Evaluating Art Auction Results Pt. 4 – artmarketblog.com

By artforprofits On March 4, 2009 · 3 Comments

2. Percentage of lots sold by value continued

In part three of this series I looked at the first of two different methods of calculating the percentage of lots sold by value. The first method that I looked at which is calculated by using the following formula:

(total sale value at hammer price)

divided by

(total sale estimate)

x100

is the less frequently used of the two methods and is not the method used by the top auction houses. The main problem with the above formula is that the sale estimate is being used as a representation of the value of the works of art being auctioned which we all know is problematic to say the least. Auction houses use estimates as a marketing tool with a low estimate often used to encourage bidding which would make the percentage of works sold by value calculated using the estimates highly inaccurate.

Other than the estimate for each work as calculated by the auction house there is really only one other indicator of the value of a work of art and that is the highest price someone is willing to pay for the work. When you think about it, using the highest price someone is willing to pay for a work of art as an indicator of value does make sense because, in reality, the true value of a work of art is really only what someone is willing to pay for it at the time it is sold. For this reason, all the major art auction houses use the highest price that someone is willing to pay for a work of art as being representative of the value of that work of art. But what about lots that don’t sell?. Well, the value that the auction house uses for unsold lots is the highest bid for those that do attract bids and the final (lowest) figure reached by the auctioneer for lots that are passed in without receiving any bids. The value that the auction houses use in place of the denominator (total sale estimate) in the formula referenced above is called the knockdown figure and includes:

1. the hammer price of works that are sold
2. the highest bid for works that receive bids but are passed in
3. the lowest figure reached by the auctioneer before passing in a work that did not receive any bids

The formula used by the major auction houses to calculate the percentage of works sold by value is:

(total sale value at hammer price)

divided by

(knockdown figure)

x100

As an example of the way the sold by value percentage is calculated I will use an auction of five works with the following results:

1. Sold for $100,000
2. Sold for $150,000
3. Passed in $100,000 with three bids
4. Passed in at $50,000 with no bids
5. Sold for $200,000

The total sale value at hammer price of the three works that sold is (numerator). The knockdown is the hammer price of the three works that sold plus the highest bid of lot 3 and the price that lot 4 was passed in which comes to a total of $600,000 (denominator). When you use these two figures in the formula you get $450,000 divided by $600,000 x100 which equals 75 – the percentage of lots sold by value. If every single lot in a sale were to sell then the percentage of lots sold by value would be 100%.

Although the auction houses choose to use this particular method of calculating the percentage of works sold by value there are just as many problems with this method as the first method I looked at. More on this in my next post.

To be continued………..

Evaluating Art Auction Results Pt. 4 artmarketblog.com **Nicholas Forrest is an art market analyst, art critic and journalist based in Sydney, Australia. He is the founder of http://www.artmarketblog.com t Evaluating Art Auction Results Pt. 4 artmarketblog.com , writes the art column for the magazine Antiques and Collectibles for Pleasure and Profit and contributes to many other publications.