Barnebys Buys Value My Stuff; FIAC Gallery Sales; Jasper Johns Set of Prints Makes $1.2m; Phillips Has Best Multiple Sale

This commentary by Marion Maneker is available to AMMpro subscribers. (The first month of AMMpro is free and subscribers are welcome to sign up for the first month and cancel before they are billed.)

Frieze Sales Analysis Preview

We’re going through our numbers on the Frieze sales. The full report will be available to AMMpro subscribers on Monday. In the meantime, the overall sales at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips were down about 12% overall from 2017 to 2018 despite Christie’s need to make up for their absence in London this past June.

All three houses totaled £262,777,625 with an average lot value of £366,495. That average lot value is down about 12.7% from 2017 too. Average price and total volume don’t usually move in lockstep. So that’s interesting even if it doesn’t lead to an obvious conclusion.

This year’s sales had a higher sell through rate for all three houses combined at a very strong 86% for Contemporary art. The hammer ratio (the value of the aggregate hammer price over the aggregate low estimate) was also up in 2018 to .94.

FIAC 2018 Sales Report

The sales from FIAC aren’t flowing as quickly as they do from Frieze. Nonetheless, we’re gathering them here for you to see. This one isn’t only for AMMpro subscribers.