Christine Bourron, the Chief Executive Officer at Pi-eX Ltd, has an interesting post on LinkedIn presenting some of the sales data from London. Above is a chart of the London Contemporary Evening sales. The brown bar represents sales total; the red is directly guaranteed work; and, the light blue is work that was backed by a third-party guarantee or irrevocable bid.

It’s not hard to see the exponential growth in third-party guarantees over the last four years even as the market has shown greater take-home returns for sellers in the brown bar. On the LinkedIn post, Bourron has some other illuminating graphs, including a chart of the aggregate estimate range and the performance of lots.

This graph shows a leap in overall estimates this year. That was followed by a strong showing for sales which landed smack in the middle of the range. But perhaps most important to understanding the market, Bourron’s charts and numbers suggest that third-party guarantees are a drag on performance.

Third Party Guarantees at the Spring London Contemporary Evening Sales: Increase of Low Estimates but little boost to Hammer Prices