Michael, so is your contention that the ‘73 targa example you refer to wouldn’t have sold for as much money simply if it had a reserve on it? Maybe that’s the disconnect, becuase I don’t see the bidders changing their tune one bit with or without a reserve on it. That car’s hammer price would’ve been the same even if it had a reserve on it.
That targa you reference might’ve only had two bidders on it for the last 150k, so what happens when you take one of them away with a no reserve auction? The seller gets smoked, cause nobody is left to push the bid up another 150k. These collector car auctions are all thin markets when you get passed the initial entry stages of bidding. Sometimes there’s only one guy that really wants the car, and when that happens there’s nobody left to push him to the max bid limit he has set. If it’s a no reserve auction he just got a great deal, while the seller is second guessing his no reserve decision.
Here’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about, this Kremer was bid up to 92.5k in July, thankfully the seller had a reserve on it, because just a few months later it was bid up to nearly double that amount at RM Sotheby’s, and sold. Now the high bidder at the BaT auction might’ve been willing to pay up to what it sold for at RM, but nobody was left to bid him up there. So it’s a good thing the seller had himself protected with a reserve on that auction, or else he would’ve seen it flip for nearly double at RM Sotheby’s, and he would’ve been pretty bitter about it.
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1976-porsche-930-turbo-carrera-7/
https://rmsothebys.com/en/auctions/ca18/the-petersen-automotive-museum-auction/lots/r0075-1976-porsche-935-gr-5-turbo-by-kremer/730901
We simply disagree on this issue. I’d never let any of mine go at no reserve, and I’d never advise anyone to go that route either, thus my earlier post to the OP. Now if we are talking the auction house will ‘guarantee’ in writing a certain level for you in a no reserve auction, like is customary at art auctions, then that’s a totally different story. In which case it’s not a truly no reserve auction even though on appearances it is. The auction house assumes the no reserve risk in that scenario, which has burned the auction houses plenty of times in the art world...cause it’s never a good idea to auction something that is both rare and valuable without a reserve in a thin market where there is such a wide range of perceived value on said item. The Kremer’s perceived value was in the 90k’s on BaT in July, while that same car’s perceived value was almost double that at RM Sotheby’s just a few months later in December.