Leitz Photographica Auction, Vienna, 26th November 2022

[UliWer]

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Perhaps the estimates are already too high, keeping many people off from placing bids at all, or when they do, in many cases the winning bids are "only" in the range of estimates or even below. From former auctions I had the idea that winning bids are to expected about 50% higher than the estimates. 

[willeica]

2 hours ago, UliWer said:

Perhaps the estimates are already too high, keeping many people off from placing bids at all, or when they do, in many cases the winning bids are "only" in the range of estimates or even below. From former auctions I had the idea that winning bids are to expected about 50% higher than the estimates. 

Yes, the percentage of 'unsolds' was up. Just a few points. There have been a lot of events which have conspired against the bull run continuing. Apart from No 105, there were already some signs of this last June. The events include war in Ukraine, isolation of Russia, Covid in China and the general downturn on stock markets and investment returns. There was some evidence of start prices being too high, but this was not universal. Watching this on Live Auctioneers gave a wrong impression. Some segments of the full YouTube video show something different. A lot of items that were shown as hammered down on Live Auctioneers were not actually hammered down and the auctioneer just moved on to the next item in the catalogue. This would seem to show reserve prices or just 'buy backs' by the auctioneer. 

Auctions are markets and will self adjust over time in order to sell items. There are a number of segments in most auctions going from somewhat above the normal non auction market items to middling rare items and finally to to very rare high priced items. There are also cyclical patterns which affect each of those segments differently and, in my experience, the market adjusts to such cycles. In this auction, there appeared to be somewhat more items being sold for below the estimate than is usually the case, but equally there were others where there was a significant move above such as the BP IIIa and IIa sync items and, even more so the BP IIIf items, which to be honest surprised me.

William 

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[Al Brown]

In crisis and recession, one of the first victims are luxury goods.

[andybarton]

I would expect that the people who buy cameras at this level are pretty much isolated from recession.

[willeica]

42 minutes ago, andybarton said:

I would expect that the people who buy cameras at this level are pretty much isolated from recession.

Agreed Andy, but they may have other issues to contend with alongside recession. Also, these things are cyclical and linear growth is not assured. I have been participating in and following auctions for more than a decade and in that time the market has shifted up and down several times. Also the market is segmented.  Flints in the UK, operating in a lower value segment than Leitz, held an auction about 9 days before Leitz and most of their Leica items were sold. On the other hand, Tamarkin, whose auction in the US was held a week before Leitz, had more unsold items percentage-wise than either Leitz or Flints. The segmentation can also be geographic as well as by value.

It is a complex picture and the people in the auction houses know how to adjust to that. A long time collector friend of mine asked me earlier this year whether the massive price paid for No 105 would raise all values in the market. I replied in the negative and said that it was a one off. I still stand by that.

William