Almost the inevitable downside of taking on more consignments (AKA the volume strategy) is that sell through suffers a bit – there just aren’t enough interested buyers for everything that is put on the podium. This was the case at Phillips’ recent Photographs sale. While there was plenty of value on offer, the overall Buy-In rate creeped up above 30%, even higher in the top price tier. With just a handful of positive surprises to backfill the fractionally increased number of passes, the Total Sale Proceeds were dampened a bit, just clipping the low end of the aggregate pre-sale range. But when compared with the other two main houses, Phillips came out on top in terms of total photo sales, so maybe the volume strategy isn’t so bad after all.
The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):
| Summary Statistics | |
|---|---|
| Total Lots | 264 |
| Aggregate Pre Sale Low Estimate | $4508000 |
| Aggregate Pre Sale High Estimate | $6470000 |
| Total Lots Sold | 179 |
| Total Lots Bought In | 85 |
| Buy In % | 32.20% |
| Total Sale Proceeds | $4497375 |
Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post):
| Detailed Breakdown | |
|---|---|
| Low Total Lots | 99 |
| Total Low Lots Sold | 65 |
| Total Low Lots Bought In | 34 |
| Low Buy In % | 34.34% |
| Aggregate High Estimate of Low Lots | $692000 |
| Total Proceeds from Low Lots | $469500 |
| Mid Total Lots | 140 |
| Total Mid Lots Sold | 99 |
| Total Mid Lots Bought In | 41 |
| Mid Buy In % | 29.29% |
| Aggregate High Estimate of Mid Lots | $3113000 |
| Total Proceeds from Mid Lots | $2231875 |
| Total High Lots | 25 |
| Total High Lots Sold | 15 |
| Total High Lots Bought In | 10 |
| High Buy In % | 40.00% |
| Aggregate High Estimate of High Lots | $2665000 |
| Total Proceeds from High Lots | $1796000 |
The top lot by High estimate was lot 48, Andreas Gursky, Athens, 1995/later, estimated at $250000-350000; it was also the top outcome of the sale at $401000 (image in preview post).
96.09% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range and there were a total of 6 positive surprises in the sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate) (images above via Phillips):
Lot 28, Thomas Struth, West Broadway, New York/Tribeca, 1978, estimated at $15000-20000, sold at $56250
Lot 57, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Church of Light, Tadao Ando, 1997, estimated at $12000-18000, sold at $60000
Lot 173, Ellen Auerbach, Portrait of Grete Stern, 1934, estimated at $4000-6000, sold at $12500
Lot 203, Robert Mapplethorpe, Michael, 1987, estimated at $8000-12000, sold at $27500
Lot 211, Seydou Keïta, Untitled, 1949-1951/1998, estimated at $7000-9000, sold at $22500
Lot 236, Lillian Bassman, Blowing Kiss, Barbara Mullen, New York, c1958/later, estimated at $6000-8000, sold at $20000
The complete lot by lot results can be found here.
