After reading the optimistic press releases from the various auction firms that participated in the 2009 Scottsdale extravaganza, I'm pleased to deliver the truth, thanks to our contributor Nigel Matthews. The auction companies would have you believe that the recession was a mere hiccup, with sellers and buyers having a grand old time meeting their objectives. Nigel, who was there, put it this way: "The gavel fell on dozens of collector cars at the annual Arizona auctions and so did the revenues generated by the sales, though some successful bids were higher than expected in these troubling economic times."

Commenting on the not-always-gentle giant, he said "Barrett-Jackson sold 1,077 vehicles for a total of $60,895,890, the lowest in five years. There are still people with money prepared to spend, though they are not spending quite as much as before... Jackson was right about not expecting to break high prices. The only one that broke the million-dollar barrier wasn't even a car but a 1929 Ford Tri-Motor airplane which sold for $1.21 million US."

RM Auctions, which normally sets records for high individual sales suffered a decrease in total sales, surprising Nigel. "Compared to their 2008 Phoenix Auction, this year they sold 18 more vehicles but the total sales figures were down by $8,514,37." Perhaps the most interesting results came from Gooding & Company, making its second appearance in Scottsdale. "The Gooding auction was the only one that increased total sales over last year, by an impressive $11,413,325," Nigel reported. "The $4,950,000 sale of an extremely rare 1960 Ferrari 250GT SWB California Spider was the recorded top price paid for a vehicle during the 2009 Scottsdale week."

Though its total sales drop was not as severe as Barrett-Jackson and RM, Russo and Steele did not fare so well. Nigel wrote that "just 262 of the 597 vehicles consigned sold, for a total of $17,527,120. Last year, 298 out of 490 vehicles consigned sold for $19,144,455. The highest price paid was for a 1955 Mercedes 300SL Gullwing Coupe, at $660,000." Worse still, the number of sales at the Silver's Auction totalled a mere $3.3 million: "half last year's figure of $6,694,647." Nigel was in Scottsdale and I wasn't so his opinions are much more relevant than mine but I did predict a few weeks ago that there would be more sellers than buyers. Seems I was right about that one.

Nigel's column containing these quotes came from his newspaper column for the Vancouver Province. He is the manager of specialty vehicles (vintage and collector cars) for the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia.