Market Intelligence
Online auctions: the market continues to shine
The article discusses the 2020 RM Sotheby's sale, which took place during the Essen Car Show, and had to be moved online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The sale was a success, with 91% of lots sold, generating a record amount of EUR 19,246,540 - the highest amount ever recorded by an online classic car auction. The sale was divided into two parts, with 94 cars belonging to the Petitjean collection, and 90 cars from different collections. The article discusses some of the cars sold, including a 1958 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Roadster, a 1966 Maserati Mistral 3.7, and a 1968 Lamborghini Miura P400 by Bertone. The article highlights that despite being sold online, the auction proved to be an excellent sale and proved that this format has nothing to fear from traditional sales.
Let me start by saying that I have never actually been to Essen. Despite this, it is all too easy to form a preconceived idea of it. Since it is home to a huge steelworks and to two of Germany’s most important electricity companies, and, according to Wikipedia, counts a coal mine among its few visitor attractions (!?!), I, for one, find myself picturing it as a large industrial city with a constantly gray sky, even in summer, and cold and unfriendly people. Obviously, this isn’t a true picture at all, quite the opposite! But whatever the place is like, there is no doubt that, for one week every year, Essen is heaven on earth for motorheads. This is because it is the city that hosts Europe’s largest classic car show (surely reason enough for the sun to peep out from behind the clouds!). Like all major events in recent months, the RM Sotheby’s sale that had been scheduled to take place at the end of March, during the Essen Car Show, underwent a change of plan. When the pandemic exploded in Europe, the catalog was already complete, and many of the lots were already on their way to Germany. What was to be done? Initially there was talk of postponing the sale, and the show itself, to the end of June, but as soon as it became clear that the health emergency was far bigger than anyone had imagined, it was decided to move the whole thing online.
Now, following several weeks of online auctions, we know that this format has nothing to fear from comparisons with traditional sales, and therefore I don’t expect to surprise anyone by saying that the Essen auction proved to be an excellent sale (to put it mildly). Nevertheless, to underline my point, here are two “cold” data that illustrate the event far better than lots of words can: first, 91% of the lots were sold (making this one of RM Sotheby’s best sales in Europe in a decade), and second, the event generated a total of EUR 19,246,540 — the highest amount ever recorded by an online classic car auction.
