Quote:
Originally Posted by cascavel
Auction houses are always trying to get the highest price possible for any item they are selling. As such, they don't represent the buyer, they represent themselves and, to a certain extent, the seller.
Any expectations of fairness a buyer at auction may have are unwarranted. The only defense a buyer at auction has is her own expertise. If you hire an expert advisor their job should be to talk you out of buying stuff and they should be paid a bonus for doing so.
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Very true sir. They should get a bonus from their peacock client for keeping their cheque book in the pocket....but many of these 'Experts' instead work with the auction house.
A fellow vintage car collector friend of mine was in Maranello in 2008 for the RM Auction of a few interesting vintage Ferrari cars.
He recalled how a few well-heeled but frankly clueless buyers were there with their experts.
The Auction house hosed the clients with top grade claret for 2 hrs before it all began and many clients and their advisers were sloshed as bidding began.
He was sitting next to a English Disc Jockey Radio host called Chris Evens. He'd been chatting to a few of how he had an interest in a particular Ferrari to go with his 7 other white ones....don't ask !
Anyway, bidding starts and the car he was interested in sells for more than his expert adviser thinks is appropriate, so interest peters out in the next few cars .....
More drinking and high jinx go on for another hour and then Evans sees the next lot is ex James Coburns's Ferrari 250 GT SWB.
Evans says to him what you think, and expert says should go for X million, but might go for a song....
Next thing the car is way up past that fig and 7, 8...9 million dollars is reached in a bidding frenzy and Evans plainly drunk is merrily bidding away and subsequently wins with a winning bid of $10.8 million all in - about twice it's expected valuation!
The expert totally let him do this and didn't curtail Evans's bidding, like he had earlier. At the time my pal pondered what had motivated such abject indifference to overpaying on this car - seems obvious now !
Postscript to sale - Apparently Evans went as white as sheet and totally sobered up , when he realised he had to cough up ten million $, and went into flapping overdrive ringing his 'people' to flog off other assets to pay for it .... The 'expert' I'm told had disappeared into the mist by then and was last seen by my pal chatting to the auctioneers !
Final postscript - Evans sold the car 2 yrs later for $8 million ($2.8 million loss) because purportedly it had the wrong engine in it !
High-end auctions ..you gotta love em ( ◜‿◝ )♡