Hermann Historica Auction No 79 22nd May Online

[Higo-san]

Dear all

 

for those who have not seen it yet: https://www.hermann-historica.de/en/auctions/detail/id/448

 

On the second day of the „Antique Arms & Armour, Hunting Antiques and Works of Art, Antiquities“ there are a couple of armor, swords etc offered starting at Lot 1895.

 

Best

 

Chris

[Gakusee]

Rather overpriced.

[Hoshi]

I haven't seen a good blade offered on auction in a while now. 

 

There is that ubu Senjuin on Christie's which has been circulating. We see 'price testing' blades once and a while, but nothing really special.  

 

But nothing new and exciting. I wonder if we will ever see an important collection, like the Japanese Sword Fitting Museum or Campton, being offered on auction. It could simply be that other retail mechanisms are now the preferred route... 

[PNSSHOGUN]

Better off with ebay...

[Gakusee]

Premium blades are often sold discreetly to top-end collectors. Also, people manage to negotiate commissions down to 10-15% when dealing personally as opposed to auction houses’ 25% +VAT. Often, top blades are swapped in kind with additional cash payments or in part exchange for some other top items. And finally, at the upper end people do not necessarily want all the visibility of themselves and their blades that auction houses impart.

 

So, I agree.... great blades and great collections tend to be dispersed via dealers or in person these days. I think that is what happened to the Michael Hagenbusch collection as well but the German members should be able to comment.

[kazarena]

Chris, thanks for sharing!

 

This makes me sad: https://www.hermann-historica.de/en/auctions/lot/id/18289

 

Regards,

Stan N

[Hoshi]

I agree Michael. 

 

I think the results of Compton and Museum of Sword fittings made top sellers realize it's not in their best interest to proceed with auction houses. Nowadays it's like you say, top collection just vanish through the back channels. The auction houses get either the problem pieces - this is what we see with Hermann and Czerny, and bonham/christies get the price-testing pieces with very high reserves, such as the Ubu Senjuin or that strange Mike Daito.

[PietroParis]

Chris,

 

Could you please clarify the concept of "price-testing pieces" to a novice? Today I watched online the Bonhams sale, in which a substantial fraction of the lots went unsold. In many cases I noticed that the auctioneer set a starting price much below the lower end of the estimate, and received numerous bids from the audience, but declined to sell the lot unless the bids reached (or at least got very close to) the lower estimate. I was wondering what the logic of this time-wasting strategy was, and why the auctioneer did not just start from a price closer to the reserve. Do you mean that the seller sets an unrealistically high reserve just to see how high potential buyers will go? Where is the profit for the auction house in this strategy?

 

Thanks for your help, Pietro

[Higo-san]

Speaking as a tosogu collector, I think that the prices at yesterday’s Bonhams auction were rather moderate and not at all overpriced. Real problem seems to me that the number of high-class tosogu collectors is either decreasing (at least in Central Europe) or that more and more collectors tend to buy directly from Japan (not because of a lack of quality but rather because the amount of high-class pieces offered for sale in Japan is obviously much higher and you are free to choose a subject you are particularly fond of rather than to take what you get). IMHO you could have made some real bargains at that auction.

[PietroParis]

In fact, I was not even registered to bid. I am a beginner at collecting Japanese art, and I would not try to buy items that I have not seen “in the flesh”. My question was aimed at understanding why the auctioneer would set the starting prices so low with respect to the reserve. As a result, many items (perhaps half of the total?) received several bids but went unsold anyway.

 

Cheers, Pietro

[Higo-san]

Dear Pietro

 

this is a standard practice at many auction houses. It’s intention is to start a battle between bidders. On more than one occasion, I have witnessed items which would have been withdrawn without a single bid at the starting price, but after the auctioneer reduced the asking price, two bidders would jump in at the same time and the race began. It is all about human psychology . But it if the reserve price is not met during the auction, it is up to the owner to decide whether or not he/she wants to sell for the achieved hammer price.

 

Best

 

Chris

[Hoshi]

By price-testing I mean they set a reserve price which is too high to mitigate the risk that it may sell for less than desired. Usually these are close to dealer prices, and if you add the auction house commission then it ends up being a terrible deal indeed. There are many reasons to try this and very few of them are legit. 

• A blade is too toxic (has been around for too long and isn't selling, people get suspicious) and a sale needs to be attempted outside the usual channel because all the usual suspects know it's bad.
• You can try to get gamblers in: don't send the papers, just Honami old paper, set big price, hope for gamblers to bite. If you have a Honami Shizu Kaneuji attribution and NBTHK says it's Naoe Shizu you're far better off withholding the papers and getting gamblers on board. In auctions, people pay a premium for lottery tickets. 
• You're boneheaded and keep thinking you can get more for your blade than what the guys in the business suggest you sell it at so you parade it around aimlessly. 

[Gakusee]

I also do not like the profit mathematics of it at all:

- suppose that the auction house takes a commission of 25% of hammer plus VAT of 20% (standard in the U.K.) from both the buyer and seller

- therefore it takes a commission of appr 30% each way

- if an item sold for a 100, the seller received 70 and the buyer paid 130

- now, if a seller was trying to sell directly to the buyer they could have agreed to, for example, 90. The seller would have been 20 better off and the buyer 40 better off

 

Now of course, auction houses play an important marketing role and have a global reach and should be rewarded. But not with a whopping 60 of commission (=30 from buyer + 30 from seller) on an item marketed for 100. That is great value erosion.

In terms of global reach - so do some of the better dealers. I would much rather give a 10-15 percent to a good dealer who will make another 10-15 percent further profit on an item, generating 20-30 percent off the value of the item.

 

Also, the Internet, email and English-language websites of Japanese dealers and also (e-)books etc play a very important discovery tool role.

 

The auction houses were great in the 1960-1990s when the Internet did not exist or was in its infancy. Now, we can see what similar items trade for in online forums, on dealers’ websites and also can actually often see the same circulating items having been bought from one dealer or auction house reappearing 5-10-15 years later and can compare prices and everything.

 

As Chris is saying, people often want bargains. They want and like to feel superior in tracking undiscovered and mispriced items. And it happens. But not often. So, the “treasures” in auction houses often do not have certificates or there is a lot of gimei stuff.

 

Now to be specific. I went to Bonhams to look at some Tosogu, more specifically kozuka. There were some good pieces in there and some shoshin. But at least half of what I saw was gimei. Similarly, I looked at a flashy koshirae that would have titillated my gaudy taste and filled my empty sword kake. The tsuba had a big name but after thorough examination with my mobile resources (Sesko ebooks and other software) I was disappointed to conclude it was gimei. Not that I did not half expect it. Had it been shoshin the whole package would have been 4 times its estimate.

[Hoshi]

Completely agree Michael. The auction house business model and it's absurd value erosion isn't attractive anymore with the advent of the internet. 

 

For example, big name Gimei at the Bonham: 

 

https://imgur.com/a/knqYfds

[Gakusee]

A pity indeed on that Bonhams package and tsuba. The herons on the coffer on the other side were well executed - of course it had to be a higher quality tsuba that usual in order to put that mei on it.