Why you can’t always trust auction results

"There’s a lot of opacity when it comes to fine-art auctions, but the one thing which is always fully transparent is the final sale price. Sellers can negotiate deals when it comes to the commission they pay the auction house; buyers can’t. The buyer’s premium is set, and is public, and can always be used to find out the total amount of money which was spent by the buyer on the work of art in question. That’s why art-price databases use auction results: they know exactly how much was spent, even if they don’t know who the buyer was.

But now, with the system of third-party guarantees, we no longer know for sure that the reported price was in fact the price actually paid by the buyer."  [Read Full Article]

Published by:  Reuters
On:  11/21/11
Website:  http://blogs.reuters.com

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