As most of you know I follow collectable auctions around the world. While this is anecdotal evidence what I have been noticing is that Collectable prices remain strong to very strong at auction. With the good stuff blowing the doors off. So at least in this market place there doesn't seem to be weakness.
What I noticed over the years is that when a paticular asset class becomes soft another asset class becomes hot. With the RE, $, Bond markets being either under pressure or priced out and the Stock Market with volatility what is left except for hard assets?
This last weekend (Dec 8th and 9th) there were 7 gun auctions taking place. Three of them by Auction Houses devoted to nothing but firearms. One of them was a major auction that achieved nearly $11M in sales. With the smaller venues that I was following, prices might have been off ever so slightly. However with so many auctions going at once dilution is possible.
At the last 2 major auctions, sales were up roughly 30% over previous sales. With record sales in the $11M range each.
http://www.rockislandauction.com/
http://juliaauctions.net/firearms.asp#pastAUCTION