However, I cannot be alone in wishing that these companies did not offer auction estimates to the vendors with their rejection correspondence.
Neither can I be alone in thinking that these values are generally too high, thus resulting in the vendor having a preconceived idea of how much they are going to come away with.
This is certainly a strategy, but valuers should know that these valuations do not help the client.
They definitely do not help the auction house, which is happy to value items based on experience of selling lower-value objects and which is pleased to accept the consignment.
Please could those bigger auction houses instead say that the items ‘do not meet their value criteria’ and that they should ‘request a valuation from another auction room that has more experience in items of such value’.
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