Artcurial Baillon auction on now, big prices

[Blackpuddin]

The extraordinary Baillon 'barn find' collection is being sold right now, live.
Here's the link:
http://www.artcurial.com/fr/actualite/video/2015/l...
Already some big prices. Talbot Lago Saoutchik cabrio (top estimate 150,000 euro) just went for 625,000.
Another dozen or so to go through before the 250GT California, estimate 12 million euros.

[mehere]

so - 14.2 million for the 250

[Blackpuddin]

Pretty sure that was Simon Kidston winning the bidding obo a client.

[mehere]

so I hear -he was clearly the top bidder on the live coverage -and then did TV interviews

[Bob CD]

Some stats on the entertaining Baillon barn-find auction.

13 of the 59 lots sold for more than €100k - remember, they had all been in storage in rickety barns for decades
The most expensive was of course the Ferrari California mentioned above at €14.2m
The cheapest was a Lancia Thema for €7000
The average price was €369k - obviously massively hiked by the Ferrari
The total raised was €21.8m - two thirds of which was the aforementioned Ferrari
It was the only car over €10m, there were two over €1m

I say 'entertaining' because it was a wonderfully French affair. The RM and Bonhams auctions were English-language based and rather staid, formal, sometimes pretentious affairs with a bit of French thrown in.
Artcurial's two auctions - one disposing of the Baillon collection, the other a general classic car auction - were conducted in French with an occasional bit of Franglais thrown in such as 'would you like 20,000?'
Artcurial featured at least two auctioneers, sometimes three, all shouting over one another and one wonders whether they quite often took an offer from the same bidder, rising €1k each time! It did make for a very lively and rapid auction.
The senior auctioneer (Herve Poulain, I think) refused to take bids of less than €1k whereas the others seemed willing to do so and sometimes it took a moment or two to find out who had bought one particular lot. I think they restarted several lots after the hammer came down! All in all, great entertainment, but you had to understand some French to appreciate the chaos of it all!

Edited by Bob CD on Saturday 7th February 11:58

[mehere]

entertaining -and hilarious -as you say ...


.. I also loved the way the 2/3 auctioneers seem to contradict each other most of the time - the hammer comes down CRACK - then - pause and - "ooo pardon!" - and the bidding is allowed to start again ... typical bloody french

oh and blimey [sacre bleu] - 21,000 eur for a kackered old Jaguar S

[Paracetamol]

I was fortunate to have been there...have to say the Artcurial cars were better and pricing more realstic than the RM Auction.

I was at the receieving end of arm twisting to bid some more..it was done with great fun and humour...

[neutral 3]

The Allan Delon connection must have helped hike the price of the California Spider, but absolutely crazy money.....

[lowdrag]

Every time we gasp at the prices, we say "enough" in horror, "this must end"; but it keeps on going, and perhaps the recent Octane article was right. In five years we may well be looking back at today's prices and think they were cheap. There has been an enormous amount of investment in the infrastructure of the industry since the turn of the century. Just look at JD Classics, CMC and CKL as examples. I watched the Beeb programme on the invasion of the oligarchs to London and one comment stuck in my mind. A man admitting to around £75 million was complaining that he was less well thought of than his friend because his friend could give bigger cheques to charity. and I guess that in our world, for these type of people who feel the need to impress, what is the difference between £10 million and £15 million for a rare car? In my tiny world, there were 358 flat floor RHD roadsters made, of which we estimate about half remain so they are perceived as "rare and collectable", with an asking price in the comparative stratosphere. Yet they are uncomfortable, have poor cooling, brakes and lighting, and a S2 is a far more drivable car. It is just the rarity that drives the price, which at Retromobile was now around £250,000 a mint roadster. And cars were selling.

Mind you, I well remember the Investors Chronicle saying that the market was set fair to move onwards and upwards, and the article was published three days before the Black Monday in 1988. What do I - or for that matter any of us - really know?

[neutral 3]

And as the gap between the haves and the have nots keeps getting bigger, prices for top end cars will keep rising.....

[a8hex]

And while the prices are sky high or higher of course the likes of JD, CMC and CKL are employing real people with real skills to lovingly work on these expensive trinkets. A lot of the trickle down theory might be broken. But that Ferrari is likely to need thousands of man hours of rebuilding and so some crafts men will be gainful employed using skills I wish I had.

[The Surveyor]

neutral 3 said:

And as the gap between the haves and the have nots keeps getting bigger, prices for top end cars will keep rising.....

Personally, I think the tragedy is that the Baillon Collection was left to rot in those French barns for so long, and I'm more pleased there are enough people with money to rescue them for the future than I am with any comment on the global economy.

[mehere]

The Surveyor said:

Personally, I think the tragedy is that the Baillon Collection was left to rot in those French barns for so long, and I'm more pleased there are enough people with money to rescue them for the future than I am with any comment on the global economy.

I say, that is rather well said, Sir ...

[johnnym1]

When you have people prepared to spend £197m on a painting that will sit on their wall, £15m or so for a stunning car that they can drive about and show off to their other oligarch pals does seem like a bit of a steal. I think we probably have to look at very top-end cars now as being the equivalent of the Renoirs/ Gauguins etc. What that doesn't mean is that all cars will follow the same trajectory.

http://metro.co.uk/2015/02/07/most-expensive-paint...