Auctions calm ahead of a storm
Barons and Brightwells struggle ahead of next month’s flurry of well-stocked sales
This was a quiet month for auctions, both in the number of sales and the amount of paddle-waving going on at them. At the two main auctions the vast majority of cars that did sell went for below estimate or sold without reserve. Brightwells is still working hard to establish its Modern Classic brand of sales and the latest one rather lacked variety. Of 102 cars offered, 42% wore BMW or Mercedes badges. This at least partly explains why Brightwells posted a sale rate of just 48%. Maybe the more rare-groove moderns are just too easy to sell via other means and don’t need the auction stage? Time will tell. Things were even worse at Barons two days later. It posted some good individual results like the E-type V12 noted below, but the overall sale rate was down at 44.7%. That’s probably just a blip, though. The next month packs seven sales into a two-week period, with some interesting catalogues.