Davestuff

This list will grow as I am able to express additional concepts. As any one model becomes expensive, the market finds acceptable alternatives and makes them expensive. The more a collector car is worth, the more it tends to appreciate. More valuable cars are more easily able to settle on new accepted higher values. The more a collector car is worth, the harder it is to assign an absolute ceiling to its value, and the more easily it can exceed accepted values. The less a model is worth, the more susceptible it is to violent fluctuations in value. (HT to the Auerbach Doctrine ) More valuable cars are more subject to market manipulation. People start being able to afford collector cars in their Forties, and they buy the cars they liked when they were kids. If it was on a poster then, it's going to be collectible when that generation reaches C-level positions. Veteran-era cars are prone to "age creep," the tendency for succeeding owners to assign ever-earlier date...

John Draneas does his usual excellent job looking at the legal complexities of the case of the disputed ownership of a 1935 Mercedes-Benz 500K Roadster. But as a guy who has sidelined in auction catalogue write-ups for a major house from time to time, I have to disagree that "RM, like all major auction companies, puts great effort into researching the cars in their auctions." I'd say it's more like the minimum that will suffice. Who can forget the Auto Union that took down Christie's whole department ? It became clear after the fact that it would not have taken much research at all to establish the car's bona fides--or lack thereof. In fact, when he asks "what if the auction company knew about this claim ahead of the auction? That would make things quite different," I think that's the whole reason right there. I feel that for a variety of reasons, auction companies don't want to hear bad news, not only to protect themselves from that ...