Advertised as all without reserve.
The estimate is not a bid but a marketing tool or genuinely expressed valuation. However Mr Wall, with or without his brother, or his cousin Mr Telephone can drive an auction up to a predetermined value and very often do. Mr Wall is not allowed to bid but it is very hard to stop him from doing so, and for and from, any number of reasons beyond being a poor or pressurized seller. Like, for instance, the other owner of one of two Twanglenoid Buttockpincer TS250, protecting the value of his investment. Auctions are a scary arena to buy unless you follow the simple rule of knowing what you are prepared to pay and watching where the bids are coming from. It always pays to ask the auctioneers afterwards if the hammer price was honoured. You might be surprised how often they are not! I got about a quarter of the cars from the Leek auction in this way, without even being there, as I was building my mothers house in France!
That said I believe Bruce will not need to resort to any underhand tactics as his advertising initiative is touching all markets including those we have not even thought of. His only fear must be a serious financial crisis of some sort. That or of a local popular restaurant providing some particularly hard to digest cellulose based dishes chased down with Guinness and Ghirkins creating something of a disturbance near the rostrum. Oh - or Root stuck in a Tourette or Brutsch, the same thing apparently, under the dais. Those latter two could well be connected, thinking about it.
My prediction is that the majority of the lots will sell well and the perceived value of Microcars will rise. That does not mean that achieved sales prices will match immediately or in the medium term. There are other pressures on sales of collectors items. Christies, all those years ago, pointed the way things were going but not many instant fortunes were created. The interesting lots are those that repeat a sale from that previous auction. These will underline the rise in values of premium advertised machines over that period. Quite how that effects the mouldering wrecks some folk think are valuable cars I am not sure. Oh, that's me isn't it!
