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Lessons learned at Antiquorum this Wednesday and Thursday

I paid pretty close attention to the Antiquorum auction that just ended and came away with the following impressions:

1. The auction was a bit of a bloodbath. A lot of pieces failed to meet their reserves, and in some cases even to receive opening bids, even though Antiquorum was intentionally conservative in its price predictions.

2. There is a huge flight to quality taking place. The market is simply not interested in lesser-known or -respected brands. Even with the top brands, lesser models suffered.

3. As a corollary to point 2, the market does not seem to be buying into the appearance of exclusiveness. Companies that have been trying to bootstrap themselves up a notch or two in the hierarchy were firmly slammed back down and a lot of watches originally sold as limited editions generated minimal interest.

4. Items that are frequently available were not being snapped up. As far as I could tell, the only lots that generated real bidding interest were those that people did not feel they could just wait to pick up in a later auction.

5. Watches that formerly were sold at or above retail are now available new at a discount. That means that any watch being sold at auction while still available new must compete with that discount. Several lots apparently were priced without taking that fact into account.

6. I have never approved of Antiquorum's practice of allowing reserves that were higher than the lower end of their predicted price range (taking buyer's commission into account). As far as I'm concerned, if I'm willing to pay an overall total equal to the lower end of the predicted range, I should be able to get the watch. That practice came back to bite Antiquorum in this auction, as lot after lot was bid up to a level at which the buyer's total price would have been well inside the predicted price range and then failed to sell because it had not met its reserve.

7. It seems to me that more relatively heavily-used watches are being offered for sale, presumably because real watch lovers instead of "investors" are being forced to sell. This does not mean that the watches are damaged, but they are likely to show more signs of wear than "safe queens." In many cases those signs are subtle, so personal inspection of lots may become progressively more important before bidding.

What did the rest of you think?