Two hundred and seven auction houses and venues contributed 2,427 sales this year to our Transaction History. Altogether they offered 625,248 lots and 468,565 changed hands and kept us busy every day. Going into 2024 the pace of sales appears to be steady.
This said, two emerging factors may disproportionately impact the near term market. Old paper’s sweet spot at auction has been $2,000 per lot but some of the larger houses increasingly are raising their minimum lot values to support their burgeoning business models. In consequence, single owner collectible paper sales, that contain material that falls within a broad range of rarity and value, may find it difficult to sell their collections through houses they bought from. So be it.
For the past 200 years single owner sales has been the gold standard at auction and it will continue to be so but the houses that sell them may have different names.
Best wishes for 2024.
