1. Paul Viney, Woolley & Wallis
“We are delighted with the progress made by two of our newer departments, namely tribal art, and arms and armour, coins and medals.”
2. Gavin Strang, Lyon & Turnbull
“We held auctions in London, Glasgow and Hong Kong in 2016 in addition to the Edinburgh calendar. The theme of new sales in new places is something we intend to expand on in 2017. We have both a textiles sale (from the collection of Paul Reeves) and a scientific instruments sale planned for the early spring.”
3. Stephen Whittaker, Fellows
“The value selling online has increased although as a percentage of turnover it has remained about the same, which suggests many buyers are still happy with the more traditional methods of bidding. We await developments in 2017 with interest. Any auction house is only as good as its last sale.”
4. Guy Schooling, Sworders
“Auction houses need to be nimble and to adapt to changes in the market. Our sales calendar now includes two stand-alone Modern British art sales and with the arrival of new staff (see page 51), stand-alone print sales will be added this year.
“We passed a watershed [last] week with the first sale to sell more than 50% online with 30% underbid by the web.”
