Auction Stats - percentages sold and sale totals

APRIL AUCTION STATS

The highest 90% sold rates of the month in the auctions reviewed were achieved on-line only by The Market and following a traditional ‘live format’ auction at Ascot under the Historics gavel.

By far the largest turn-out of the month was at Ascot Racecourse, where there were 1,200 attendees for the three viewing days preceding sale day, when the auction area within the Grandstand atrium was full to the 500 limit permitted by the venue. Registration to bid by telephone at this already postponed sale was unprecedented, while a record 1,136 more absentee bidders from 30 countries across four Continents registered to do so on-line.

By sale end, 63% of entries had been knocked down to in-hall and telephone bidders and 37% of the contents of the traditional and ample printed catalogue to those, who opted to buy cars via the internet. By value interestingly, 56% of consigned cars for this sale sold in-hall and on-telephone, and 44% of entries by value sold to on-line bidders.

New auctioneers Manor Park Classics held their first sale in their own 30,000 square foot premises, which include a purpose-built auction hall with admin gallery. Apart from offering much secure storage for their clients, MPC also have their own in-house IT, webcast and video production kit and personnel, and a 4-poster lift on-site, so that consigned vehicles can be inspected properly and seen running and driven pre-sale by prospective buyers. The North West firm’s £1m+ sale total and 80% sale rate at this, their debut auction was surely impressive.

By contrast, selling high value collector grade assets in Monaco and Los Vegas would appear to have been statistically more difficult in pandemic, with 58% of auction cars changing hands in Monaco, where Bonhams was the only house to stage a car sale during Monaco Historic GP weekend this year. While earlier, there were buyers for only 42% of supercars at their Sunset Boulevard sale. Although the 28 cars that did sell in Monaco and LA did amount to nearly £6.5m.

Indeed, by the end of the month, a total of 484 or 82% of the 590 classics in the sales reviewed had sold for £16,264,374 including buyer’s premium and an average of £33,604.had been spent per classic bought at auction during April. RH-E