 |
| A few of the du Pont collection at Bonhams... |
If you find gossip entertaining, then the Las Vegas motorcycle auction weekend of 2012 was a better show than
Cirque du Soleil or
Celine Dion; the forced entry of RM subsidiary
Auctions America into the January calendar had tongues wagging, tempers flared, and 'flippers' happy. 2011 marked the first major change in what had been the sole province of
MidAmerica Auctions, whose annual 500-machine marketplace was at the time the biggest single vintage bike auction in the world, for over 20 years. The entry of
Bonhams into the
weekend event last January hinted stormy weather, although only minor flurries materialized, as
Bonhams discreetly tucked their 1-day auction into a Thursday daytime slot, allowing buyers taxi time for the
South Point Casino, and Ron Christensen's
MidAmerica dinner auction.
The storm arrived this year with the decision of RM to land its schedule squarely atop
MidAmerica's dates; a Thursday evening dinner sale with ~75 bikes, followed by two full days of noisily auctioning several hundred further machines. 'V' is for Vegas, and also Vendetta; rumors circulated all year of failed buyout negotiations between RM and
MidAmerica, including dramatic dialogue (
'if I can't buy you I'll crush you!'), wildly fluctuating
'my buddy said' estimates of buyout sums offered, whispers of
Herculean pressures on Auctions America's Glenn Bator to
'perform' this year, and RM's willingness to
'spend' (ie, lose) hundreds of thousands of dollars to squash MidAmerica, and establish RM as the King of vintage motorcycle sales across the globe. Bwahaha....
2011 saw some big shifts in the motorcycle auction world, with traditionally automotive houses
RM and Mecum announcing moto-intentions by adding two-wheelers to their car sales, with mixed success;
Mecum Auctions had a spectacular meltdown during
Pebble Beach week in August 2011, selling reputedly 'bought-in' collections at no reserve, then watching helplessly as bidders failed to materialize, and the very same fellows who'd pocketed fat Mecum checks, were seen re-purchasing choice bikes from their former collections, at significant discount. Ouch.
RM entered the fray in London quietly, adding 25 bikes from a single Italian collection to their flashy Battersea Park sale last October, all of which sold.
 |
| Bikes at the RM auction in London's Battersea Park, Oct. 2011 |
|
The notion that RM are bedazzling 'Top Dog' collars for their team isn't outlandish, as that's the position they hold in the collector automobile market worldwide...but it isn't MidAmerica they'll have to displace at the top of the dogpile - it's
Bonhams, who currently sell about 1300 old bikes annually in the US, England, Europe, and Australia. MidAmerica auctions, a true mom-and-pop business out of Wisconsin, has Las Vegas and another
small event in St.Paul as its traditional core of vintage bike sales (with around 700 bikes annually), so the RM invasion of its turf was a cause for some worry to the Midwesterners. To put it in perspective, RM's top four cars from their London sale would eclipse MidAmerica's entire yearly gross, and RM's annual car sales
in toto dwarf the entire vintage motorcycle auction world. Hence the 'David and Goliath' stories during Las Vegas, and a few indignant Vegas regulars' refusal to even set foot in cavernous halls of the Rio.
As it turned out over the course of the weekend, enough buyers appeared at every auction, opened their wallets wide, and spent around $10.5 Million combined at all three auction houses. This is over 3 times the cash flow back in 2010,
when MidAmerica was the sole auction house mid-Winter in the Nevada desert. Clearly, there ARE enough 'asses for (motorcycle) seats'...to whom I must include myself, as I bought a bike too!
 |
| Bonhams' CEO Malcolm Barber conducted most of the sale at the Imperial Palace |
Bonhams [note: principal sponsor of The Vintagent] started the ball rolling on Thursday at the no-frills
Imperial Palace hotel, in the back of their
Auto Collections museum. When you eventually found the auction hall, it was clear Bonhams had consigned exactly the kind of 'rusty junk' which drives collectors cash-crazy; the time capsule
DuPont collection of bikes, and more importantly, bike
parts, with super-rare Indian, Harley, Ace, and Henderson bits, sold for enormous money, and bouyed the
Bonhams bottom line significantly. Everything oxidized sold for several times its estimate, leading one wag to joke, 'are those estimates so low to make a good press release later?' The hall was full all day long, and a parade of fantastic original-paint bikes sold for very solid prices. No records set, but no setbacks either, especially when
two Vincent Black Shadows (one 3k-mile 'barn find' Series B, one immaculate Series D), sold for $122,500 each.
Bonhams had an overall excellent result, totaling around $2M in a single day, surely the most profitable of all three auctions of the weekend, as a proportion of bikes/total sales, or even total sales/time spent selling!
Bonhams even finished a few minutes early, and bidders scurried away to make the MidAmerica dinner auction (which was well attended) or the
Auctions America steak dinner (which was not so well attended, and RM's paid-for filets were reportedly being given away to anyone within earshot). Rumors began circulating immediately that it was bargain time at the
Rio Hotel; as Auctions America has a 'no reserve' policy for bikes estimated under $20,000, buyers were happy to snap up inexpensive classics, and more than one acquaintance was heard 'calling home' to increase their allowance...some buyers loaded up with nine, ten, or fifteen machines to bring home, often to re-sell from their business at a profit. The spirit of Arbitrage is alive and well in Las Vegas; motorcycle gambling is fun for the whole family!
 |
| The 1915 Iver Johnson 'never started' twin which sold for $299,600 |
There were fewer outright bargains at MidAmerica, as even many low-price bikes held reserves, but at the end of the weekend, they could boast the most expensive sale ($299,600 for a 1915 Iver Johnson in -mostly- original paint), and very few machines remained in their 'second chance corral'; Ron Christensen looked a satisfied man on Saturday afternoon, and whatever fears of RM stealing their thunder proved unfounded; if anything, it seemed many more motorcyclist attended this year's Las Vegas sales than ever before, which can only be a good thing.
 |
| The Auctions America podium, with a couple of nice Harleys ready for the hammer... |
It was more difficult to gauge the mood at RM/
Auctions America by the end of Saturday; with nearly 700 bikes on sale, it was clear they'd aggressively sourced bikes to create the biggest collection of vintage motorcycles ever offered for auction at a single event. It was their first year, they'd had plenty of buyers in the halls, and over $4M changed hands. Buyers were certainly happy with their bargains, but one seller commented that Auctions America had 'set back auction prices 10 years.' Whether the overall result was profitable is a question I can't answer, but with a serious cash reserve from high-dollar car sales,
RM can afford to spend money and establish their name in the global vintage motorcycle calendar.
 |
| The moto-panel at the Rio; Mark Hoyer, editor of Cycle World, Buzz Walneck, writer Doug Mitchell, collector Joe Boortz |
As a final note;
Auctions America hosted a panel discussion on 'the state of motorcycle collecting', which I'll summarize in another post. The success of this panel (with host Dave Despain of
Speed TV, and four moto-luminaries) made me wonder if Las Vegas could become the world's first vintage motorcycle Convention...enough bike collectors, writers, investors, and enthusiasts are milling around the horror which is Sin City over four days, that a few seminars, films, and demonstrations would be a welcome and well-attended diversion. Just a thought...
12:42 PM
