Inside Christies And Sotheby

This leaves us with auction houses of a more standing

reputation, such as Christies and Sotheby. Most of us have

heard these names in the news associated with the sale of a

million dollar painting or a three hundred thousand dollar set

of earrings.  The reason for this is, very rare and

expensive works are auctioned at these houses.

While rumors of price fixing have been an issue lately,

in the end you are still getting a master's level work and you

can be certain the bidding will start at no less than

twenty percent off the established market value.

The big validation for houses like Christie's and

Sotheby's is they do a great deal of research before they put

an item on the block, and there is an implied assurance of

authenticity. A lot of the smaller auction houses have no

implied guarantee of authenticity; in fact many of them will

have disclaimers right at the beginning of the auction or

have something in the program making the disclaimer.