Apr 26, 2021
With headlines celebrating huge prices for modern collectables like sneakers, comics and plastic toys, the traditional world of fine furniture and silver auctions can seem a long way away. The reality, though, is that at heart little has changed except for current tastes.
People of all ages like to have nice things and they also like to make a bit of money from things they no longer want or need, which other people might appreciate.
The factors that govern values in Pokémon playing cards are little different from those that determine what people will pay for other, older works on paper, especially rarity and condition.
Sometimes people of different generations like the same things without realising it because they call them different names: what younger collectors refer to as vintage posters, advertising packaging and other transitory pieces of design would be called ephemera by the collectors of yesteryear. The trick is getting people to appreciate that ‘antique’ is not dead and gone, it’s simply transitioning as the years go by, along with the terms we use to describe it.
The result is that auction houses have begun to change the way they present their sales calendar and departments to reflect the changing attitudes of the public who tend to think of objects in terms of furnishing and design rather than as academic collectables. Furniture, lighting and works of art sales have now sometimes come together under the title of Homes & Interiors, for instance. And the types of furniture, from the way they are designed to the materials they are made from, have also moved on, with the occasional backward glance as out-of-fashion pieces suddenly become à la mode once more.
Apr 19, 2021
What is the most expensive shoes you have ever comes across? A pair of Manolo Blahnik’s? Jimmy Choo’s? No longer, thanks to a pair of sneakers once worn by the rapper Kanye West, which have just sold for a cool $1 million at auction.
These were the first pair of Nike Air Yeezy 1’s ever worn by West and he slipped them on for the 2008 50th Annual Grammy Awards.
It’s hard to think of something manufactured as recently as 13 years ago as being of such value as a collectable, but it’s a lesson to us all that serious sums are not always associated with rarities from the distant past. In fact, a 2019 report by Cowen Equity Research classifying sneakers as an alternative asset class predicted that their resale market would be valued at around $30 billion by 2030. That’s the equivalent of over half the value of the entire global art market in absolute terms today.
Some auction houses already have departments dedicated to vintage fashion, but it looks as though others will soon have departments dedicated solely to sneakers.
It’s a far cry from the traditional furniture, jewellery, ceramics, glass, silver, books and fine art departments of the past, but times move on. Guessing what other alternative asset classes will emerge to change the profile of auction houses is an interesting game. What’s your prediction?
Apr 12, 2021
The death of the Duke of Edinburgh, although anticipated owing to his great age, nevertheless came as a bit of a shock as he seemed to be rallying after hospital treatment.
Tributes have poured in for what was a remarkable life in many ways, from its beginnings among the fading vestiges of European royalty swept away in the First World War and Bolshevik revolution to its completion as the standard setter for royal protocol globally.
Sacrifice, duty, honour and commitment were all instantly recognisable qualities in Prince Philip, who carved a path through life like no one before or since.
He was also innovative, forward-thinking, clever and brave, with little patience for time wasters or laziness.
With so much experience and having been central to so many memorable events as he supported the Queen over almost 75 years, what he saw and heard along the way would make the most fascinating biography. He is said to have kept meticulous records for posterity. If he approached them with the same no-holds-barred acerbic wit that he approached life, then they would be a best seller in the making. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for that.
Meanwhile, such close attention of a royal life like this can also have the power to create new fascination in nascent collectors. Items linked with royalty can already make very significant sums at auction. Reflections on the Duke of Edinburgh’s life may well encourage a new generation of fans to join the fray.
Apr 6, 2021
Detective fiction, whether in print or on the screen, is possibly the most popular fiction of all. Think of everything from Agatha Christie to Line of Duty and you get the picture. Like crossword puzzles and treasure hunts, they challenge while entertaining, allowing the reader/viewer to exercise their “leetle grey cells”, as Hercule Poirot would say, as they try to guess whodunnit, as well as how and why, before the denouement reveals all.
In some ways, cataloguing items for auction present the specialist with the same challenge and excitement. The mystery can range from what an item is – we have had a few of those – to who originally owned it and where it came from.
If you consider that the value of an object can be heavily influenced by its past associations, finding out as such as you can becomes a vital task, especially if you are thinking of putting your own possessions up for auction.
In recent years, discovery stories that have made the headlines have often involved an old vase or plate that turns out to be an ancient Chinese rarity worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, if not millions.
One of my favourite stories involved the sale of a piano. Bought by the niece of the woman who had previously owned it for just $25, she discovered that one of the pedals kept sticking. On having it repaired, she found that what was causing the problem was a secret stash of 100 antique baseball cards, which appeared to have been concealed for 80 years – probably hidden by one of the previous owner’s children.
Among the cards was a real rarity of the great Babe Ruth. That card alone later sold for $130,000.
So keep your eyes peeled and get your magnifying glass out.
Mar 29, 2021
The most expensive sold at auction for over $6.5 million; around one trillion are taken every day thanks to the ubiquity of the Smart phone; nearly all of us have taken them and own them. Few things are familiar to the average person than the photograph.
They are windows on the past, and where they have been faithfully reproduced rather than tampered with, provide us with the earliest unfettered and unfiltered clues to how we once lived.
When it comes to collecting, I can’t think of another discipline that it is as accessible or fascinating to the masses.
Vernacular or street photography has long been popular, never more so since then discovery of the extraordinary archive left by the unknown Vivian Maier (1926-2009), an American nanny who pursued a secret career as a street photographer for 40 years and whose work can now sell for thousands. From Victorian cartes de visites to anonymous everyday subjects that sell on eBay for a few pounds, this is a craze that keeps growing and keeps on giving.
So it is with some excitement that original works by the father of modern photography Sir William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-77) come to auction at Sotheby’s in April.
Featuring people, objects and places, including his celebrated home, Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire, the images date back to the early 1840s and include one of Lady Elisabeth Feilding c.1841, who was born in 1773, three years before the American Revolution.
Photographs bring local history alive. Precious relics, they create a unique connection that never existed before Fox Talbot and his fellow pioneers worked out how to fix those images in permanent form.
Mar 22, 2021
If you’ve ever wondered how much money is spent on art, antiques and collectables around the world each year, we have just been told: $50 billion. That may sound a lot, but to put that in perspective, the annual spend of the entire global art market is less than the market capitalisation value of all top 16 companies in the FTSE 100.
The value of the annual global art market has risen to almost $68 billion before, but as with nearly all other forms of commerce, the pandemic has taken its toll. Nonetheless, as this column has noted in recent months, art and antiques auctions have entered a booming new era thanks to the rapid acceleration of adoption of online sales.
The $50 billion figure was announced in mid-March by Arts Economics, the research company behind the eagerly anticipated Art Basel report, the Rolls Royce annual assessment of the art market and what is happening to it.
One of the report’s headline claims that online-only sales at auction doubled in the past year. Another was that although UK sales as a whole fell by 22% to $9.9 billion, it still held on to its top-three spot after the US and China as the world’s most important market for art and antiques.
It’s reassuring to know that even in troubled times, the knowledge, skill and expertise of British art market professionals still shines through.
Mar 15, 2021
It’s tough time to be a politician wherever you are, what with the pandemic, increasingly polarised views and the perils of social media. Two recent and not altogether unconnected events remind me that political legacies can defy early reputations. As Churchill’s personal brandy glass and monogrammed slippers sold for a combined premium-inclusive £60,000 at auction the other day, the almost mythical status of our greatest ever wartime leader was set against the rather less generous views of Chips Channon, celebrated diarist of the 1920s and ’30s, whose journals have been republished in unredacted form for the first time.
Channon, a brilliant writer of sometimes dubious views – he thought Hitler marvellous and Churchill the most dangerous man in Europe – was an unparalleled observer of his times in terms of wit yet was almost invariably wrong about public figures, events and how everything would turn out. His career as an MP was certainly overshadowed by his writing, and a good thing too.
How different was the experience of the nation’s first prime minister, Robert Walpole, from the frenetic lives of 20th century incumbents of that role. Walpole, who took office exactly 300 years ago on April 3, enjoyed an uninterrupted term in office of over 20 years – still the longest ministry of any PM. He is generally seen as one of the best political leaders we have ever had and navigated a careful course of moderation and tolerance to establish political and social stability. How different from the bearpit Commons that was to follow.
Mar 8, 2021
I never thought I’d see the day when serious money was bid for… well, nothing really! But in a way that is exactly what we have been seeing over the past few weeks with something called NFT and now with a Tweet.
Pulling value out of thin air really started when the digital space became sophisticated enough to mimic (to a degree) the real world. Most obviously, Bitcoin led the way here, and we now see single units changing hands for astronomical sums. But Bitcoin isn’t linked to any tangible asset, it’s really just an idea, or rather a common agreement that the idea has real value and creates a means of trading value. What happens when confidence wains? Does the house of cards come tumbling down?
NFT (Non Fungible Tokens) allow artists to sell a work of art in the digital space by issuing single units of digital code from hundreds of thousands that, placed together, make up the digital artwork. Controlled through blockchain – and so supposedly protected from fraud – it allows ordinary members of the public to invest modestly in extraordinary artworks at the highest level, while bringing the artist a large amount of money and a small commission on the resale of each NFT.
Again, though, to me what the buyer owns is little more than an idea.
Now we have news of the sale of the first Tweet ever posted by Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter. It’s 15 years old and reads: “just setting up my twttr.” No doubt it’s an historic post, and bidding has reached $600,000 for the NFT of its unique digital signature.
I’m sure it’s all very exciting but I can’t help feeling more comfortable with bids for a solid bit of oak or maybe a decent daub in a nice frame.
Mar 1, 2021
One of the auction phenomena of recent years has been the market for whisky. Really, there are two markets: one focuses on rare survivors of long dried up distilleries and bottled single malts that have so far escaped the corkscrew; the other is the rather more manufactured line in limited edition releases created specifically to entice collectors.
So popular has whisky become as a collectable that it even has its own stock exchange. Understandably, what started in Scotland circa 1495 (with a bit of push from an earlier Irish concoction) later gave the island of Islay the enviable status of the highest value of exports per head of population of anywhere in the world. In recent years the worshipful dram has attracted the attention of other nations. You can now buy whisky made in England, Wales, Australia and even Japan – arguably the most esteemed producer east of Speyside.
Just like the sale of diamonds, whisky auctions are ‘occasions’. One of the more memorable has just taken place, attracting more than 1500 bidders and amassing a hammer total of £6.7 million for a single collection of 3,900 bottles.
Dallas Dhu 1921 Private Cask 64-year-old, an historic malt from one of the ‘lost distilleries’, was a much sought after highlight, but stealing the limelight was a single bottle of the Macallan 1926 Fine and Rare, bottled 60 years ago and one of only 14 such bottles surviving from the 40 ever produced. The price? A cool £1 million.
Feb 22, 2021
The announcement of an interesting auction linked to the band Radiohead reminds me that what is known as provenance is a vital part of the world in which we live and work. Essentially, it is the recorded history of an artwork or object.
Why is it important? Because it is vital that anyone consigning something to auction has the right to do so. In other words, they must either be the owner or ‘title-holder’ themselves, or have authority from the person or body that is to put it up for sale.
Often this can be very hard to prove; how many of us have purchase receipts for family heirlooms that great aunt Violet passed on when she died twenty years ago? Perhaps you have a photo from years gone by that includes the object in question, showing it to have been in her possession.
In the case of Radiohead, up for auction is an A2 sketchpad left behind in a barn at a fruit farm in Oxfordshire in 1993, when the band was working on their seminal album The Bends, which was released two years later.
The consignor turns out to be the man who had been sent in to clear out the barn after they left, having lent them instruments and a PA sound system earlier.
Vitally, as he told Sky News: “I was informed that anything remaining in the room was not required by the band and should be thrown away or kept by me if I so wished. I kept the sketchpad and discarded the carpeting.”
