I would firstly like to see a big thank to all those collectors and enthusiasts who attended the auction, it was really great to meet you, but sadly I never got enough time to talk to everyone as was so busy.

The auction was the end of a very long journey for me, which started way back in January when we set the date for the Haslinger Collection. I’ve known Arno for over 10 years and seen the incredible efforts he put into collecting and his knowledge and enthusiasm grow over this time. So I wanted to do justice to his collection and open up the brand to a new market of collectors.

At Bonhams we are well known for our world leading car auctions, so we set about planning our exhibitions and tying in with these special events a everyone knows of the relationship with Cars and Mototsports. At every event we did, we found these watches evoked strong memories with car collectors who recall them from the 60’ and 70’s. From Retromobile in Paris, to the Goodwood Festival of Speed we showed a small selection of around 20 to 30 pieces of the collection, and even had celebrities viewing, Orlando Bloom and George Lucas to name a few. At the start of the year we had discussed with TAG Heuer about taking the collection on their world tour, but sadly that didn’t happen due to logistics, so we promoted them at even more watch and car events from Germany to Hong Kong.

We first showed the collection in its entirety in our New York Madison Avenue salerooms in October and this was a huge success. A personal thank you to Jeff for working with us from the start and in particular on that event, and for TAG Heuer US who sponsored the party. It was great to finally meet you after all these years Jeff, you were missed in London! And if you all decide on holding another collectors summit, then I would be delighted to host one at Bonhams or Soho House again.

The London viewing days for the auction were very busy with so many new clients coming in and getting a chance to witness first hand the broad spectrum of watches from the Heuer portfolio. The sale exceeded my expectations and then some, but as many of you have discussed this doesn’t mean that prices will rocket up. I’m sure there will be the few dealers that decide to put up prices, this happened after the Omegmania sale, but then levelled back down. But I do hope that it brings many more new collectors to the community, which can only be a good thing.

Now its time for me to take some holiday that I didn’t get chance to take, and as I type, the snow is falling, so snow on Christmas day with my kids is looking promising

I wish you all and your families the very best for Christmas and a Prosperous 2011

Regards
Paul Maudsley