I also wanted to downgrade my estimate on the Blue Bike to $320,000 - which is below low estimate. I haven't heard the high bid yet, as I didn't stay for the auction (other business!), and I've only just arrived home, so will post the last bid when I speak with spectators. I do see that it failed to sell... so my notes on 'just who will be bidding?' have proved prescient at least. I note that two other Vincent twins in the auction failed to sell... either their reserves were too high, or given the current climate, the Vincent bubble has just hit the ceiling. I watched this happen in 1990, when Vincent values were approaching the $80k mark for real Black Shadows, then dropped way back down to $30k by '92. If I wanted to buy a Vincent twin, I would wait a few months. If I wanted to sell a Vincent, I'd wait a few years!
Someone walked away with a restored '58 Harley Panhead for $9,600 - which is half price by any reckoning. A shocking number of the bikes and cars simply failed to sell.
One bike which did sell was this '49 Triumph Tiger 100, which I had imported from Australia in 2001, and sold for $9500 that year, with a sidecar. The Tiger solo, 7 years later, sold for $10,530.
Fred Lange's beautiful Indian 8-valve replica sold for $64,350, which is more than the 'Art of the Motorcycle' 8-valve which was also in the sale ($57,330). The catalog wasn't clear that the Guggenheim bike had cylinder heads from Fred's shop! But of course, any prospective buyer would have done their due diligence before bidding.
The knock-on effect of all this? I would assume the Rollie Free Bike will not come up for auction this year, as has been rumored. Also, given the dramatic rise of the dollar this week, foreign buyers were priced out of the high estimates... perhaps they should have used £s in the catalog! When you're talking a 20% rise in the dollar since the catalog was published, at a $400,000 price tag, that's a lot of money tacked on if you're paying in euros.
More analysis tomorrow...