Directory Of "high Potential" Auction Sites

[Hoshi]

Enough is enough. 

 

I realized just how utterly lost I am when it comes to keeping up with auctions. 

 

The most promising auctions are the mortuary ones, where the heirs of a deceased collectors bundles his treasures and sends them off to the wind to get a quick buck. These are the events where its worth it gamble and you get decent odds. You get the chance to make valuable mistakes and pay for it or find the occasional treasure at a discount. It's fun and exciting. Bidding on Ebay or Yahoo Japan is just asking for trouble. Bidding on AOIart and you're paying the boutique premium but you get some modicum of safety. 

 

What are the auction houses that deal with the liquidation of high quality collections? (aside from the rare Christie's and co auctions which everyone knows about and happen once in blue moon). 

 

I will start. 

 

Hermann-historica is a german auction house based in Munich that liquidates large collections of arms and armor with the occasional Nihonto from general arms and armor collectors. If you're a general arms and armor collector this is really the place to be. Nihonto in general are low to mid-grade. 

 

http://www.hermann-historica.de

 

Example of relevant past auction : http://www.hermann-historica.de/en/objekte?aid=147&Lstatus=0&Accid=1787 

 

I hope this gets us somewhere towards a general directory of auction houses to watch out for. 

[kissakai]

Some really nice sukashi tsuba I would have liked to bid on

[Surfson]

It seems that the auctions at Christie's and Sotheby's are few and far between lately. Sometimes Bonham's in the US has such auctions.  

[YOJIMBO]

Hermann Historica does not sell anything interesting. As you mentioned, mostly low end. Ott collection was an exception, but at totally ridiculously high prices.

In particular, the auction bonuses scare me. 25- 30%     I have experience with auction houses. Their experts are also strange, they do not really understand much about it.

[TheGermanBastard]

hello Simon, do you know how does the Nihonto examinations at Hermann Historica? They do not disclose the experts name which I consider to be somewhat strange as an expert usually goes by his name. I would be curious to hear who he is.