]
RM Sotheby’s, Arizona Biltmore, Phoenix, January 17-18, 2019
RM Sotheby’s got bumped in 2019, relinquishing their ballroom auction space to a medical device national meeting. This is the second time this has happened and the RM crew has gotten very good at working around the dislocation, setting up a tent marquee in the valet parking lot for the auction venue and moving much […]
RM Sotheby’s, Petersen Museum, Los Angeles, December 8, 2018
Los Angeles’s Petersen Museum was the site of a new RM Sotheby’s venue in early December 2018, the climax of a year where the RM group’s sales were re-branded and shuffled between RM Sotheby’s and RM Auction (successor to Auctions America.) Based on the pre-sale announcement this sale seems to be positioned as a biennial […]